Gender Queer: A Memoir began as Maia Kobabe’s attempt to explain to eir family what being nonbinary and asexual meant. (Maia uses e/em/eir pronouns.) The autobiography touches on gender identity, coming out, and a personal transformative journey. Maia answered a few questions about the book over email; this conversation took place over a year ago, before the recent attempts to ban her work. Gender Queer has the feel of someone sharing their diary. Can you share your approach to the […]

With today’s publication of Legion of Super-Heroes: Before the Darkness Volume 2, I thought it was a good time to check and see how much of the LSH’s storied history is now easily available in reprint form. (If you’d like a more content-based history, I put together a slideshow four years ago about the team and its history and key stories.) The original reprint series was The Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, 13 volumes in all, covering from the team’s debut […]

I was excited to see that the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) will be returning in person this year (June 17-19, 2022). It’s one of my favorite comic shows, and I am eager to make plans. However, that’s been difficult. At four months out, the show has recently put out calls for exhibitor registration and programming ideas, but both have been made as Facebook posts that link to Google docs. The website, which used to be at torontocomics.com, errors out. […]

Last year, a lot of scuttlebutt was going around about Action Lab Entertainment treating creators badly, delaying payments, and abusing contract terms. (A lengthy summary can be found at Women Write About Comics.) Now it has been reported that “Nearly 40 content creators have signed on to a proposed class action in which they allege beleaguered comic book publisher Action Lab Entertainment has fallen far short of satisfying a laundry list of contractual obligations.” These obligations include timely payment, promotion, […]

Dark Horse Comics has worked with the Oregon Office of Emergency Management to create comics preparing readers to cope with various natural disasters. In 2014, it was Without Warning! Earthquake. In 2016, it was Without Warning! Tsunami. Now, it’s Without Warning! Wildfire. The artist is David Hahn, who’s drawn all of them so far. The writer has changed, as this issue is written by Paul Tobin, but it’s still full of excitement and good advice, about both fire prevention and […]

Ryan Claytor (And Then One Day) sent over a copy of his latest project, Coin-Op Carnival. Co-written with Nick Baldridge, it’s an illustrated zine that aims to “celebrate and explore the history of electro-mechanical coin-operated amusement devices.” That means, for those of us (like me) not clued in, pinball machines. And boy, that brought back memories of hanging out in the student lounge in college, playing them. The zine is 64 full-color pages in digest size, making for a substantial […]

I met George Michail last month at the New York Comic Con. He’s got a new comic, Cover of Darkness, coming out in January from Source Point Press, and he agreed to answer a few of my questions. Q: How and why did you start writing comics? A: I’ve always loved comics, ever since I was a little boy. If you would have asked ten-year-old George what he wanted to do when he grew up, he would have told you […]

One of my favorite recent discoveries (recommended to me by the story’s author, Thom Zahler) is My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #83. Because it features the ponies redoing the classic Sherlock Holmes horse story “The Adventure of Silver Blaze”, with art by Kate Sherron. Since our heroes are horses for kids, obviously, there are a lot of changes. Twilight Sparkle and her dragon friend Spike are heading north to the Highlands for the tortoise races. Only the champion turtle, […]