April roundup: podcast interview & cartooning workshop video

It’s been a few weeks, so here’s a quick roundup of recent stuff while I keep my head down to finish drawing Lies My Teacher Told Me by the end of the year— both that book AND Fall Through will be released in 2024!

• Here’s a recently-published interview I did last year with the thoughtful Chauncey Devega about my work (specifically Save It For Later, “About Face”, and the March trilogy) and how it intersects with our world.

• March was recently included on this great list of “22 of the Best Graphic Novels of All Time” over at Book Riot!

• Here’s a video recording of a recent class I hosted at Sequential Artists Workshop— the theme is “Crossing Senses: Conveying Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch, and the Spidey-Sense Visually.”

Thanks for checking in!

Monday morning Storm.

In between my current book projects, here’s another for-fun X-Men piece: Storm over Krakoa!

Gatefold artwork for Your Heart Breaks "The Wrack Line" 2xLP

I’m happy to show off my gatefold artwork for The Wrack Line 2xLP by my longtime friend & collaborator Your Heart Breaks! It’ll be out in July from Kill Rock Stars— you can preorder it in your preferred format/medium/platform here. Thanks!

10 years since finishing MARCH: BOOK ONE.

10 years ago this weekend, I had just finished drawing March: Book One and joined my collaborators John Lewis & Andrew Aydin on a pilgrimage to sites of the civil rights struggle in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma, Alabama.

It’s increasingly hard to wrap my head around that weekend’s sincerity and sense of reckoning, in the knowledge that the last decade’s rise of mainstreamed fascism and white supremacy— including concrete work to dismantle the entirety of our society’s gains from the civil rights movement onward, as well as consolidated efforts to suppress the history and context of the civil rights movement itself. That includes coordinated intimidation campaigns and legislative attempts to ban and suppress our own work on March, including schools in John Lewis’s own congressional district. (I’ve written about all of this additionally at CNN, the Washington Post, and the Nib.)

Other specific moments, like then-Montgomery chief of police symbolically removing & giving his badge to John Lewis (specifically identifying the white supremacist police forces preceding him as “doing the work of evil”), and then being fired for it shortly afterward— a decade later, this kind of gesture is unthinkable as police have far beyond passed a point of no return.

I’m remembering that powerful weekend through the lens of still being fairly early in our work on the March trilogy, but I’m mostly struck with sadness and anger at a majority of white American adults’ refusal to question, learn, grow, and fight back against the rapidly-consolidating monster of fascism today. Fascism will come for them, too, and you, too— unless we stop it.

Our institutions absolutely will not save us. Only we will save us, strangers as neighbors. All power to the people— and especially all power to the young people.

Artwork on exhibit at Boston University through March 24th

I have some original artwork from March and Save It For Later currently on display at Boston University’s Stone Gallery (855 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215) through March 24th as a part of the “Comics Is A Medium, Not A Genre” exhibit curated by Joel Christian Gill. If you’re in New England, go check it out— thanks!

New linktree!

I finally joined the 21st century and got a linktree to help keep things readily accessible at linktr.ee/natepowell.

Uncomfortable truths & accurate history.

James Loewen penned the above words back in 1995 for the original edition of Lies My Teacher Told Me— and it’s truer than ever today, in the face of increasingly hostile and violent opposition. This book helped lay the foundation for so much of how we think about and discuss American history at the high school and college levels, and I’m so eager to release my forthcoming comics adaptation in spring 2024 from The New Press.

More info and an official announcement later in the year!

MARCH used for public defender's swearing-in!

Absolutely mind-blowing: Minneapolis county attorney Mary Moriarty was sworn in yesterday with her hand on a copy of March! I know John Lewis would be beside himself, beaming with the spirit of history in effect.

new year at the drawing table.

This year brings the (hopefully broadly acknowledged) understanding that social media is not a permanent outlet when we are its product. Back to making more drawings for the enjoyment of drawing itself, as I continue inking my adaptation of Lies My Teacher Told Me.

Also on the horizon in 2023: my recently-completed graphic novel Fall Through will be released around August! Official announcement in the coming months.

In the meantime, I kicked off the year with this Kate Pryde & Lockheed piece! Kate is my all-time favorite member of the X-Men.

And while I’m at it, here are a few more: Illyana/Magik, and Psylocke/Wolverine and Storm drawings from the very beginning of the pandemic.

Original artwork for sale!

If you’re interested in original artwork, I have a few dozen pages for sale via Atheneum Comic Art— this includes pages from most of my pre-2020 books. Listings are being updated currently, and there should be a good sampling of Sweet Tooth and Black Hammer pages added in the next few days as well! All pages are signed and dated by the year in which they were drawn.

(To prevent undue shock, please be aware that my March pages are considerably more expensive than my other work. This has always been the case whenever they’ve been available for sale, and I’m not in a hurry to part with them. Thanks for understanding.)

Update, new art, new Hive account.

Hi everybody! I’m still inking Lies My Teacher Told Me (The New Press, 2024), and working on cover art for Fall Through while slogging through this awful wave of brutal anti-LGBTQ terrorism and legislation, combined and amplified by the kneecapping of Twitter. Check in with your queer, trans, and non-binary friends and loved ones, and be ready and willing to stick up for those in your community.

I still have a Twitter account for now, but if you follow me, you know that I mostly use the platform for news and current events. I’m still on Instagram (@seemybrotherdance), and have recently joined Hive (@natepowell), which has been pretty wonderful. My Hive account will be pretty comics-centric— see you there!

Here are two drawings I did for fun this week of Jody and Diana, the main characters from Fall Through (which will be released around August 2023):

roundup for SAVE IT FOR LATER

Thanks to everyone who’s stood behind Save It For Later over the past year and half, reflecting what we’ve collectively weathered over the past decade— unfortunately it’ll only be increasingly relevant as both a time capsule and a letter to our days of future present.

Along the way, Save It For Later received 2 starred reviews, 4 award nominations, and was featured on 5 best-of-the-year lists. You can order a signed/sketched copy directly from me here.

Keep fighting, keep loving, look out for each other and stay human. See you in the streets.

Open-carry authoritarians are a danger to our neighborhoods.

The irresponsibility. The insecurity. The sheer stupidity.

Don’t carry firearms in public on a costumed children’s holiday— doing so makes our entire society unsafe, which (I know) is authoritarian wish fulfillment.

Original artwork for sale

I’ve teamed up with Sean at Athenaeum Comic Art to begin selling some of my original artwork for the first time since 2015— currently available are some pages from Two Dead, Come Again, Black Hammer, March, Sweet Tooth, The Year of the Beasts, The Silence of Our Friends, Any Empire, Swallow Me Whole, and a few one-off and unpublished pieces.

Athenaeum will be publicly launching these art sales in the coming weeks on their site (and please check out the artwork from the fantastic roster of fellow cartoonist friends!). Until then, if you’re interested please contact Sean at the Athenaeum site for inquiries. Thank you!

Back to CXC October 8-9!

I’ll be tabling at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus on October 8-9, right at the front at table 1! Here’s a map and list of all the wonderful exhibitors.

Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. Grant Ave— Saturday 11am-5pm, Sunday 1-5pm.

Saturday 4-5pm, I’ll also be on the “Historical Biography In Comics” panel in Room 1A.

All books will be $20 or less, with any 3 graphic novels for $45— my books have been selling out pretty quickly at recent shows, so I recommend picking up books before 4pm on Saturday. See you there!

New interview up at WFIU's "Inner States"

Here’s a brand-new interview I did with Kayte Young of WFIU’s Inner States about my work on Save It For Later, the March trilogy, and how they’ve interwoven with my life as a dad and as someone who shows up to fight for and against numerous conditions. Enjoy!

SMALL PRESS EXPO this weekend!

This weekend marks the triumphant return of the Small Press Expo (Bethesda North Marriott, 5701 Marinelli Rd., Rockville MD), and my first time back at SPX since 2018!

I’ll be slangin books at booth W74, and will also be on the Top Shelf 25th anniversary panel Sunday at 2:30pm in the White Oak Room.

For the show, all my books will be $20 or less, the MARCH boxed sets are $45, and you can pick any 3 graphic novels for $50. I’ll also have 3 relatively new-ish pandemic-era books which are all still pretty fresh: Two Dead, Save It For Later, and Run.

See you there!

Another book finished-- and starting the next.

Last week I finished drawing my next original graphic novel, Fall Through— it’s a sweaty, interdimensional 1990’s underground punk soap opera (starring the band Diamond Mine from their appearance in my 2018 book Come Again) that’ll be out next August or so from Abrams ComicArts. More details and an official announcement in a few months!

Next up on the drawing table: my adaptation of the late, great James Loewen’s influential book Lies My Teacher Told Me, which will be released in 2024 by The New Press.

Domain name update in progress!

Hi everybody!

This is a heads-up that I’m working on redirecting traffic from seemybrotherdance.org to the updated domain www.nate-powell.com. My apologies for any traffic hiccups in the next few days as I iron it all out— thanks!

SAVE IT FOR LATER & RUN are Ringo Awards nominees!

It’s an honor to find that both of last year’s books have been nominated for Ringo Awards: Save It For Later is up for Best Original Graphic Novel (who’s gonna tell em that it’s a nonfiction essay/memoir?) and Run is up for Best Nonfiction Comic!

You can vote here, and winners will be announced in late October. Thanks to all who’ve supported our work these past few years!