Tag Archives: islands in the sky

Islands in the Sky: A People’s History of Hurricane Helene is powerful graphic journalism

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The story of Hurricane Helene as told by those who survived. Islands in the Sky brings those stories to life by pairing real survivors with award-winning comics creators to preserve what happened and help the region recover. This project, the first from the Appalachia Comics Project, is part record, part resistance, and part recovery. It is a testament to the power of community and creativity to bring healing and preserve the truth about one of America’s deadliest and costliest national disasters. Islands in the Sky was selected this year as the First Year Reading Book for Berea College in Kentucky.

Contributors to Islands in the Sky include a Nobel Prize winner, two Pulitzer Winners, two National Book Award winners, a MacArthur Genius grant recipient, and a Peabody winner.

Story: Jim Bourdy, Allie Bourdy. Greg Pak, Tera McIntosh, Amy McIntosh, Gene Luen Yang, Suzanne Palmer, Anthony Del Col, Matthew K. Manning, Andrew Aydin, Cory Vaillancourt, Steve Orlando, Nick Filardi, Shannon Burcham, Angie Stone, Alex Segura, Hannah Roy, Brian Michael Bendis, Jessica Stepp Edney, Matt Fraction, Dr. David Easterling
Art: Josh Adams, Thien Pham, Briana Loewnsohn, Ned Wolfe, Jarrett Rutland, Valentine De Landro, June Kim, Brent Schoonover, David Hahn, C.A.P. Ward, Aster D’Amico, Nate Powell
Color: Nick Filardi, Matthew Wilson, Laura Martin
Letterer: Jodie Troutman, Josh Reed, C.A.P. Ward, Nate Powell

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.

Golden Apple Comics

Islands in the Sky: A People’s History of Hurricane Helene is powerful graphic journalism

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The story of Hurricane Helene as told by those who survived. Islands in the Sky brings those stories to life by pairing real survivors with award-winning comics creators to preserve what happened and help the region recover. This project, the first from the Appalachia Comics Project, is part record, part resistance, and part recovery. It is a testament to the power of community and creativity to bring healing and preserve the truth about one of America’s deadliest and costliest national disasters. Islands in the Sky was selected this year as the First Year Reading Book for Berea College in Kentucky.

Contributors to Islands in the Sky include a Nobel Prize winner, two Pulitzer Winners, two National Book Award winners, a MacArthur Genius grant recipient, and a Peabody winner.

Story: Jim Bourdy, Allie Bourdy. Greg Pak, Tera McIntosh, Amy McIntosh, Gene Luen Yang, Suzanne Palmer, Anthony Del Col, Matthew K. Manning, Andrew Aydin, Cory Vaillancourt, Steve Orlando, Nick Filardi, Shannon Burcham, Angie Stone, Alex Segura, Hannah Roy, Brian Michael Bendis, Jessica Stepp Edney, Matt Fraction, Dr. David Easterling
Art: Josh Adams, Thien Pham, Briana Loewnsohn, Ned Wolfe, Jarrett Rutland, Valentine De Landro, June Kim, Brent Schoonover, David Hahn, C.A.P. Ward, Aster D’Amico, Nate Powell
Color: Nick Filardi, Matthew Wilson, Laura Martin
Letterer: Jodie Troutman, Josh Reed, C.A.P. Ward, Nate Powell

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.

Releases in comic shops August 2026.

Golden Apple Comics

Appalachia Comics Project launches June 17 on Kickstarter with a kickoff event at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Center

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Appalachia Comics Project

Tomorrow, June 17th, the Appalachia Comics Project will formally launch with a national Kickstarter campaign and kickoff event at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Center in Waynesville, NC. The kickoff event is a celebration featuring local comic book and graphic novel creators as well as the survivors telling their story in the ACP’s first graphic history — Islands in the Sky: The Story of Hurricane Helene as told by those who survived.

Luminaries such as Barbara Kingsolver and José Andrés are expected to make public statements of support upon launch and the book will include work by noted scientist Dr. David Easterling, former Chief of the Scientific Services Division at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, among others, including multiple Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners.

WHEN:           Tuesday, June 17, 2025
                        6:00pm (remarks begin at 7:15pm)

WHERE:         Pigeon Community Multicultural Center
                        450 Pigeon Street
                        Waynesville, NC 28786

The Appalachia Comics Project (ACP) is an initiative formed by local and national comic and graphic novel creators to (1) create a nonfiction graphic history of the Hurricane Helene disaster in southern Appalachia, and (2) work toward a self-sustaining comics publishing initiative that creates comics works for, from, and about Appalachia.

So far, ACP has paired more than a dozen local survivors with renowned comic creators like Brian Michael Bendis, Gene Luen Yang, Matt Fraction, Nate Powell, and others to create Islands in the Sky as a monument to the storm that changed everything. Harrowing, inspiring, humorous, and tragic–this history is being brought to life in comics to create a first-hand account of what really happened by those that lived it. Survivor accounts include Dr. David Easterling, former Chief of the Scientific Services Division at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC presenting a science-based exploration of what occurred.