Reading List: Women and NB Artists in Comics
Recently, my comic reading list got a lot longer. On August 5th, Milk Fed Criminal Masterminds and Kelly Sue DeConnick brought back the #VisibleWomen shout out to women and non-binary genders working in comics. Everyone posted their art, comics, and links to their work. Overall, the mission is to get women and non-binary genders hired and more visible in comics. As a comic lover and reader, for me it was a way to promote with retweets, and also start this ever-growing reading list! Many of these artists/writers also have Patreon sites or other ways for regular people to support them until they have comics in stores. Or maybe we’ll support them so well they won’t even need stores.
Now there were so many #VisibleWomen, that this article is just part one. More to come next week. Happy reading!
Shattered Starlight by Nicole Chartrand
Farah Shaughnessy is a magical girl. Or rather, she was a magical girl. Now, instead of saving Montreal from the forces of Chaos and Entropy, she’s just trying to hold down a decent job to pay her rent and still trying to get her life together a decade after the breakup of her team. When strange things start happening around her and old enemies start to reappear, Farah has to make a choice: face the things she’s been running from all these years or put down her astral weapon hockey stick and walk away for good.
Alice and the Nightmare by Michelle “Misha” Krivanek
Alice and the Nightmare is a comic heavily inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. It follows the story of Alice Heart as she attends the prestigious Phantasmagoria University, where Wonderlandians like her train to enter and collect the dreams of sleeping humans. The comic features magic, dark fantasy elements, and plenty of sweet tea time treats!
Rainboots & Mandrake Roots by Aud Koch
For high school students Nicky (who is a dragon) & Sam (who is not a witch), life is a bit more complicated than getting to class on time and finishing your homework. College applications, overbearing family members and the peculiar magical politics of their hometown all conspire to make Nicky & Sam’s senior year a memorable one.
Agents of the Realm by Mildred Louis
Shortly after starting their first year at Silvermount University, five young women discover they’ve each been chosen to protect our world and its newly discovered sister dimension.
The Black Bull of Norroway by Kit and Cat Seaton
The land of Norroway is unfamiliar and uncompromising, and teenage Sibylla doesn’t know the rules to the game she’s been swept up in. Betrothed to a monster who might once have been a man, she must find a way to break an ancient curse, and keep her humanity in the process.
balderdash! by Victoria Goog
balderdash! tells the story of two witch girls and their friends in the small town of Löffel. We first follow Georgie, a young witch from an elk ranch on the outskirts of Xalé. Georgie ventures from her home in the Northern Mountains to the River Valley, where she hopes to train under her idol, the baker Fausto. At the same time, we follow the young witch Afia, a young scholar from the large capital city Bakunini. After an academic debacle, Afia leaves her home in the South to go to the River Valley and learn about the mysteries of High Magic on her own. (Also, it includes recipes!)
Cucumber Quest by Gigi D.G.
Cucumber Quest is a comic about bunny kids going on adventures and having fun. Although it starts off very darkly with Caketown being seized by an evil queen, which prevents Cucumber from going off to the magical academy. For heroing reasons.
M.F.K by Nilah Magruder
This story is about Abbie, who just wants to get to the mountain range called the Potter’s Spine, scatter her mother’s ashes, and then live out her life in sweet, blissful solitude. Unfortunately, everyone she meets wants to either whine at her about their woes, tag along on her quest, arrest her for no reason, or blow her to bits.
Journeys are hard on the social recluses of the world.
Princess Princess by Strangely Katie
Amira and Sadie are two very different princesses who decide to take their happily ever after into their own hands. Princess Princess was my first attempt at a longer comic narrative, and I hope one that depicts different kinds of female strength and relationships.
The House on the Cliff by Mar Julia
The House on the Cliff is a comic about magic, meddling, girls, and the sea, and some misunderstandings.