Smash Pages Q&A: Paul Constant

The journalist and critic discusses his newest project with AHOY Comics, ‘Planet of the Nerds.’

Paul Constant has a long career as a journalist and literary critic working for The Stranger and many other publications. He’s currently a writer at Civic Ventures, a public policy incubator in Seattle, where he writes about politics and economics, and is the co-founder of The Seattle Review of Books.

His new comic is Planet of the Nerds, with artwork by Alan Robinson and Randy Elliott. The first issue of the series is out this week from AHOY Comics. The comic opens in the 1980s when a science experiment goes wrong, and three jocks wake up in 2019 to find that comic conventions are massive, superhero movies rule the box office and everyone uses computers. They are horrified by this world. We spoke recently about how he ended up writing the comic, the way he uses backup stories in the series, and the different roles of editors in comics as opposed to journalism.

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Nominees announced for the 2019 Doug Wright Awards

Michael DeForge, Hartley Lin, John Martz and Fiona Smyth nominated for best book in the annual Canadian-focused awards program.

Nominees for the 15th annual Doug Wright Awards, which honor “the best work and most promising talent in Canadian comics,” were announced this morning. The list includes four nominees published by Koyama Press and two from Peow Studio.

You can find the complete list of nominees below.

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