Day: September 13, 2018

Oni Press launches voting information site — with comics, of course

‘Draw Out the Vote’ provides guidance and resources for registering to vote — along with a comic for each state.

Comics have always been a natural medium for political commentary and perspectives, whether its political cartoons or even comic books like Captain America and the X-Men. So this new site from Oni Press seems like a natural outgrowth of that decades-old relationship: Draw Out the Vote seeks to educate voters about their state’s voting laws through webcomics.

Each state is represented on the site, along with Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., and each gets it own comic from a different artist. Contributors include Arigon Starr, Jarrett Williams, Melanie Gillman, Rashad Doucet, Janet Lee and many more. In many cases, the cartoonist is from or currently lives in the state they drew a comic for. And in addition to a comic, the page for each state includes links to register to vote and other resources.

“Voting is the first step in civic engagement and something that should be relatively easy for every citizen, but that’s obviously not always the case,” said Oni Press Publisher James Lucas Jones. “With DrawOuttheVote.com, we want to give a platform for cartoonists to explore their passion for participating in the political process and to give voters a quick and easy starter guide on getting registered and making a plan to get their ballot in the box this November.”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Carol Tyler’s ‘Fab4Mania’

The creator of ‘Soldier’s Heart’ discusses her latest graphic novel from Fantagraphics, which looks back at her own experiences with Beatlemania.

Carol Tyler has for many years been one of our great cartoonists. Her book Soldier’s Heart is quite simply one of the great comics of the 21st Century. After spending a decade tracing her family history and examining postwar culture, mental illness and many other issues, Tyler wanted to make something lighter.

Her new book Fab4Mania began more than 50 years ago, when Tyler became a Beatles fan. She was a fanatic, attended their 1965 concert at Comisky Park in Chicago, and in the months leading up to the anniversary of the concert, she crafted a blog about her life as a 13-year-old and life leading up to the concert. In what should be no surprise, she managed to capture that young voice in a truly striking way. We spoke recently about the book, about how she began to make sculpture and thinking like an engineer.

This weekend Tyler is a special guest at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, and on Friday afternoon she will give a talk about her work at the Library of Congress.

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Goth Jumanji: Gillen + Hans team for new series ‘Die’

Fantasy gets real this December from Image Comics.

Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, who previously worked together on Marvel’s Journey into Mystery, are rolling the dice on a new comic this December called “Die.” Clayton Clowes will letter the project.

“Stephanie and I have been wanting to work together forever – Journey Into Mystery 645 is one of my favourite things I’ve ever done, and this comes straight from there,” Gillen said in his weekly email newsletter. “The Earth needs a fantasy world created by Stephanie Hans, and I had to enable it.”

The story revolves around a group of teens who regularly play tabletop role-playing games. One night they mysteriously disappear, only to reappear two years later. Actually, forget my explanation — you can read this for yourself on this lovely, handy teaser the team put together:

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