MARCH-- 10 year anniversary poster free for shops, schools & libraries!

It’s my pleasure to reveal this brand-new poster to celebrate 10 years of March— our publisher Top Shelf is distributing it free to comics shops, bookstores, schools & libraries! (Please see Top Shelf’s linked announcement— if this is you, get in touch with your Penguin Random House rep, and the poster’s SKU is MKT1000061855.)

You can also grab the poster from Top Shelf/IDW at their table at shows, and I’ll have some that’ll also be free for anybody who gets a March trilogy boxed set from me at shows.

Thanks to everyone who’s been moved by this work over the past decade, and who’s doing their part to defend accurate history, comics in the classroom & libraries, magnifying marginalized voices, and fortifying our right to information and ideas.

Remembering John Lewis, 3 years later.

Today marks 3 years since we lost the big boss, John Lewis— freedom fighter and friend, collaborator and hero. I’ve been thinking about the hundreds of times we parted ways with a hug, taking for granted that the team would reconvene the next weekend or whenever.

He was such a good sport with all the adventures March took us on— so generous, and such a true believer in what we and Andrew built together with these books, and their potential to incite an intergenerational awakening.

Let’s keep building the fire.

If you’re so inclined, here’s a piece Andrew Aydin and I wrote about the urgency of carrying on John Lewis’s legacy, published by CNN after his passing.

MARCH added to Jersey City school curriculum!

In New Jersey news: what an honor to have March included in Kamala Khan’s hometown curriculum (alongside Nikki Giovanni, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and the Spider-Verse books!) as proof of concept that young people are not afraid to learn accurate history and how to apply its lessons today.

We’ve been saying this for years now: memory laws, “discomfort” laws, and book-ban campaigns seek to exploit the emotions and weaknesses of many white parents who don’t want to answer their kids’ questions, or nurture their curiosity. (Here’s my Washington Post op-ed comic with Andrew Aydin from 2022 about all of this in the context of March and specific cookie-cutter book-ban legislative language.)

But young people want to learn and question— so let’s continue to help them grow. This is the 10-year anniversary of the release of March: Book One— let’s continue to honor the legacies of the civil rights movement, and the late, great freedom fighter John Lewis by keeping this history alive and available.

Fellow pro-democracy, antifascist white people: don’t sit this out.

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.

Saturday at the Mississippi Book Festival!

My collaborator Andrew Aydin and I will be discussing our work on the March trilogy and its follow-up Run (mostly drawn by the amazing L. Fury!) as a part of the Mississippi Book Festival— our panel is at 10:45 am at the Galloway Methodist Church (305 N. Congress St.), with a signing to follow. See you there!

"RUN" is an Eisner Award winner!

We’re all deeply honored for our work on Run to have received this year’s Eisner Award for Best Graphic Memoir— a lot of love and dedication went into helping take John Lewis’ final living work across the finish line. Thanks to everyone who voted for either Run or Save It For Later in the Eisners this year, who came out to a panel, who helped John-Miles Lewis feel at home in the comics community, who attended a Save It For Later, Run, or Two Dead signing, and thanks to everyone at San Diego Comic-Con who did a good job following basic health and masking rules— I was encouraged by the general sense of consideration!

I’m still testing negative as of this morning— if you attended, I urge you to continue testing daily until you hit that sweet 3-day mark.

San Diego Comic Con 2022 schedule!

I’ll be at San Diego Comic Con this weekend, after 3 years away! Here’s my schedule of signings and panels:

SATURDAY, JULY 23:

10am, Room 6DE: Run panel w/ Andrew Aydin, L. Fury, & John-Miles Lewis.

12:00-12:40 pm, Abrams booth 1217: Run signing w/ Andrew Aydin & L. Fury.

1:00-2:00 pm, Room 4: “Express Yourself: Activism Through the Comic Arts” panel w/ Cecil Castellucci, presented in cooperation with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

3:00-4:00 pm, Abrams booth 1217: Save It For Later signing— debuting the expanded paperback edition, not available in stores until August 9th!

SUNDAY, JULY 24:

11:00 am-12:00 pm, Gallery 13 booth 1128: Two Dead signing.

Also of note: Both Save It For Later and Run are Eisner Award nominees for “Best Graphic Memoir”— winners will be announced at the Eisner Awards ceremony on Friday, July 22nd!

Two years after losing John Lewis: recollections and a still-urgent warning.

The world lost John Lewis two years ago today, and sharing that loss, I additionally lost a friend, collaborator, and personal hero. Someone who’s guided my approach to parenthood and fellowship as much as he guided my social and political sensibilities— because they’re all intertwined.

I’m re-upping a piece Andrew Aydin and I wrote for CNN two years ago— every word burns brighter, and the warning is just as stark:

“It is no vindication that today his mandate is increasingly seen as a necessity for the very survival of our democracy. We've all lived the consequences of nationalist myth clouding our shared history, as well as the struggles endured to maintain a precarious democracy. But we're only at the beginning of those potentially catastrophic consequences. Truth matters. History — told by the people who lived it — can and will determine our ability to sustain and fight for a society holding actual equality, actual justice, actual freedom, and actual peace as ideals.

“John Lewis spent his massive lifetime marching toward that promise, and we must fulfill it. We can. But we must do it together, now, even with the possibility that nothing already lost will return.”

Read the full piece here. Then show up. Truly, everything depends on it— or it all goes away.

"Banned Comics & Education" virtual panel July 15th!

I’m proud to participate in this upcoming “Banned Comics & Education” panel this Friday, July 15th at noon Eastern Time alongside the great Jerry Craft, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Tim Smyth! Please register for the panel here.

If you’re interested, I’ve recently made 3 short comics covering interrelated aspects of the mainstreamed fascist right’s very serious push to enact memory laws and limit access (in schools, libraries, AND private businesses) to histories and fiction featuring the perspectives and voices of people of color and LGBTQ+ people:

Part 1— “Shelf It” via The Nib

Part 2— “Divisive Concepts” op-ed w/ Andrew Aydin via Washington Post

Part 3— “Comics and Their Strengths” info-comic via Booklist

2 Eisner Award nominations!

I’m thrilled to announce that both Save It For Later (my solo graphic essay) and Run (written by Andrew Aydin & John Lewis, most art by L. Fury, first chapter/spot illustrations/sound effects by me, lettering by Chris Ross and me)have been nominated for Eisner Awards this year— in the same category, Best Graphic Memoir! Thanks to everyone’s faith in my work— this is a slightly weird situation to be in, so I urge you to vote as you see fit if you’re an eligible Eisner voter.

The new, expanded paperback edition of Save It For Later will be debuting at San Diego Comic Con— more info on signings & panels there soon!

The Eisner winners will be announced on Friday evening, July 22nd at Comic-Con International in sweet sweet San Diego— see you there!

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!

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.

RUN-- virtual book discussion today at 4pm Pacific/ 7pm Eastern!

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!

MARCH: Books 1 & 2 in Time's list of Best 100 YA Books of All Time!

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!

'RUN' is in bookstores today!

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-- virtual book launch discussions for August!

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)

Exclusive RUN excerpt up at the New Yorker!

We’re proud to have an exclusive excerpt from Run published today at The New Yorker, with stellar artwork by L. Fury! Run will be available everywhere August 3rd from Abrams ComicArts.

“Aydin described how a large part of Lewis’s advocacy for the March trilogy involved travelling to schools to meet with students and read the stories with them. ‘As a direct result of that touch from Congressman Lewis, reading and speaking with students about this history, we were able to replicate, in some way, what Dr. King and Jim Lawson had done with Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. These books are about teaching the next generation to understand their power, to embrace nonviolence, and to consider public service. We call it manufacturing lightning.’”

At long last: RUN to be released this August!

After years of effort and loss, at long last Run will be released this August from Abrams ComicArts!

You can get more information and pre-order here.

Here’s a new feature in the Washington Post about it, including an interview with Andrew Aydin.

This was a real labor of love, done with our late, beloved friend, Congressman John Lewis in his final years. It was completed in respect of his vision, covering events from the immediate aftermath of the Voting Rights Act passage in 1965 through his departure from SNCC in 1966.

I took on a different role for Run (specifically, I had two backed-up books to complete after finishing March— Come Again and Two Dead, plus my work for Save It For Later). For this book, I drew the first 10 pages as an aesthetic bridge with the March trilogy, collaborated with the fantastic L. Fury on the covers, did 15-20 spot illustrations, miscellaneous SFX & lettering work throughout, and generally tried to help with the consistency of Rep. Lewis’ vision.

Thank you, everyone, for your patience, understanding, and faith as we all worked and adapted together to usher his vision and message out into a world desperately needing it. This history isn’t history. It’s now.

CXC "Transformative Work" award for MARCH

It’s a profound honor to find that the late John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and I have been awarded CXC’s “Transformative Work” award for our March trilogy— this means a lot to me, especially in the context of my favorite comics community’s indie expo.

Andrew and I dedicate this award to the memory of, and in the spirit of, both John Lewis and Tom Spurgeon. Here’s to all the stories left untold.

On Sunday, October 4th, I’ll be in conversation with Caitlin McGurk about my work (centered around my forthcoming book Save It For Later and the March trilogy) as a part of CXC’s virtual festival— it’ll be streaming from 5-6pm EST, with a live Q&A on CXC’s Discord channel. See you there!

New CNN op-ed reflecting on John Lewis

Andrew Aydin and I collaborated on an opinion piece for CNN, reflecting on our lives and work with the beloved John Lewis, from more personal aspects of our relationship to how our enduring work on March has an urgent mission for nonviolent revolutions to come, and for the future of democracy. Read it here.