Smash Pages Q&A | Faith Erin Hicks

The creator of ‘Friends with Boys,’ ‘The Nameless City’ trilogy and more discusses her latest graphic novel from First Second, ‘Ride On.’

Faith Erin Hicks is the Eisner Award-winning writer and artist of a long string of comics and graphic novels. From books like Friends with Boys and The War at Ellsmere, to her webcomics like The Adventures of Superhero Girl, to her collaborations like Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong and Brain Camp, Hicks is masterful at telling stories that are about small moments, subtle changes in relationships, the ways that life often plays out in ways that are funny and relatable. She has a touch for dialogue, but it’s in depicting those small moments that become important that she’s masterful.

More recently, Hicks spent years writing and drawing the epic fantasy trilogy The Nameless City. In the years since, Hicks wrote a novel (Comics Will Break Your Heart), drew a graphic novel written by Rainbow Rowell (Pumpkinheads) and has written a series of Avatar: The Last Airbender comics. Her new book, which she wrote and drew, is Ride On. Out this week from First Second Books, it’s a book about horses and horse girls, but it’s also about growing up, about how we change, and how it can be a difficult and sometimes painful process. Funny and relatable, Ride On is one of Hicks’ best works, and she was kind enough to answer a few questions.

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Three Count | Faith Erin Hicks, Dark Side of Purity, Erica Henderson

Here are three things to read, to support and to buy today.

1. To Read: Faith Erin Hicks’ comic on, well, everything

Faith Erin Hicks is the creator of the upcoming graphic novel Ride On, as well as One Year at Ellsmere, The Nameless City trilogy, Friends with Boys and many more. In between her graphic novel work she created a short comic to express her frustrations with everything going on in the world right now and the feelings of powerlessness it brings:

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Sunday Comics | New Year’s groove

Check out webcomics from Faith Erin Hicks, Karl Kerschl, John Allison and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

MF DOOM, aka Daniel Dumile, was a very creative British-American rapper and record producer who wore a mask and named himself after Marvel villain Doctor Doom. He passed away on Oct. 31 of last year, though his death wasn’t reported until the end of December.

Gabe Soria and Dean Haspiel collaborated on a short story some years back that Soria shared on Twitter:

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Cartoonists go all in on Hourly Comics Day

Check out comics by Becky Cloonan, Kate Beaton, Celeste Woods, Faith Erin Hicks and more.

It’s early February, which means its time for the annual #HourlyComicsDay, where cartoonists commit to making and posting a comic every hour for a day.

Most hourly comics typically fall into the “autobiography” category, as participants detail their day in comics form, but some will share fictional stories as well. Unlike Inktober, which has prompts and structure (and, apparently, legal issues now) Hourly Comic Day is just a fun challenge that artists choose to take.

Here are a few examples from this year:

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Comics Lowdown: Comic books sales up in 2018, Marvel top publisher; stalker sets cosplayer’s car on fire

Plus: ‘Drama’ drama with the Ottawa Catholic School Board! Faith Erin Hicks! Jed MacKay! And more!

The 2018 direct market numbers from Diamond are in and comic sales are ever so slightly up from 2017. Comics saw an increase to sales by 3.3%, but graphic novels were down by 6.6%. The combined sales of the two formats mean a wee increase of 0.6% for the direct market.

Marvel Comics increased their market share slightly to gain an extra 2% over DC Comics, who seemed to have flat lined and lost 0.3% of their market share. This indicates that Marvel’s market share gains mostly come from the expense of small publishers or independent comic sales, with the exception of Image Comics, who also saw a slight increase.

The best-selling graphic novel of the year was Infinity Gauntlet. The 1991 story is enjoying a revival because of the Avengers: Infinity War movie. The best-selling comics was Action #1000, a landmark issue featuring unpublished artwork by legendary Superman artist Curt Swan and the introduction of writer Brain Michael Bendis to the DC universe.

Complete lists and more insight are available on comichron.com.

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Faith Erin Hicks, Peter Wartman will bend air at Dark Horse

The publisher announces the new creative team for their popular ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ graphic novel series.

Dark Horse has announced that Faith Erin Hicks (The Nameless City) and Peter Wartman (Over the Wall) will take over the Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novel series, based on the television show that used to air on Nickelodeon.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of my favorite things in the world. I’m totally not kidding: I remember watching the series finale over ten years ago when I was a struggling animator, wishing I could work on a show that was even 10 percent as thoughtful and compelling as Avatar. I was so in love with the world and characters,” said Hicks. “Even now, there’s nothing that has filled my heart quite like Avatar, and I’m so honored to contribute to the real thing.”

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