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My Friend Kim Jong Un is an interesting look at the mysterious leader and the shadow of North Korea

Posted on September 28, 2026 by Brett Leave a comment

Award-winning cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim contemplates and explores the long shadow North Korea casts over Korean society

On an island located an hour from Seoul, North Korea sits visible from cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s home and studio. The specter of the infamous dictatorship and nuclear power looms over daily life. Artillery fire, helicopters, and sirens from a nearby military base paint the acoustic landscape. In her award-winning books Grass and The Waiting, Gendry-Kim documents the pain and heartbreak of Korea’s history. In My Friend Kim Jong-Un, she looks to the present—to the man currently responsible for upholding the national divide created after World War Two.

While the rest of the world partakes in the popularity of Korean culture, a certain unease and anxiety hangs in the air in South Korea as its people still grapple with the distrust and anger of one culture split into two distinct societies. Gendry-Kim explores the life of the supreme leader, searching for commonalities to make sense of the daily fear: from his birth to his international education, his hobbies, and his relationships. She weaves her personal accounts and includes interviews with former South Korean president Moon Jae-in, North Korean defectors, researchers, journalists, and even Kim’s former chef.

Translated by the award-winning Janet Hong, My Friend… is a cautionary tale on what makes a dictator, at a time when these lessons are more relevant in the West than ever.

by: Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
Translation: Janet Hong

Get your copy now!

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Indie Comics United with a Super Humble Bundle of Awesome Stuff to support the CBLDF!

Posted on March 18, 2026 by Graphic Policy Team

Humble Bundle has partnered with a bunch of indie publishers: Ablaze, Action Lab, American Mythology Productions, Battle Quest Comics, Drawn & Quarterly, Dynamite Entertainment, Fantagraphics Books, Heavy Metal, Living The Line Books, Valiant Entertainment, Zenescope, Hermes Press, and Green Ronin Publishing to support their shared goal of encouraging bold ideas and creativity in their creators and readers, bringing you some of their most beloved titles, like quirky time travel graphic novel There’s No Time Like the Present, intimate queer family drama Stone Fruit, fairy tale reimagining Grimm Tales of Terror, sci-fi epic Moonray, and the newly revamped Heavy Metal! You choose what you pay for all of these and more, and every purchase supports the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!

The Indie Comics United: A Super Bundle of Awesome Stuff has a retail value of $1,329 and you can get all 60 items for just $18.

Comics

Indie Comics United with a Super Humble Bundle of Awesome Stuff to support the CBLDF!

Posted on March 14, 2026 by Graphic Policy Team

The Indie Comics United: A Super Bundle of Awesome Stuff has a retail value of $1,329 and you can get all 60 items for just $18.

Comics

Indie Comics United with a Super Humble Bundle of Awesome Stuff to support the CBLDF!

Posted on February 20, 2026 by Graphic Policy Team

Indie comics and their publishers are having a moment like never before, and what better way to celebrate this achievement than by putting together a bundle of the best of the best? And even better than that?? You can get all of these comics delivered right to your inbox at the low price of your choice!! Humble Bundle has partnered with a bunch of indie publishers: Ablaze, Action Lab, American Mythology Productions, Battle Quest Comics, Drawn & Quarterly, Dynamite Entertainment, Fantagraphics Books, Heavy Metal, Living The Line Books, Valiant Entertainment, Zenescope, Hermes Press, and Green Ronin Publishing to support their shared goal of encouraging bold ideas and creativity in their creators and readers, bringing you some of their most beloved titles, like quirky time travel graphic novel There’s No Time Like the Present, intimate queer family drama Stone Fruit, fairy tale reimagining Grimm Tales of Terror, sci-fi epic Moonray, and the newly revamped Heavy Metal! You choose what you pay for all of these and more, and every purchase supports the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!

The Indie Comics United: A Super Bundle of Awesome Stuff has a retail value of $1,329 and you can get all 60 items for just $18.

Comics

Paying for It is coming to theaters soon so we check out Chester Brown’s graphic novel it’s based on

Posted on December 28, 2025 by Brett

Paying for It was the most talked-about and controversial graphic novel of 2011, a critical success so innovative and complex that it received two rave reviews in The New York Times. Chester Brown‘s eloquent, spare artwork stands out in this new paperback edition, tied to the release of the film adaptation co-written and directed by Sook-Yin Lee, Brown’s longtime friend and the director of Year of the Carnivore and Octavio is Dead!

Paying for It offers an entirely unvarnished exploration of sex work through Brown’s own life story, showing him as a timid john who rides his bike to his escorts, wonders how to tip so as not to offend, and reads Dan Savage for advice. The book demystifies an experience that is so often sensationalized, revealing a world of online reviews, seemingly willing participants, and clean apartments devoid of clichéd street corners, drugs, or pimps. In it, Brown combines the personal and sexual aspects of his autobiographical work (I Never Liked You, The Playboy) with the polemical drive of Louis Riel, as he explores one of the most hotly debated issues in the world and advocates for the importance of legalizing sex work.

Now with an introduction by Lee, expanded notes discussing the film adaptation, movie stills and behind the scenes shots, as well as a new cover by Brown and artwork that he created for the production, Paying for It: The Film Edition is an unmissable edition for fans of Brown and film-making alike.

Story: Chester Brown
Art: Chester Brown

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

Bookshop
Amazon

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is a raw and honest graphic memoir

Posted on May 7, 2025 by Brett

Kate Beaton delivers a raw and honest take about her experiences working in the Alberta tar sands.

Story: Kate Beaton
Art: Kate Beaton

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

Bookshop
Amazon

Kate Beaton receives the 2024 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature

Posted on December 1, 2024 by Brett

The 2024 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature has been awarded to Kate Beaton for her graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands which was published by Drawn & Quarterly in 2022.

The Jan Michalski Prize for Literature “rewards works of all literary genres, fiction or non-fiction, irrespective of the language in which it is written” and has been awarded annually since 2010.

A rotating jury submits works to be considered for the prize, it’s not submitted by authors or publishers.

In the announcement, the Jury described Ducks as:

a piercing and daring graphic memoir that sheds light on the hidden side of working conditions in the oil industry through the eyes of a young woman and recent graduate who is thrown into a toxic world because of economic hardship. Featuring clean lines and dialogue imbued with great narrative force, this visual autobiography is able to embrace the most sensitive and painful questions of our time – hypercapitalism, the environment, impoverishment, sexism and sexual harassment – without such a traumatic experience stifling her deep empathy for others in similar circumstances. A profoundly moving masterpiece thanks to the courage it embodies.

The graphic novel is a memoir meets reporting chronicling Beaton’s experience in the oil sands work camps in Western Canada when she was 21 years old.

As the winner of the 2024 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, Kate Beaton will receive CHF 50,000 as well as a work of art by the draftsman Micaël.

You can read the full announcement here.

Comics

SPX 2023: Constitution Illustrated is an entertaining way to read this important document!

Posted on December 5, 2023 by Brett

R. Sikoryak investigates the very framework of the country with Constitution Illustrated. By visually interpreting the complete text of the supreme law of the land with more than a century of American pop culture icons, Sikoryak distills the very essence of the government legalese from the abstract to the tangible, the historical to the contemporary.

Story: R. Sikoryak
Art: R. Sikoryak

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

Bookshop
Amazon
Kindle

Drawn & Quarterly’s publishing team and booksellers unionize

Posted on November 16, 2023 by Brett

Drawn & Quarterly is the latest comic publisher to unionize. Employees voted earlier this fall to unionize under the Fédération du commerce (FC–CSN) of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN). They have now been certified by the Administrative Labor Tribunal (TAT) of Quebec.

Serge Monette, vice-president of the Fédération du commerce (FC–CSN) said in the announcement:

We welcome the workers of Drawn & Quarterly. The Federation is proud to welcome such a committed group among its ranks. They make Drawn and Quarterly the essential institutions that they are.

The press announcement was rather positive, praising Drawn & Quarterly for its “dedication to compensating artists above current industry standards.” Also noted by the union is D&Q empowering its employees to help make “substantive decisions that impact the selection of titles published and stocked, the event programming, the retail experience at both bookstore locations, and their local, national, and international community of readers.”

Also mentioned in the release was improvement in paths to promotion for assistants, salaries that sustain the staff and improved benefits.

This is the latest successful unionization effort in the entertainment industry. Beyond recent action by SAG-AFTRA and the WGA in film and television, Marvel VFX workers voted unanimously to unionize in September, employees of Seven Seas Entertainment unionized in June 2022 and ratified its first contract in September 2023, and the Comic Book Workers United ratified its first union contract in March 2023 after voting to unionize in January 2022.

Are You Willing to Die for the Cause? Revolution in 1960s Quebec is interesting Canadian history

Posted on November 4, 2023 by Brett

It started in 1963, when a dozen mailboxes in a wealthy Montreal neighborhood were blown to bits by handmade bombs. By the following year, a guerrilla army camp was set up deep in the woods, with would-be soldiers training for armed revolt. Then, in 1966, two high-school students dropped off bombs at factories, causing fatalities. What was behind these concerted, often bungled acts of terrorism, and how did they last for nearly eight years?

Story: Chris Oliveros
Art: Chris Oliveros

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

Bookshop
Amazon
Kindle

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