The endpapers of Thi Buy’s The Best We Could Do are coloured in a wash of a sky blue hue, and depict a beach scene: shells of several sizes are scattered about, along with a pair of sandals. The effect of the opening endpapers, to which the reader turns from the cover image of a…
2017 Ignatz Awards Celebrate Diversity and Community
This year’s Ignatz Awards felt more charged than recent years, and the current political climate felt immediate and present even in the ballroom of the Bethesda Marriott where the ceremony is traditionally held. This wider perspective led to an evening of intensely personal speeches about the power of community, comics, and becoming an active participant…
Surreal Classrooms: The Academic Hour
The Academic Hour Keren Katz Secret Acres The Academic Hour, according to the book jacket, is a series of vignettes about the romance between Pothel, an architecture professor now banned from teaching architecture, and his student Liana. I am not convinced of this. The first hint that this comic is not actually a romance appears…
Kickstarting the End of Summer
It’s the end of the month, which means it’s a perfect time to take a look at some assorted comics crowdfunding campaigns! Summer 2017 – 2dcloud Juliacks, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Leif Goldberg, Xia Gordon (contributors) 2dcloud continues their run of Kickstarters to fund another season of really interesting projects — 3 books and two zines. Perfect…
Choosing Comics for Choice: An Interview with Editor Hazel Newlevant
Comics for Choice is a black and white comics anthology that features 60 contributing artists and writers, 41 stories, and is raising money for the National Network of Abortion Funds. You might recognize the publisher and co-editor Hazel Newlevant from her book, If This Be Sin, or her previous crowdfunded anthology, Chainmail Bikini: The Anthology of Women…
Small Press Bites: A Girl & Her Cat, A Catgirl, and More
Something Familiar Pam Wishbow Pam Wishbow’s work is delightfully creepy, always adorned with eyes and runes and enough esoteric symbols to catch my eye from across a room. Something Familiar, true to form, is a dark and creepy comic drawn in stark black and white, its shadows often dominating each scene in a way that…
Power and Magic Anthology Review: The Magic of Queerness
Power & Magic: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology Joamette Gil (Editor) P&M Press January, 2017 Inside all queer people is magic. When honed correctly we can cast our magic out and spread a rainbow that can save others. One such spell has been cast and I have had the pleasure to have fallen under it….
Small Press Bites: IUDs, Dads, and Gangs
Here are three bite-sized reviews of some shorter books from the infinite to-read pile in my house. Keep an eye out for more round-up reviews as our small press coverage expands! Lovers in the Garden Anya Davidson Retrofit/Big Planet Comics Anya Davidson’s retro style is the star of in Lovers in the Garden, with bright…
Asian and American: A Review of Permanent Alien
Permanent Alien: An Asian American Comics Anthology Hanna Cha Mariel Rodriguez Jean Wei Michelle Zhuang Digital copies out now; hard copies out February 2017 What does it mean to be Asian American? What are the ways in which we connect to our culture and to our ancestors? How, when, and why do we disconnect? And…
Myth, Motherhood and Buttered Toast: An Interview with Sophia Wiedeman
Nothing makes me happier than a story that gets in my head, manipulates my emotions, and controls how I read. I am a fast reader, and poor pacing or lazy writing — whether in comic or prose form — cause me to speed through a book, letting my impatience get the better of me. This…
Exploring Our Fathersons in Frontier #13
Frontier #13: Fatherson Richie Pope Youth In Decline September 25, 2016 I got to see Richie Pope on The Black Comics/Race and Comics panel at the 2016 Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF). It was the first time I heard of Pope and got to see his art projected on the hotel conference room screen. I left…
Top Indies, Small Press, and Webcomics of 2016
I asked our small press comics fans to tell me not what the best comics of 2016 were, but which ones were their favourites. Here’s what they said: Mattress Stiff With Blood Tom McHenry Self-published There’s something that’s incredibly natural about the cartooning Tom McHenry does in this work—everything flows so seamlessly from one topic to…