Today is Gumroad Day, the day when the indie publishing platform lets creators take home 100% of all sales made on their site. In the interest of that, we here at WWAC thought we’d share a few of our favorite recommendations!
Masha Zhdanova: If you’ve ever wanted to learn to draw but weren’t sure where to start, Der-Shing Helmer’s “art for the lazy” tutorial pack will change your life. Helmer breaks down perspective, proportion, color and drawing from observation into easily digestible chunks, and provides exercises for you to put the principles into practice.
Max Markov: Sewers and seamstresses of the world don’t really have a fun centralized site like Ravelry to show our patterns off, so I’m always on the lookout for adorable patterns like this plush lion by Andréa Jessica Sutinen. They’re customizable, the pattern is PWYW, the instructions are easy-to-follow, and the proceeds go to an excellent cause! With a little patience I think even a beginner could make this one!
Emily Lauer: Even though I’m neither foraging nor hiking, lately I’ve enjoyed Eating Acorns: A Foraging Guide by Melanie Gillman and Woodland Ephemerals: A Quick ID Guide by Liz Anna Kozik. Both have beautiful art and interesting information, and each has its own engaging voice and narrative as well.
Alenka Figa: Olivia Stephens just released a PDF of Darlin’, the supernatural western she’s been teasing via Patreon and a bit on social media for a while now! It’s very dark and fun – I haven’t read something so gorey from Stephens before it felt like a taboo, tasty treat!
Casey Nowak also has a couple awesome comics up that they’ve deliciously teased on twitter, including the prologue to Bodyseed, a gorgeous fantasy comic that is updating via Nowak’s Patreon. The prologue is, mostly, a light-hearted romp about two soldiers who go on a silly, late night adventure with a couple of kids, but the story’s end warns that heavier topics are ahead. The comic is very enticing – the characters are bright and engaging, and there are lots of hints about darker goings-on in the world that left me wanting to know more.
Finally, Benji Nate has two fantastic horror comics up on her gumroad – Hell Phone and Blood Root. Hell Phone follows two cute, fashionable girls who stumble across an old flip phone, and quickly learn that the phone is haunted. They follow the strange demands of the phone, trying to connect it to its original owner and the likely untimely demise she suffered. Blood Root is a creepy story about Lulu, a pregnant woman who agrees to visit her hometown when her husband, who has never been before, begs her to go. Even before they start their trip, things start to get strange, and it looks like they’re only going to get stranger. These horror comics have different tones, but both are alluring and have me thirsty to read more – Blood Root, so far, is slowly building an eerie atmosphere which is very fun, whereas Hell Phone feels lighthearted initially because of the characters, but is swiftly getting darker and more dangerous.
Nola Pfau: I’ve covered it before, but I really enjoyed Rebel, Ken Lowery and crew’s ode to Jyn Erso from Rogue One. In sixteen pages, it really gets to the heart of her character in a satisfying way. As a bonus, all the proceeds from it get donated to charity, so if Gumroad’s also forgoing their take, you’re basically getting a great free comic for donating money. Another great one is Henry Barajas’ La Voz de M.A.Y.O.: Tata Rambo, an autobiographical book about his grandfather’s days as a freedom fighter—I backed the Kickstarter for it, and loved every bit of it. I should mention that editorial duties on that were handled by our own Claire Napier, who also has a wonderful romance comic on offer that she made with Ten Van Winkle and Anastasia Longoria, called My Love Does Not Deserve Me. Claire’s my friend and colleague so my recommendation is very biased, but also this comic is absolutely beautiful.
Rosie Knight: Bianca Xunise is one of our greatest working cartoonists and she currently has an astonishing collection of comics available on Gumroad. I highly recommend each of the collections as they’re all absolutely brilliant. But if you’re just going to buy a couple make sure you pick up Rock Against Racism; an amazing historical comic about the famous British music festival of the Sam name, or Goth Throb Magazine; which mixes personal stories about being a goth with some of Xunise’s iconic music history cartoons.
