June has been a tough and busy month. After the death of Ian McGinty at the age of 38, #ComicsBrokeMe started trending on Twitter, a sobering and heartbreaking hashtag where comic creators spoke and opened up about how hard it is to make comics and how bad the work and pay conditions by many publishers are.
In Australia, the Australian Classification Board announced that the comic book series The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson has been classified. Three of the six volumes in the collected series are classified as R Category 1, strictly for 18+ readers and the three others are Unrestricted M, not recommended for readers under 15. For more details see our previous blog post here.
The Review Board still hasn't announced their final classification decision on Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. We'll continue monitoring the news and we'll let you know when the decision's announced.
June was also Pride Month. We have some queer graphic novel lists below but if you want to give some Australian pride titles a go, we recommend these:
The Greatest Thing by Sarah W. Searle
The Lie and How We Told It by Tommi Parrish
Mamo by Sas Milledge
Stars in Their Eyes by Jessica Walton, Aśka
Stone Fruit by Lee Lai
Witchy by Ariel Slamet Ries
We're also thrilled that Mamo by Sas Milledge received a Lammy Award! Congratulations!
This month, we have a few, new graphic novels by Australian creators! Aaron Blabey’s The Bad Guys series is approaching the end (we understand it will end with book 20) with Book 17: Let the Games Begin! Jason Pamment’s Ember and the Lost Island is out now through Allen & Unwin in Australia (Harper Alley in the USA). Matt Stanton’s third book in The Odds series is out now too, with The Power of Being Odd. Clearly, junior graphic novels in Australia are in good health. We’re sure kids will devour these three books.
But that’s not all, Australian writer Mat Groom is one of the creators of Inferno Girl Red. Book 1 of the series is out now through Image Comics. And Nicola Scott is one of the creators involved in Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons.
Finally, There are a few things coming up that we’re really excited about. The Perth Comic Arts Festival will take place at the end of July. We hear the full program will be announced very soon. You can check their website for updates.
We also have a couple of really cool creator chats and a webinar coming up. We’ll announce all the details soon. Watch this space.
News
Congratulations to Melbourne based Sas Milledge on winning a Lammy Award for Best LGBTQ+ Comic for Mamo! A well deserved award! You can see all the winners here.
Heidi MacDonald has published an excellent and comprehensive article on Publishers Weekly about book challenges and bans in the USA and where things are at. It features people from the ALA, the GNCRT and the Addressing Challenges to Comics and Graphic Novels Committee. You can read the whole article here.
The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics has published two in depth and incredibly interesting interviews with Linda Barry and Nick Sousanis. They discuss comics as a medium, the value of comics, comics in the classroom and so much more. Two extraordinary interviews that we highly recommend. “I’m reminding us of where we came from”: an interview with Nick Sousanis is here and “Something happened”: an interview with Lynda Barry is here.
Dav Pilkey’s Cat Kid Comic Club returns (it will be out at the end of November) and they’ve even made a Cat Kid musical! Popverse reports the news here.
Publishers Weekly spoke with comics writer Anthony Del Col and artist Fahmida Azim, winners of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary for 'I Escaped a Chinese Internment Camp,' about creating the heart-wrenching graphic account of a practising Uyghur Muslim's detention by, and escape from, China. You can find the whole interview here.
Collections
Classification alert! The Australian Classification Board has announced a classification decision for The Boys by Garth Enniss and Darick Robertson. You can find all the info on our previous post right here.
It’s Pride Month, so here are two great lists of pride titles if you want to boost your library collection. 20 Essential Queer Comics From the Past 5 Years by Publishers Weekly, LGBTQ+ comics you should have on your book shelf by Popverse and 30 Queer Graphic Novels for Pride Month by The Beat.
No Flying, No Tights staff published a great roundup of comics either about travel, or set in or written by people in countries other than the US. You can find the whole list here.
There are some news in the e-comics market for libraries. Borrow Box has added comics from Humanoids to their catalogue, both in French and English. Comics Plus has signed an agreement with Astra Publishing to add the full Toon Books catalogue to their service. The announcement is here. Hoopla has added manga to their digital offering for libraries. The Beat has all the info here.
Podcasts/Webinars/Media
The latest episode of CBR's Dynamic Duos Podcast features author Tom Taylor and artist Nicola Scott, the Australian superstars and creative team behind DC's new Titans series. Taylor and Scott discussed how they fell in love with superheroes and their early experiences making comics before peeling back the curtain to share details about the process of creating the upcoming Titans #2! Listen on CBR’s website, or wherever you listen to podcasts: https://www.cbr.com/tom-taylor-nicola-scott-titans-dynamic-duos-podcast/
Australian cartoonist Rebecca Stewart and Erik Thurman discuss their politically-charged graphic novels Infernal Regions and The American Immigrant. Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/creators-on-comics/id1609984869?i=1000617149991
In a special episode of Gotham Outsiders, they shine a spotlight on extremely talented Australian creator, C.S. Pacat! Cat writes Jon Kent Superman and Nightwing stories for DC Comics, as well as Fence for BOOM! Studios, and novels such as Captive Prince and Dark Rise. Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/gotham-outsiders-a-batman-bookclub/id1532615543?i=1000617041895
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival published a series of videos of some of their panels and talks on YouTube, including a conversation with Kate Beaton and more. You can find them all here.
Junior
Adventure Kingdom: A Knight of the Realm: Volume 2 by Steve Foxe, Pedro Rodríguez & Shadia Amin (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
The Bad Guys: Let the Games Begin! by Aaron Blabey (Scholastic Australia) [Australian creator]
Ember and the Island of Lost Creatures by Jason Pamment (Allen & Unwin and Harper Alley) [Australian creator]
Emma on Thin Ice by Coco Simon & Glasshouse Graphics (Simon Spotlight)
Fann Club Batman Squad by Jim Benton (DC Comics)
Four Eyes by Rex Ogle, Dave Baleza (Graphix)
The Love Report by BeKa (Random House US)
Narwhal’s School of Awesomeness by Ben Clanton (Tundra Books)
The Odds: The Power of Being Odd by Matt Stanton (ABC Books) [Australian creator]
Shark Princess: Shark Party by Nidhi Chanani (Viking Books for Young Readers - Penguin)
Suee and the Strange White Light by Ginger Ly & Molly Park (Abrams)
Super Turbo and the Fountain of Doom by Edgar Powers & Glass House Graphics (Little Simon)
YA
83 Days in Mariupol by Don Brown (Clarion Books)
Amelia Aierwood - Basic Witch by Emily Hampshire, Eliot Rahal, Kristen Gudsnuk & Ames Liu (Z2 Comics)
Dobble: Double Trouble by Derek Fridolfs & Gabriele Bagnoli (Ablaze)
Dreams: Visions of the Crow by Wanda John-Kehewin, Nicole Marie Burton (Highwater Press)
The Essence of Being a Muse by Aya Fumino (Yen)
Every Day (the Graphic Novel) by David Levithan, Dion MBD (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
The Faint of Heart by Kerilynn Wilson (HarperCollins)
Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam by Thien Pham (First Second)
Goodbye, Eri by Tatsuki Fujimoto (Viz)
Gospel by Will Morris (Image Comics)
The Horizon by JH (Yen)
Inferno Girl Red: Volume 1 by Erica D’Urso, Mat Groom, Igor Monti, Becca Carey (Image Comics) [Australian creator]
Insomniacs After School vol2 by Makoto Ojiro (Viz)
Minami’s Lover by Shungiku Uchida (Fantagraphics)
Northranger by Rey Terciero, Bre Indigo (Harper Alley)
Star Wars: The High Republic: The Edge of Balance: Precedent by Daniel Jose Older, Tomio Ogata (VIZ Media)
Terror Man by Hangdong Woo and Kojin Ho (Ablaze)
Tiger, Tiger vol 1 by Petra Erika Nordlund (Seven Seas)
Vern: Custodian of the Universe by Tyrell Waiters (Nobrow)
Voyagis by Sumeyye Kesgin, Ellie Wright (Image Comics)
Why I Adopted My Husband: The True Story of a Gay Couple Seeking Legal Recognition in Japan by Yuta Yagi (Tokyopop)
Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop vol 1 by Imo Oono and Flying Dog (Yen)
Yokohama Station SF by Yuba Isukari and Tatsuyuki Tanaka (Yen)
Adult
At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender: Life Lessons from a 50-year-old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery by Shou Arai (Tokyopop)
Batman: One Bad Day: The Riddler by Tom King, Mitch Gerads (DC Comics)
Darkly She Goes by Hubert, Vincent Mallie (NBM)
Homunculus by Hideo Yamamoto (Seven Seas)
Listen Beautiful Marcia by Marcello Quintanilha (Fantagraphics)
Lore Olympus Vol 4 by Rachel Smythe (Penguin)
The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V, Filipe Andrade (Boom! Studios)
Mother Nature by Jamie Lee Curtis, Russell Goldman, Karl Stevens (Titan Comics)
Night Fever by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips (Image Comics)
Shock Shop by Cullen Bunn, Danny Luckert, Leila Leiz, Bill Crabtree, Nate Piekos (Dark Horse)
Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore (Abstract Studio)
Stringer by Patrick Kindlon, Paul Tucker (Image Comics)
Until I Love Myself: The Journey of a Nonbinary Manga Artist vol1 by Poppy Pesuyama (Viz)
Us by Sara Soler (Dark Horse)
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, Nicola Scott (DC Comics) [Australian creator]
