I just finished up a short comic yesterday about book bans/challenges, intimidation of teachers & librarians, and “memory laws”, filtered through comics and our own early experiences making March, seeing early stirrings of this back in 2014.
It’ll be published next Tuesday, February 1st at The Nib.
In the meantime, I’ve done a few other comics for The Nib here. Thanks— keep the faith!
I was recently interviewed by Geoff Grogan about my work on Save It For Later, March, Run, Come Again, and more for his Blockhead Podcast— listen here!
It was both an honor and a welcome challenge to review Ain’t Burned All The Bright, written by Jason Reynolds and illustrated by Jason Griffin, for the Washington Post! Check out the review here, and then definitely get a copy of their ambitious and moving book.
(I think this may also be my first professional writing with zero drawing involved!)
Here are a few more best-of-2021 lists featuring Save It For Later and Run:
CBR’s Top 100 Comics of 2021— Save It For Later at #52, with Run likely ranking in the next posted installment.
Multiversity’s Best Original Graphic Novels of 2021— Save It For Later at #8, Run at #9.
Geekcast Radio’s Top 100 Comics of 2021— Run at #2, Save It For Later at #40.
Thanks again for the support, and thanks for reading!
I’m honored to find that both Run and Save It For Later got props in two new “Best Graphic Novels of 2021” Lists: Publishers Weekly Critics’ Poll (Run in 2nd place, SIFL as honorable mention) and Forbes (Run in final list, SIFL got “Most Hustle” ribbon and a Wendy’s gift certificate). Thanks for the faith and support!
I’m gonna keep my head down for most of next year, finishing work on two new books to be released in 2023 and 2024.
It’s an honor to find that Run has been selected by the New York Times as one of the 5 Best Young Adult Books of 2021, and by the Washington Post as one of the Best Graphic Novels of 2021! Congressman Lewis would be heartened and proud to find his work and personal account of history to resonate so deeply.
The love keeps coming in— amazed to see Save It For Later on NPR’s best-of-2021 “Books We Love” list:
“As ever, Powell’s drawings are just stunning: vigorous, heartfelt and supremely accomplished. Save It for Later is an invaluable record of these times, and a great read besides.”
It’s an honor to find that both Save It For Later and Run are nominees for the American Library Association’s 2021 list of “Best Graphic Novels for Adults”, with a stellar lineup of books throughout. Finalists will be announced in January— thank you, everyone who’s been moved by my books, for your support and for spreading the word. It means a lot.
So much to reflect on today: five years ago, March: Book Three received the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature (and became the first comic to shatter the boundaries and win). Just a week after America’s worst people chose the promise of fascism, the evening felt like a haven for people bound together by ideas and conscience.
John Lewis brought down the house with his recollection of being denied a library card as a child in segregated Alabama, and by his dedication of the award to his late wife Lillian, a librarian.
Our work was only possible thanks to the diligence and incredible efforts of our editor extraordinaire (and publicist!) Leigh Walton, the 4th member of our creative team.
Here’s to humanity, and to our ongoing work to push for a society rejecting power, rejecting hierarchy, destroying the grip of white supremacy. Love to everybody. Rest in Peace, Congressman.
I just received a copy of the brand-new German edition of Save It For Later, published by Carlsen— both an extreme honor and nervewracking to discuss the threats of fascism and other anti-democracy forces in the context of parenting and our private lives, as translated into German.
It looks like I’ll be coming to Vienna in 2022 to discuss Save It For Later as well— more info soon!
This Saturday, October 30th at 8pm Central time, I’ll be in discussion with Little Rock filmmaker Mike Poe about my newest book Save It For Later, upcoming work and moldy oldies as a part of the Six Bridges Book Festival— please register, tune in, and spread the word. Thanks!
I’ve been looking back through my past work lately, as I’m starting inks on my new book Fall Through.
Over on Twitter, I’ll be adding to a thread of my personal favorite pages from 1998 to present— see you there!
I’m so happy to be participating in CXC’s virtual expo this weekend— I’ll be doing a live Discord event this Sunday, October 3rd from 12-12:30pm, giving a sneak peek at both of my in-progress books and the creative processes involved, and will be answering questions as well (assuming my tech-dumb self can figure that part out). See you there!
My friend Andrea Zollo— longtime musician from Deep Creep, Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Hookers, Death Wish Kids, & Area 51, as well as hair stylist supreme and all-around wonderful human being— has a long road of recovery ahead after a major health situation, and she will be out of work for months. Please give to her medical fundraiser if you’re able, and spread the word far and wide— thanks!
Alternately, I’m gonna give all the sales from September mailorders in my site’s shop to her fundraiser as well, so now’s the time to get those copies for holiday gifts! Thanks again.
Yesterday I received the sad news that author, historian, and collaborator James Loewen had passed away after a long struggle with cancer. I’d gotten to know and work together with him over the past year and a half, and he was a positive, no-nonsense kind of person— and one who had a jarring head-on embrace of his mortality and life’s arc.
I’m still working on a graphic adaptation of his influential book Lies My Teacher Taught Me, trying my best to carry the torch and keep these extremely relevant ideas and conversations going at all levels across society. What he wrote about is at the very heart of our current, ongoing social and political crisis. Lies and Sundown Towns were very influential on me and most of my work since 2008.
I hope to do him justice— Rest In Peace, Jim.
Quietly plugging away here on a few book projects— my next solo graphic novel is officially penciled and written! It won’t be announced by the publisher for a while, but it’s 184 pages of interdimensional 1990’s underground punk band soap opera, pandemic-isolation therapy full of sweaty people touching and breathing on those they love, a lamentation on possibilities lost, and a celebration of letting go to embrace new possibilities. Expect it in a couple of years!
Join writer Andrew Aydin, artist L. Fury and myself— as well as Anthony Dixon, nephew of the late, beloved John Lewis— today in a virtual book discussion of Run, via the fine folks at Bookshop Santa Cruz! 4pm Pacific, 7pm Eastern. Please register here— thanks!
What a profound honor— March: Books 1 & 2 were included in Time’s list of Best 100 suitable-for-young-adults books OF ALL TIME! (And lots of friends and peers were included in this list as well— in particular, Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell’s Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is one of the best graphic novels of the past decade!)
Go comics, go readers!
Today is the day! Run is in bookstores and libraries everywhere— please go support your local bookshop.
Everyone involved worked our asses off to see this book to the finish line. Thinking of John Lewis today, in hopes that we did justice to his last great effort.
This evening we’ll be doing a virtual book discussion via the folks at Politics & Prose at 7pm Eastern— please register here.
Here’s a link to all our upcoming virtual talks!
Run will be released this Tuesday, August 3rd! Here are our upcoming virtual book discussions featuring writer Andrew Aydin, artist Lauren Fury, and myself:
8/3: Politics & Prose, 7pm Eastern
8/5: Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, 7pm Eastern
8/9: Browseabout Books, 7pm Eastern
8/10: Harvard Bookstore, 7pm Eastern
8/16: Bookshop Santa Cruz, 4pm Pacific
8/18: Blue Willow Bookshop, 7pm Central
8/19: Buffalo Street Books, 7pm Eastern (registration link TBD)
