Pregnant Butch A. K. Summers (W) (A) Soft Skull Press Pregnancy. The word alone is painful to look at. Bringing a new life into the world is no joke, but A. K. Summers’ Pregnant Butch brings a fresh perspective and some laughs to the whole ordeal/gift/whatever-you-feel-like-calling-it. Her story touches on experiences shared by almost all…
My Week in Comics Events, Part 1: (Super)Hero with 1000 Faces
Last week Monday, I attended the (Super)Hero with 1000 Faces event at the British Library. The event was associated with the Library’s Comics Unmasked exhibit, which focuses on themes of rebellion and anarchy in British comics. The lineup was a mix of academics and creative professionals: Drs. Sarah Zaidan and Will Brooker in the first…
Kickstarter of the Week: Toe Tag Riot
Matt Miner (Liberator, Occupy Comics) and Sean Von Gorman (Occupy Comics, FUBAR) are teaming up again, this time for a comic about zombie punks eating racists and homophobes. Eating them in the un-fun way, I mean. As of writing, Toe Tag Riot is $690 and thirty-one hours away from meeting its goal on Kickstarter. If funded,…
Reading Diaries: Legends, Flirts, and Fire
What have you been reading? What did you start and then never finish? Reading for work? For pleasure? Megan: I’m a big one for that–my patience is wearing thinner and thinner over the years, and I’m finding novellas and short stories a good fit for my surly-reader< nature. I recently read In The Tall Grass by Steven King and his son…
em est at TCAF
Mangaka em est, AKA Maki Satoh, made her reputation with three collections of yaoi stories and work in Japanese Boy’s Love magazines, but it’s already clear that her career is going to be anything but typical.
Kate Beaton and Lynn Johnston at TCAF 2014
This year, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival kicked off with an hour-long panel discussion with Kate Beaton and Lynn Johnston, moderated by Raina Telgemeier. Almost an embarrassment of riches for the audience, the cartoonists chatted informally about their careers, their ambitions, and the state of the comics and cartooning industries. It was savvy scheduling, particularly with the recent finalization…
Batwoman and DADT, Karen K. Burrows
When Kate Kane admits she’s gay in Detective Comics 859 (November 2009, Greg Rucka / J.H. Williams III), she does a lot more than out herself. Under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), the US law that prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly in the country’s military, she gets herself kicked out of college and…
Sfé Monster talks about his genderqueer webcomics
Sfé R. Monster is a cartoonist focused on the internet. With the help of social media, he has gathered around him an audience very concerned with queer and genderqueer issues. His readers want to see another side of the stories available in mainstream media. His previous works include Seven Stories From The Sea, a heartbreaking…
Smut Peddler Interview with Editor C. Spike Trotman
Smut Peddler 2014 met its $20,000 goal in roughly six hours. By the time I chatted with Spike on the Tuesday night after its opening week, the project had just hit $76,000 and was the most popular Kickstarter project of over 3,000 projects the weekend before. Smut Peddler’s editor, C. Spike Trotman, and I connected…
Kickstarter of the Week: Crossed Genres Magazine
Crossed Genres Magazine is a monthly science fiction and fantasy magazine committed to telling stories of unrepresented, marginalized or ignored characters in science fiction and fantasy, such as characters of color, QUILTBAG, disabled, etc. The magazine relaunched in 2013 after a successful Kickstarter in the summer of 2012. Continuing to keep it running is the…
Erica Moen’s Oh Joy Sex Toy
Erica Moen, widely known for her time on Penny Arcade’s reality webseries, Strip Search, has launched a Patreon page for Oh Joy Sex Toy.
New Readers and Representation: Interview with Saranga of New Readers… Start Here!
LGBTQ representation, reaching new readers, and the greatness of Supergirl(s). I met Saranga during one of those awkwardly sprawling Twitter conversations that inevitably gift you with new people to follow and be followed by. Then I found out she ran a site dedicated to helping people new to comics figure it all out, and thought,…