How to Be Ace: A Memoir of Growing Up Asexual


Rebecca Burgess - 2020
    From school to work to relationships, this book offers an unparalleled insight into asexuality. 'When I was in school, everyone got to a certain age where they became interested in talking about only one thing: boys, girls and sex. Me though? I was only interested in comics.' Growing up, Rebecca assumes sex is just a scary new thing they will 'grow into' as they get older, but when they leave school, start working and do grow up, they start to wonder why they don't want to have sex with other people. In this brave, hilarious and empowering graphic memoir, we follow Rebecca as they navigate a culture obsessed with sex—from being bullied at school and trying to fit in with friends, to forcing themself into relationships and experiencing anxiety and OCD—before coming to understand and embrace their asexual identity.

Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms


Crystal Frasier - 2021
    Her former friend BeeBee is a people-pleaser—a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life to keep their support of her transition. Through the rigors of squad training and amped up social pressures (not to mention micro aggressions and other queer youth problems), the two girls rekindle a friendship they thought they’d lost and discover there may be other, sweeter feelings springing up between them.

Spit and Passion


Cristy C. Road - 2012
    Road is a bad ass. She has a list of published work that leaves me awed and inspired."—Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day"Road's writing has long brought to vivid life the experiences of a queer-identified Latina punk rocker."—Bitch magazineAt its core, Spit and Passion is about the transformative moment when music crashes into a stifling adolescent bedroom and saves you. Suddenly, you belong. At twelve years old, Cristy C. Road is struggling to balance tradition in a Cuban Catholic family with her newfound queer identity, and begins a chronic obsession with the punk band Green Day. In this stunning graphic biography, Road renders the clash between her rich inner world of fantasy and the numbing suburban conformity she is surrounded by. She finds solace in the closet—where she lets her deep excitement about punk rock foment, and finds in that angst and euphoria a path to self-acceptance.Cristy C. Road is a twenty-nine-year-old Cuban American artist and writer from Miami; she currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. She has reached cult status for work that captures the beauty of the imperfect. Her career began with Greenzine, a punk rock zine, which she made for ten years. She has since published Indestructible, an illustrated novel about high school; Distance Makes the Heart Grow Sick, a postcard book; and Bad Habits, a love story about self-destruction and healing. She has also illustrated countless record album covers, book covers, political organization propaganda, and magazine articles.

The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars, Part One


Michael Dante DiMartino - 2017
    . . but find nothing in Republic City but political hijinks and human vs. spirit conflict! A pompous developer plans to turn the new spirit portal into an amusement park, potentially severing an already tumultuous connection with the spirits. What's more, the triads have realigned and are in a brutal all-out brawl at the city's borders - where hundreds of evacuees have relocated!In order to get through it all, Korra and Asami vow to look out for each other - but first, they've got to get better at being a team and a couple!Written by series co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino and drawn by Irene Koh T.M.N.T., Sensation Comics featuring Wonder Woman, Secret Origins: Batgirl, Afrina and the Glass Coffin) and with consultation by Bryan Konietzko, this is the official continuation of The Legend of Korra!

The Secret Loves of Geek Girls


Hope NicholsonSarah Winifred Searle - 2015
    Featuring work by Margaret Atwood (The Heart Goes Last), Mariko Tamaki (This One Summer), Trina Robbins (Wonder Woman), Marguerite Bennett (Marvel's A-Force), Noelle Stevenson (Nimona), Marjorie Liu (Monstress), Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), and over fifty more creators. It's a compilation of tales told from both sides of the tables: from the fans who love video games, comics, and sci-fi to those that work behind the scenes: creators and industry insiders.

Always Human


Ari North - 2015
    Now reformatted for a print edition in sponsorship with GLAAD, Always Human is a beautifully drawn graphic novel about a developing relationship between two young women in a near-future, soft sci-fi setting. Always Human is drawn in a manga-influenced style and with an incredible color palette that leaps off the page!In the near-future, people use technology to give the illusion of all kinds of body modifications—but some people have “Egan’s Syndrome,” a highly sensitive immune system that rejects these “mods” and are unable to use them. Those who are affected maintain a “natural” appearance, reliant on cosmetics and hair dye at most to help them play with their looks.  Sunati is attracted to Austen the first time she sees her and is drawn to what she assumes is Austen’s bravery and confidence to live life unmodded. When Sunati learns the truth, she’s still attracted to Austen and asks her on a date. Gradually, their relationship unfolds as they deal with friends, family, and the emotional conflicts that come with every romance. Together, they will learn and grow in a story that reminds us no matter how technology evolves, we will remain . . . always human. Rendered in beautiful detail and an extraordinary color palette, Always Human is a sweet love story told in a gentle sci-fi setting by a queer woman cartoonist, Ari North.

Cosmoknights


Hannah Templer - 2019
    Work in her dad's body shop, sneak out with her friend Tara to go dancing, and watch the skies for freighter ships. It didn't even matter that Tara was a princess... until one day it very much did matter, and Pan had to say goodbye forever. Years later, when a charismatic pair of off-world gladiators show up on her doorstep, she finds that life may not be as small as she thought. On the run and off the galactic grid, Pan discovers the astonishing secrets of her neo-medieval world... and the intoxicating possibility of burning it all down.

The Bride Was a Boy


Chii - 2018
    Her story starts with her childhood and follows the ups and downs of exploring her sexuality, gender, and transition--as well as falling in love with a man who’s head over heels for her. Now they want to get married, so Chii’s about to embark on a new adventure: becoming a bride!

Kim Reaper Vol. 1: Grim Beginnings


Sarah Graley - 2018
    Full-Time Cutie!Like most university students, Kim works a part-time job to make ends meet. Unlike most university students, Kim's job is pretty cool: she's a grim reaper, tasked with guiding souls into the afterlife.Like most university students, Becka has a super intense crush. Unlike most university students, Becka's crush is on a beautiful gothic angel that frequents the underworld. Of course, she doesn't know that.Unaware of the ghoulish drama she's about to step into, Becka finally gathers up the courage to ask Kim on a date! But when she falls into a ghostly portal and interrupts Kim at her job, she sets off a chain of events that will pit the two of them against angry cat-dads, vengeful zombies, and perhaps even the underworld itself. But if they work together, they just might make it... and maybe even get a smooch in the bargain.

When I Arrived at the Castle


Emily Carroll - 2019
    Emily Carroll has fashioned a rich gothic horror charged with eroticism that doesn't just make your skin crawl, it crawls into it.

A Quick & Easy Guide to Asexuality


Molly Muldoon
    You don’t learn about it in school, you don’t hear “ace” on television. So, it’s kinda hard to be ace in a society so steeped in sex that no one knows you exist. Too many young people grow up believing that their lack of sexual desire means they are broken – so writer Molly Muldoon and cartoonist Will Hernandez, both in the ace community, are here to shed light on society’s misconceptions of asexuality and what being ace is really like. This book is for anyone who wants to learn about asexuality, and for Ace people themselves, to validate their experiences. Asexuality is a real identity and it’s time the world recognizes it. Here’s to being invisible no more!

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me


Ellen Forney - 2012
    Flagrantly manic and terrified that medications would cause her to lose creativity, she began a years-long struggle to find mental stability while retaining her passions and creativity.Searching to make sense of the popular concept of the crazy artist, she finds inspiration from the lives and work of other artists and writers who suffered from mood disorders, including Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, William Styron, and Sylvia Plath. She also researches the clinical aspects of bipolar disorder, including the strengths and limitations of various treatments and medications, and what studies tell us about the conundrum of attempting to “cure” an otherwise brilliant mind.Darkly funny and intensely personal, Forney’s memoir provides a visceral glimpse into the effects of a mood disorder on an artist’s work, as she shares her own story through bold black-and-white images and evocative prose.

Cannonball


Kelsey Wroten - 2019
    Wroten tells the story of an artist struggling with the arrival of adulthood and the Sisyphean task of artistic fulfillment. Stunningly drawn in a classic style, with big truths and biting wit, Wroten’s debut graphic novel is Art School Confidential for the Tumblr generation.

Our Work Is Everywhere: An Illustrated Oral History of Queer and Trans Resistance


Syan Rose - 2021
    Through bold, symbolic imagery and surrealist, overlapping landscapes, queer illustrator and curator Syan Rose shines a light on the faces and voices of these diverse, amorphous, messy, real and imagined queer and trans communities.In their own words, queer and trans organizers, artists, healers, comrades, and leaders speak honestly and authentically about their own experiences with power, love, pain, and magic to create a textured and nuanced portrait of queer and trans realities in America. The many themes include Black femme mental health, Pacific Islander authorship, fat queer performance art, disability and healthcare practice, sex worker activism, and much more. Accompanying the narratives are Rose's startling and sinuous images that brings these leaders' words to visual life.Our Work Is Everywhere is a graphic nonfiction book that underscores the brilliance and passion of queer and trans resistance.Includes a foreword by Lambda Literary Award-winning author and activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, author of Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice.

Awkward and Definition: The High School Comic Chronicles of Ariel Schrag


Ariel Schrag - 1997
     During the summer following each year at Berkeley High School in California, Ariel wrote a comic book about her experiences, which she would then photocopy and sell around school. Some friends thrilled to see themselves in the comic, others not so much, but everyone was interested. Awkward chronicles Ariel's freshman year, and Definition, her sophomore year. With anxiety in excess and frustration to the fullest, Ariel dives in -- meeting new people, going to concerts, crushing out, loving chemistry, drawing comics, and obsessing over everything from glitter-laden girls to ionic charges and the constant pursuit of the number-one score. Totally true and achingly honest, with every cringe-inducing encounter and exhilarating first moment documented -- Awkward and Definition is an unflinching look at what it's like being a teenage girl in America.