May Roundup

As we approach the half point of the year we have quite a few Australian comics being published. This month is a great example of the wide range of Australian titles. 

We also have comics related events in libraries. In Victoria, Dandenong Libraries celebrated Dandy Con and Kingston Libraries celebrated King Con. We had committee members on both and we hear that they had a great time. Best of all the community was there to support the event. 

Comic Gong also took place recently in Wollongong and if you’re in Sydney this Saturday, you must go to Ashfield Library for the Comic Con-versation event. It’s the ten year anniversary (if our maths are right) and it should be a great day for comics and the community with a wide range of activities and guests, including the amazing Nicola Scott!

WEBINAR ANNOUNCEMENT

We can announce that we will be having two webinars this year. We’ve always had one at the end of the year but this year we’re having two. Save the day: Thursday 11 July at 2pm AEST (Melbourne/Sydney time) for a very special event: Drawing Attention: Comics & Censorship with: 

• Briar Rolfe, a Melbourne based cartoonist who loves to make comics about the sorts of fun and messy people you might meet on the street and has a soft spot for dad jokes and queer characters who are works in progress. Briar’s debut graphic novel Get Your Story Straight will be out September 2025 through Hachette Australia.
• Eleri Harris, is an Eisner award-winning cartoonist, journalist and editor working on Ngunnawal Country in Australia’s national capital. Her non-fiction history, science and reportage comics have been exhibited and published all over the world. For a decade she was Features Editor at US-based comics website and magazine, The Nib, and is now using all she learned to write a book about comics journalism. The Power of Graphic Journalism, co-authored by Sarah Shay Mirk, will be released by Abrams ComicArts in 2025.
• Ryan Estrada, is an author and an adventurer. In the multiple award winning Banned Book Club he teamed up with his wife Kim Hyun Sook to tell the true story of her experiences being hunted down by the police for participating in an underground illegal reading club in 1980’s Korea. Ryan has spent 22 years travelling the world. He has lived and visited over a dozen countries and his work is heavily inspired by his experiences and the cultures and people that he has met in his travels. Ryan will join us to discuss Banned Book Club, book challenges and bans in North America and Korea and the upcoming No Rules Tonight where he teams up with his wife Hyun Sook to tell a new story of fighting for freedom!

Register for the webinar right here, right now. You don’t want to miss this event. (And if you can’t make it live, don’t worry, there will be a recording available, after the event).

MAY ROUNDUP

NEWS

• The Best Australian Yarn Short Story Competition is huge, with big prizes, and it’s not just short stories. We are very happy to see that they also have a comics category. Sharpen your pencils! For more information and all the terms and conditions visit the Best Australian Yarn website here.
• The Perth Comic Arts Festival has published a statement about their ban of all AI art from the festival. A really interesting and strong statement on a very important issue really worth reading. You can find the statement here.
• Diana Jenkins on news.com.au published an article about comics sales in Australia and how there’s been a huge upsurge of comics and graphic novels reading. You can find the article here.
• There’s another appeal on the Australian Classification Board’s decision on Gender Queer. The saga continues. Here’s a great article about it by Monash University Senior Lecture Penny Russon.
• The School Library Journal has published a really interesting article exploring the pressure librarians are feeling in the U.S. and how it’s leading to soft censorship, including altering illustrations. You can find the article here.
• Australian fantasy author Jay Kristoff is writing a spinoff comic series with Spanish artist Tirso, who has mostly worked on French comics before. They will be publishing Dark Knights of Steel: Allwinter, a spinoff of DC’s epic fantasy series conceived by Tom Taylor. For more info read this article on AIPT.
• Australian artist Louie Joyce unleashes Godzilla in a new comic located in Australia. Louie talks about it all on The Beat here.
• The Graphic Medicine International Collective (GMIC) has announced the shortlisted titles for the GMIC Awards 2024. This a great list of graphic medicine titles. You can check all the shortlisted titles here.
• Maia Kobabe and Sarah Peitmeier have published Breathe: Journeys to Healthy Binding soon. This non-fiction graphic novel is, in Sarah’s words, a “guide to chest binding with real-life stories and research-backed advice.” For the full interview with Sarah and Maia go to The Beat here.

COLLECTIONS

• The Eisner Awards Nominees have been announced and we recommend going through the list and checking what you may want to add to your library collection. We’re especially happy to see Tom Taylor nominated for various awards including best single shot, best continuing series and best writer (among others). You can find all the nominees here.

NEW TITLES

Junior

• Anzu and the Realm of Darkness by Mai K. Nguyen (Viking Books for Young Readers) [9780593525289]
• Barkham Asylum by Yehudi Mercado (DC Comics) [9781779505002]
• The Boy From Clearwater Book 2 by Pei-Yun Yu, Jian-Xin Zhou (Levine Querido) [9781646143733]
• Cat Out of Water by Art Baltazar (Random House Graphic) [9780593703038]
• Hello Twigs: Look Who’s Grumpy by Andrew McDonald, Ben Wood (Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing) [9781761212031] [Australian creators]
• Hello Twigs: Puddle Party by Andrew McDonald, Ben Wood (Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing) [9781761212024] [Australian creators]
• Kingdom Riders by Shannon Eric Denton, Marcus To (IDW) [9781684059782]
• Korgi: The Complete Tale by Christian Slade (Top Shelf) [9781603095389]
• Lily Halfmoon: The Witches’ Council by Xavier Bonet (Allen & Unwin) [9781761069727]
• Lunar Boy by Jes Wibowo, Cin Wibowo (Harper Alley) [9780063057593]
• The New Adventures of: Turning Red Vol. 1 
• Secret Agent Mole Book 3: Dr Nude by James Foley (Scholastic Australia) [9781761200175] [Australian creator]
• Summer Vamp by Violet Chan Karim (Random House Graphic) [9780593425220]
• Timid: A Graphic Novel by Jonathan Todd (Scholastic – Graphix) [9781761523977]
• Ultraviolet Book 1: Down to Business by Cristy Burne, Rebel Challenger (Larrikin House) [9781922804730]
• When the World Was Soft by Juluwarlu Group, Alex Mankiewicz (Allen & Unwin) [9781761180651] [Australian creators]

YA

• Daredevil Vol 1: Hell Breaks Loose by Saladin Ahmed, Aaron Kuder (Marvel) [9781302947729]
• Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit  by Josh Hicks (Lerner Publishing) [9798765623350]
• My Gemini by Yuu Morikawa (Yen Press) [9781975366322]
• Number Call by Nagisa Furuya (Kodansha) [9781646519460]
• The Singularity by Mat Groom, David LaFluente, Simone Ragazzoni, Danilo Beyruth, Eduardo Ferigato (Image Comics) [9781534324923] [Australian creator]
• Transformers Vol 1: Robots in Disguise by Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer (Image Comics) [9781534398177]

Adult

• 12 Rules for Strife by Jeff Sparrow, Sam Wallman (Scribe) [9781761380600] [Australian creators]
• BRZRKR: Bloodlines by Keanu Reeves, Mattson Tomlin, Steve Skroce (Boom! Studios)
• Crazy Like a Fox: Adventures in Schizophrenia by Christi Furnas (Street Noise Books) [9781951491284]
• Creepshow Volume 2 by Various authors (Image Comics) [9781534397682]
• Devour by Jazmine Joyner, Anthony Pugh (Abrams) [9781419763069]
• The Field by Dave Lapp (Conundrum Press) [9781772620948]
• The Flavors of Iraq by Feurat Alani, Leonard Cohen (Graphic Mundi) [9781637790670]
• Full of Myself: A Graphic Memoir About Body Image by Siobhan Gallagher (Andrews McMeel)
• Her Frankensteins by Norikazu Kawashima (Living the Line) [9781961581913]
• Lore Olympus Book 6 by Rachel Smythe (Penguin) [9780593599099]
• Maple Terrace by Noah Van Sciver (Uncivilized Books) [9781941250594]
• Medea by Blandine Le Callet, Nancy Peña (Dark Horse)
• My Fairy Godfather by Robert Mailer Anderson, Jon Sack (Fantagraphics) [9781683969808]
• My Favourite Thing Is Monsters Book 2 by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics) [9781683969273]
• Night at the Belfy by Xavier Saxon (Dark Horse)
• Second Hand Love by Yamada Murasaki (Drawn & Quarterly) [9781770467187]
• Self-Esteem and the End of the World by Luke Healy (Drawn & Quarterly) [9781770467149]
• Seoul Before Sunrise by Samir Dahmani (Life Drawn – Humanoids)