Signal Boost: "BUT I LIVE" survivor anthology out next week!

I highly recommend a new book out next week: But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust (New Jewish Press/ University of Toronto Press), a graphic memoir anthology featuring cartoonists’ accounts of first-person Holocaust survivor experiences based on interviews and research.

Cartoonists featured are the amazing Barbara Yelin (Irmina), Gilad Seliktar, and my good friend & remote studio-mate Miriam Libicki (whose comics essay collection Toward A Hot Jew is a must, and keep an eye out for her upcoming book Glasnost Kids).

My blurb: “But I Live is an essential document. Libicki, Yelin, and Seliktar masterfully use the unique narrative strengths of comics to convey survivors’ experiences with sensitivity and humanity, allowing readers to experience and understand these personal accounts with appropriate empathy and urgency.”

You can order But I Live directly from the publisher, at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or please order from your local comics shop or independent bookstore. Thanks!

New op-ed collab w/ Andrew Aydin in the Washington Post

Andrew Aydin and I got the band back together, conjuring the voice, spirit, and concerns of our collaborator and friend John Lewis, in a Washington Post comics op-ed piece to continue highlighting the dangers of ongoing far-right legislative efforts to diminish and outlaw the inclusion of uncomfortable history (largely through the lens of Black and LGBTQ voices) in school curricula and libraries. Please do what you can where you live to speak up for the importance of including truthful first-person historical accounts in our communities!

This follows a related comic I did called “Shelf It” for The Nib in February, shedding light on the historical context for comics as targets of book bans and challenges— please read that piece as well. Thank you!

New poster for Gaslit Nation podcast's spring series!

What an honor to collaborate a bit with the amazing Sarah Kendzior & Andrea Chalupa for their Gaslit Nation podcast— I made a classic-concert-style poster for their upcoming spring series, “Rising Up From The Ashes: Cassandras & Other Experts On Rebuilding Democracy”!

In addition to her journalism work, Andrea Chalupa wrote and produced the incredibly relevant film Mr. Jones, which conveys a journalist’s experience witnessing the Soviet mass starvation campaign in 1930’s Ukraine, and Sarah Kendzior is a gifted, incisive writer and expert on authoritarian states— her books The View From Flyover Country and Hiding In Plain Sight are essential, and her November 2016 essay “We’re heading into dark times. This is how to be your own light in the Age of Trump” was probably the single biggest inspiration leading to my decision to make Save It For Later.

Please take a moment to check out their reading guides and action guides, and support them on Patreon if you have the means. Thanks!

Hamburg, Germany this week for SAVE IT FOR LATER!

I’ll be doing two events in Hamburg, Germany this week for my book Save It For Later (German edition published by Carlsen):

Wednesday, March 23rd @ 5pm: signing (with Moritz Wienert) at Strips & Stories (Wohlwillstraße 28).

Thursday, March 24th @ 7pm: discussing Save It For Later (with Franziska Becker) at Literaturhaus (Schwanenwik 38).

Please wear a mask and use precautions to prevent spread of the virus. To old friends and acquaintances: out of caution, I will not be hanging out apart from these two events. Thank you for understanding!

Happy birthday John Lewis.

Happy birthday and loving memories of the great John Lewis, who would’ve turned 82 today. An unfulfilled plan from early on in our collaboration was to go fishing back at a pond back on his family’s land in Alabama— so that’s what I’ve conjured here over the weekend.

Today I’ll be privately enjoying memories of our time together, and reflecting on his lifetime of commitment as we move through an absolutely terrifying time, in which the very survival of democracy is in question. Love to everybody.

SAVE IT FOR LATER-- new paperback edition out August 9th w/ extra material!

I’m happy to announce that a new paperback edition of Save It For Later will be released by Abrams ComicArts on August 9th, with an extra 16 pages of material!

This edition clocks in at 176 pages and includes an in-depth, sourced conversation between fellow cartoonist Derf Backderf (Kent State, My Friend Dahmer, Trashed) and myself about our work in larger personal, social and historical contexts, as well as a recommended reading list for work that helped inform the book, and some process pages for making Save It For Later.

You can get more info and pre-order (through Bookshop, IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, Amazon, and more) here.

Save It For Later has been recognized on the American Library Association’s 2021 “Best Graphic Novels for Adults” list, on best-of-2021 lists from NPR, Forbes, Publishers Weekly Critics’ Poll, CBR, Multiversity, and Geekcast Radio, and was a Harvey Awards nominee for “Book of the Year.” Thanks for the love and support, everyone!

Destroy fascism and the fascists themselves.

"Shelf It"-- new book-ban comic up at the Nib today.

My new comic is up at The Nib: some early warning signs of this wave of book bans and intimidation while making March back in 2014, with comics as an easy target to remove truthful historical accounts from the classroom.

Please read and share on whatever platforms you may use— and importantly, let the world know about the comics which have transformed and expanded your ways of thinking about the world! Thank you.

SAVE IT FOR LATER & RUN on 3 more best-of-2021 lists!

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!

RUN & SAVE IT FOR LATER in two new Best-of-2021 lists!

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.

SAVE IT FOR LATER & RUN on ALA's "Best Graphic Novels for Adults" List!

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.

National Book Award, 5 years later.

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.