It’s not always easy to say goodbye.
Women Making Comics: Katie Green on the Power of Autobiographical Comics
This article contains references to eating disorders and sexual abuse. Katie Green is an artist based in the south west of the UK. She creates comics and zines, as well as designing craft projects and knitting patterns. With her latest book, Lighter Than My Shadow, she chronicles her struggle with—and recovery from—eating disorders and sexual…
Women Making Comics: Melina Chavarria and Jean Marie Pilario talk Creating Positive Latinx Representation in Comics
Comics have long been (incorrectly) seen as the realm of homogeneous white male creators. It’s not that marginalized creators haven’t always been making incredible comics, but that they have been exactly that: marginalized. Whether it’s the lack of representation in Big Two comics—Marvel infamously didn’t hire a black woman to write a single comic until…
Al Simmons and Me: 25 Years of Spawn and Life
I had just turned 18, was graduating from high school, and about go out into the big bad world. Like many people my age, I was struggling to figure out what adulthood meant and thinking about how I wanted to spend it. Who did I want to be? Where did I want to go? What…
LA Zine Fest Got Everything Right
It’s rare to find a great comic convention. From the huge halls of the Javits centre where the world’s most attended comic-con NYCC is held to the Disneyland adjacent building site of WonderCon, comic cons are often huge, inaccessible with line-ups that are ninety percent straight white people. Though smaller zine fests seem like they…
Kickstart Your April – 6 Crowdfunded Comics to Check Out
If you’re feeling burned out on big comics publishers, or just want to add some new names to your “to-read” list, then crowdfunded campaigns might have exactly what you never knew you were looking for. But the pool of crowdfunded books is deep and sometimes hard to navigate–hence this new column! This month’s round-up features…
Trading Outpost: Fight! Fight! Fight!
Hello, it’s The Trading Outpost—bonus tapes for The Trades, a podcast about comics and comics adjacent topics! With me, FST, is Aaron LaRoche. We recorded this episode before the US election, so if you would like to travel back to a more innocent time to hear Aaron and I squabble about if you should sign your…
Comics and Gut-Wrenching Connections: An Interview with Kevin Czap
Comics is a business. We rightfully spend much of our time talking about what we love, what infuriates us, and what gives us life, but we sometimes forget about the financial transaction involved in getting the art that moves us. Cartoonists and comics writers need to eat, to pay their rent, and to feed their cats, and…
Frontier #12: Kelly Kwang — It’s the Aesthetic
Frontier #12: Kelly Kwang Kelly Kwang Youth In Decline May, 2016 When I recommend Frontier to people, I say that it’s an anthology of comics and art books by interesting indie cartoonists. This issue, Kelly Kwang’s first published work, is a bit more art book than illustrated story. It’s still a comic, though, so don’t…
Ad Astra Comix Interview: Sky’s the Limit in Political Comics
I first learned about Ad Astra Comix when I saw Nicole Marie Burton speak at “Drawing Resistance: Using Comics for Social Change,” hosted by Women & Children First in Chicago. Nicole is a co-founder with Hugh Goldring of the Canadian comics publisher. The talk was one of several on a tour to discuss the power of the political comic and…
Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover: The Action Lab Conundrum
Middle school cookie dealers, hockey stick wielding magical girl vigilantes, princesses who don’t need saving, a space demon slaying comic retailer, and a time travelling chef who cooks prehistoric creatures. Action Lab is making comics you should be reading… so why aren’t you? The “Action Lab Conundrum,” as I call it, is one I’ve become…
Your Average Russia: Codename Baboushka And Cultural Appropriation
Codename Baboushka is a pulp story about Annika Malikova, the last member of a Russian noble family… who turns out to be a mafia boss, as well as professional hitman and a double agent running errands for a USA government agency. In few words, she’s a blend of everything pulp movies usually appropriate from Russian…