Sarah Graley—of being Sarah Graley fame—is writing and drawing Kim Reaper, a queer romance comic about a girl named Kim, who is a part-time grim reaper, and Becka, who thinks Kim is really cute. Oni Press, of publishing Kim Reaper fame, gave this writer the chance to ask Graley the important questions. Annie Blitzen: First off, I need…
Wild Rose Emerges: An Interview with Nicola R. White
Wild Rose Nicola R. White (writer), Kara Braeun (illustrator), Jono Doiron (colors, cover art) Independent Kickstarter Comic Once upon a time in Canada, an independent comic series was born when a romance novel author read a dark legend about a murdered Irish woman in a children’s book of horror stories. Wild Rose elaborates on the…
Women Making Comics: Barbara Nosenzo on Coloring Halo Jones (EXCLUSIVE)
2000AD is a very British comics institution. One that, due to their very own post apocalyptic hot dad Judge Dredd, became an international cultural phenomenon. Their alumni include pretty much every male British cartoonist and comics creator, including Alan Moore and Ian Gibson– whose groundbreaking Halo Jones was published at the company in 1984. Though…
IFOA: Around the World with Hideo Furukawa
I recently had the honor of reviewing Slow Boat by Hideo Furukawa. It is a fun, remastering of a short story written by Haruki Murakami titled A Slow Boat to China. In Furukawa’s book, as well as the original short story, the main protagonist meets three people who help him understand his place in life….
Ghouls Rule in Wayward Sisters: Interview with Editor Allison O’Toole
When you think of monsters, who do you see? Bela Lugosi’s Dracula? Godzilla? The cute gill man from The Shape of Water? Monster stories are typically dominated by men, but a new comic anthology intends to change that. Wayward Sisters, currently running on Kickstarter, is a new collection of stories about female monsters, all made…
Reel Resistance: TIFF’s Newest Programme Explores Filipino Cinema
After 400 years of colonization, dictatorship, and rebellion, resistance has been written into every page of Filipino history. Spanish/American/Japanese occupations have had an impact in ways still being unpacked today, ways that have manifested in the Filipino people’s own governance of the country. This fall, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Bell Lightbox is bringing…
Earth-Based Science Fiction: The Winnowing by Vikki VanSickle
It’s 1989. The Berlin Wall comes down, Game Boy makes it debut, and Marivic Stone has the first set of nightmares that signal she’s going ACEs and needs to go in for the Winnowing. Okay, maybe that last one didn’t happen in our version of 1989. But The Winnowing by Vikki VanSickle takes place in an alternate…
HEATHEN #5: Natasha Alterici’s Feminist Lesbian Viking Myth
From the beginning of the series, Vault Comics’ HEATHEN has been a feminist lesbian Viking myth that speaks to the heart. As Ginnis Tonik puts it, it is a classical story of a timeless epic hero that changes the world for the better. This is a warrior’s tale about Aydis and her quest to break the…
From Sexy to Sexual: Witchblade’s Return & Top Cow’s Maturing Eroticism
Back when I spoke to Matt Hawkins in March, we spent a little time talking about the sexual legacy of the first ten years or so of Top Cow. We also spoke a little about Witchblade–a title about a woman who carries a living weapon disguised as a bracelet–which is being resurrected in December, with…
Blood Stain: An Interview With Linda Sejic
Blood Stain volume 3 is the latest chapter in Linda Lukšić Šejić’s long-running slice-of-life comic. It was first published on her Deviantart site in the form of individual strips, which she later collected into trade paperbacks published by Top Cow, for whom she has done a lot of work-for-hire. The comic follows the adventures of Elliot “Elly”…
VR’s Potential For Meaningful Accessibility: An Interview with Polyarc Games
VR is quickly becoming the next big thing in gaming with more than 1.6 million consoles sold in 2016 and will bring in $7 billion in industry revenue by the end of 2017. This is an industry shift that allows startups to emerge with revolutionary ideas in a new kind of interactive world yet to…
Quick and Talky With Rick and Morty: Tini Howard on PokeJokes
It’s almost impossible to exist on planet Earth and not have at least heard about Rick and Morty. The cartoon follows the obscure adventures of Morty, your average 14 year old dude, and his alcoholic, genius scientist grandfather Rick as they go on weird, wonderful, and sometimes morally challenging adventures through the universe–and many of…
