Tag: Jamila Rowser

Quick Hits | Free Comic Book Day founder prepares for the last event at the location where the event was born

Plus: The Comics Journal website has new editors! Frank Miller Presents and Abrams ComicArts strike a deal! Aurora Awards nominees announced! Plus news on Marjane Satrapi, Bubbles Con and a controversial ski town comic!

This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, an opportunity for retailers to not only bring new customers into their stores, but also to get media coverage. You can do a quick search of Google News to see all the local coverage the event has been getting, but this story in particular jumped out at me because it involves Joe Field, who came up with the idea of Free Comic Book Day back in 2001.

Field’s store, Flying Colors Comics and Other Cool Stuff in Concord, California, has been a staple of the community for decades, but will have to move to a new location early next year after their lease expires — making this Saturday the last FCBD at their current shop.

“We’re very hopeful and now actually pretty excited by what the future of Flying Colors could be,” Field told the San Jose Mercury News. “There are a lot of unknowns — like how many of our faithful customers will want to create a new habit of going to a different spot to support us? How many new customers can we cultivate moving to a different spot? How strong will the market for comics and graphic novels be over the next bunch of years? Can we afford to do this when we are already technically past the standard retirement date?”

Despite those questions, Field says they hope that “we continue to build community and continue to spread happiness through our comic book business. That’s when everything will be a success.”

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Jamila Rowser, Robyn Smith, Alex Segura win L.A. Times Book Prizes

Rowser and Smith’s ‘Wash Day Diaries’ wins in the graphic novel category, while Segura’s novel about the 1970s comics industry wins in the mystery category.

Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith’s Wash Day Diaries has won this year’s L.A. Times Book Prize in the Graphic Novels/Comics category.

Published by Chronicle Books, their story actually began as a comic Kickstarter in 2018, but was later expanded into a graphic novel containing five interconnected stories.

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Nominees announced for the 2023 L.A. Times Book Prize

Noah Van Sciver, Tommi Parrish, Jamila Rowser, Robyn Smith and more were nominated this year.

The nominees have been announced for this year’s L.A. Times Book Prize, which includes a category for Graphic Novels/Comics.

The Los Angeles Times has given an award in the graphic novel category since 2009, when Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli won the award. Other previous winners include The Love Bunglers by Jaime Hernandez, Duncan the Wonder Dog by Adam Hines, Beverly by Nick Drnaso, Tillie Walden’s On a Sunbeam and The Hard Tomorrow by Eleanor Davis. R. Kikuo Johnson’s No One Else won the prize last year.

The nominees for this year are:

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Smash Pages Q&A | Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith

The creators of the critical hit ‘Wash Day’ discuss expanding the story into ‘Wash Day Diaries,’ which is out this week from Chronicle Books.

Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith teamed up for the comic Wash Day, which was funded through Kickstarter and was released in 2018. It was a critical success, but while the two thought that the story was over when they finished the comic, the story has grown and expanded into the new book Wash Day Diaries, which is out this week from Chronicle Books.

Smith was a recent graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies when she first drew Wash Day, and today is best known for working on Nubia: Real One for DC Comics. Rowser, besides writing, has been expanding Black Josei Press and is publishing new work. I spoke with the two recently about how Wash Day Diaries happened, working through the pandemic and collaborating again.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Jamila Rowser

The co-founder of Geek Girl Brunch and former Girl Gone Geek blogger discusses two comic projects, ‘Wash Day’ and ‘Wobbledy 3000.’

Jamila Rowser is familiar to a lot of people in the comics community because she created Straight Outta Gotham, co-founded Geek Girl Brunch and launched the blog Girl Gone Geek. This fall though she’s doing something different, turning her attention to writing comics.

Wash Day is a comic drawn by Robyn Smith which was kickstarted earlier this year and is out now. In addition to an English language edition, there’s a Spanish language edition of the comic, Dia de Lavado, which is also available. Rowser is following that up with her second comic, Wobbledy 3000, which is drawn by Sabii Borno and is out this month as a digital comic from Black Josei Press.

The comics are very different, made with different artists and approaches, but both of them demonstrate Rowser’s skill at dialogue, her subtle talent of characterization and, through this, a very nuanced and lovely consideration of friendship. One book may be realistic and set in the here and now, and the other is science fantasy, but they are both an effort to tell slice of life narratives, and explore the lives of characters who are rarely explored in comics. Taken together, the comics show Rowser is very interested in finding ways to use the medium to convey and explore personal experience, to both break new ground and be a part of the medium and its traditions. I caught Rowser in between shows, and she was kind enough to answer a few questions.

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