Starting this month we're trying something new. The monthly roundup will, from now on, include some news, links and resources of interest. Think of this like our monthly informal newsletter. We hope you find it useful. Share it and let us know.
We're also working on a few other things in the background and we hope to have some good stuff to share pretty soon. As you may know, ALIA Graphic is a newly formed group and we have plenty of spots available for new members to help contribute and make our mark in the world. If you have some spare time available or have some skills and ideas you want to share, please contact us at via email or DM us on Twitter. We'd love to have you on board.
Black Lives Matter
In the aftermath of George Floyd's murder by the police and wave of protests around the world, some great lists have come out promoting comics and graphic novels by black creators and anti racist works.- The ALA's Black Caucus and the Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable have collaborated and published a Black Lives Matter Comics Reading List.
- The Comic Book Legal Defence Fund, has published an Anti Racism Graphic Novels and Reading and Resources List.
- Publisher Weekly's An Anti Racist Graphic Novel List is particularly good and worth checking out.
- Marvel has made lots of comics by black creators available to read for free. They include several Black Panther related comics, Power Man and Iron Fist, Falcon and Ironheart among others. You don't even need to create an account. You can find them here.
Collections
- Australian creator Christian Carnouche has made his first graphic novel, The Resurrected, freely available to read. Created by Christian Carnouche with art by Crizam Zamora, Salvatore Aiala, Cardinal Rae, The Resurrected is a sci-fi thriller that deals with colonialism. You can download the whole trade paperback in PDF format here.
- Publishers Weekly has compiled a great list of comics and graphic novels for the second half of the year: Fall 2020 Announcements: Comics and Graphic Novels.
- Finally, ICV2 has published the lists for the 20 best selling graphic novels in the US for May for different categories: top 20 kids graphic novels, top 20 adult graphic novels and top 20 author, manga and superhero graphic novels.
Education and resources
- Reading Australia, has published a free teacher's guide to use Tom Taylor's The Deep: Here Be Dragons graphic novel with students. Tom Taylor is one of the best selling comic book writers in the world, he's from Melbourne and The Deep is a graphic novel series he created with James Brouwer that has also been adapted into a really successful animated series. Reading Australia also includes a teacher's guide for Shaun Tan's The Arrival, and a teacher's guide for Brenton McKenna's Ubby's Underdogs' first two volumes.
- The Comic Book Legal Defence Fund has an extensive list of teacher's guides to use graphic novels in the classroom with lots of very popular titles.
- Making Mini Comics for Activism and Self Care by Comic Book Legal Defence Fund.
News 
- Australian Pat Grant has completed his second graphic novel, titled The Grot and it's available to read as a webcomic, but it will be published by Top Shelf comics in July. Here's a little preview published on Graphic Policy ABC Arts also published an extensive piece on Pat Grant and The Grot.
- The 2020 Eisner Awards Nominees have been announced and we have a some Australian work represented there. Drawing Power is nominated for Best Anthology and features the work of three Australian creators. Frankie magazine had a great feature about it you can find here. For the Best Academic/Scholarly Work, Women's Manga in Asia and Beyond was nominated, featuring Australian manga creator Queenie Chan. Finally, for the Best Webcomic category Matt Huynh's Cabramatta is nominated and it's an excellent read we highly recommend. The Eisner Awards voting was closed for a few days after an anomaly but voting has opened again as reported by The Beat.
- Publishers Weekly published a great piece looking at libraries and comics in the US and what our friends at the Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable have done in the last year.
Video Interviews and Clubs
- Kings Comics from Sydney seems to have started a Quarantine Book Club on YouTube. They've released two episodes. In the first one, thy discuss Black Widow, and for the second they discuss Once & Future.
- Kapow Comics has a pretty active YouTube channel and they have a series of profiles focusing on Australian creators that's really worth exploring. You can find the Creator Interviews playlist here. Recent videos feature: Pat Grant, Dean Rankine, Karen Beilharz, Jon Sommariva and Tom Taylor, among others.
New releases
Junior and YA
Special highlights this month: Fence Rivals by Melbourne writer C.S. Pacat and Wonder Woman Tempest Tossed by Laurie Halse Anderson.
- Avatar The Last Airbender: Imbalance (Library edition) - Brian Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, Faith Erin Hicks, Peter Wartman (Dark Horse Books)
- Con Quest! - Sam Maggs (Imprint)
- Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins Volume II - Matt Mercer, Jody Houser, Olivia Samson, Msassyk (Dark Horse)
- Fence: Rivals - C. S. Pacat, Johanna the Mad (Boom)
- Minecraft: Wither Without You - Kristen Gudsnuk (Dark Horse)
- Mister Invincible - Pascal Jousselin (Magnetic Press)
- Moonstruck Volume 3 - Grace Ellis, Shae Beagle (Image Comics)
- The Weirn Books Volume 1: Be Wary of the Silent Woods - Svetlana Chmakova (Yen Press)
- We’ll Soon Be Home Again - Jessica Ban Bonde, Peter Bergting (Dark Horse)
- Wild Thing Or: My Life As a Wolf - Clayton Junior (Ablaze Comics)
- Wonder Woman: Tempest Tossed - Laurie Halse Anderson, Leila Del Duca (DC Comics)
General Adult
Special highlights this month: Banned Book Club, The Loneliness of a Long Distance Cartoonist, Pulp and Streets of Paris, Streets of Murder.
- Against Hope - Victor Santos (Dark Horse)
- Banned Book Club - Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada, Hyung-Ju Ko (Iron Circus Comics)
- Cankor - Matthew Allison (AdHouse Books)
- Everything Is An Emergency: An OCD Story In Words Pictures - Jason Adam Katzenstein (Harper)
- Gideon Falls Volume 4 - Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, Dave Stewart (Image Comics)
- Happily Ever After & Everything In Between - Debbie Tung (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
- Happiness Will Follow - Mike Hawthorne (Archaia Studio Press)
- Invisible Kingdom Volume 2 - G. Willow Wilson, Christian Ward (Berger Books)
- The Loneliness of the Long Distance Cartoonist - Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly)
- The Old Geezers - Wilfrid Lupano, Paul Cauuet (Ablaze Comics)
- Perramus: The City & Oblivion - Juan Sasturain, Alberto Breccia (Fantagraphics)
- Pulp - Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips (Image Comics)
- Something is Killing the Children - James Tynion IV, Werther Dell'Edera (Boom! Studios)
- Streets of Paris, Streets of Murder Volume 1: The Complete Noir Stories of Manchette & Tardi - Jacques Tardi, Jean-Patrick Manchette (Fantagraphics)
- Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes - Lun Zhang (IDW)
- X-Men Volume 1 - Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu, R. B. Silva, Matteo Bufagni (Marvel Comics)
