comics

I just saw Silver Linings Playbook and loved Jennifer Lawrence's character Tiffany. Loved it so much I made a comic about it.

Whether you're shopping for a long-time comics reader or someone who's new to the world of graphic novels (maybe you're just looking for a good page turner for yourself, we won't tell), click through for some quality 2012 releases of the graphic persuasion.

You deserve comics that highlight women who have made critical contributions to society.

We all deserve history that comes alive. The best stories, to me, are the ones with weird and sometimes awkward details that we can relate to. Illustration in general also makes complex issues and stories easier to digest. It's hard to be interested in stories when you don't see yourself in them, and hard to imagine yourself in a creative field when you don't see room for yourself in it.

I believe strongly that this is work worth making. (Why, you ask? Read more, complete with comics! After the jump...)

Do you like comics? Do you like feminism? Do you think it's bunk that publishers have no compunction about saying things like, "We can't sell a book with the word 'feminist' in the title"? Then you might want to know about a new comics anthology called The Big Feminist BUT. Editors Shannon O'Leary and Joan Reilly explain:

Women now regularly run for the highest offices in the land, BUT turn the channel and we’re bombarded with Teen Moms and Real Housewives. Women can have any career they want, BUT they still have to contend with the tick tick tock of their biological clocks when it comes to their love lives. Of course, these days women can also choose not to have children at all, BUT will they really ever be truly fulfilled if they don’t? What do we really mean when we start a sentence with the disclaimers, “I’m not a feminist BUT…” or “I am 100% a feminist BUT…

What do our great big “BUTS…” say about where things stand between the sexes in the 21st Century?"

You know when you come across a super rad zine artist and you're really into their work, then you casually waltz into a comic shop, and you find one or two of their zines from years and years ago, but you get pretty bummed that the zine and comic shops in your area don't have a sufficient selection, so you scour the Internet but can only find so many other things, then you realize you've wasted hours looking for who has the lowest shipping costs? You then proceed to read every interview with them, you learn all you can about their life, then you step back for a minute, and it hits you—maybe you're a little obsessed with the artist and you feel weird about it, but you end up e-mailing them professing your undying love for them and their work anyway? Please tell me this isn't something only I go through.

Regardless, starting right here, right now, I will be taking you on a journey, showing you why I love three incredible queer zine artists, and why you should love them too.

First up:  Edie Fake!

This month, the Ladydrawers team, led by Anne Elizabeth Moore, is presenting some new data on who's getting published in the comics industry and who isn't. Even though, according to their recent research, the comics creator pool is just 54% male and the submission rates by male and female creators are roughly equal, publishers are more likely to accept work by men—and to commission work from male creators. And non-binary creators? Yeah, they're published even less often.

Bitch contributor and super-smart cartoonist Jen Sorensen has an "Open Letter to the Supreme Court About Health Insurance" up at Kaiser Health News that is totally worth a read/look. I know what you're thinking (that a mere conversation about insurance can be depressing, let alone an illustrated comic), but Jen's piece not only breaks down the Affordable Care Act in a way that's easy to understand, it's also really charming and funny! (And especially relevant for freelancers, whose health care costs are ridiculously high.)

Need some new reading material? These three new indie comics by Kate Skelly, Angie Wang, and Julia Gfrörer will take you from an outer galaxy to a zombiefied forest, and will keep you occupied (and perhaps up all night with every light turned on). Click through for more!

  

Today, the conversation with Arigon Starr, the cartoonist behind Super Indian, continues! We discuss the history and future of Super Indian, her experience of being a woman of color in an industry dominated by white men, and a special sneak preview of her graphic novel investigating the origins of Super Indian. Check it out after the jump!

Bitch's series of interviews with webcomic creators, Beyond the Panel, returns with Arigon Starr, the multitalented force behind the comic-book-style webcomic Super Indian. After the jump, she tells Bitch about her history in comics, Native superheroes, geek culture, and what she'd like people to take away from her work.