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Small Press Expo 2024 Announces More Special Guests

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SPX 2024

Small Press Expo has announced more Special Guests for SPX 2024. The show takes place on Saturday September 14 and Sunday September 15 with programming and workshops about the amazing world of independent comics and an exhibitor floor with over 500 creators.

Additional Special Guests will be announced over the next few weeks.

SPX 2024 is honored to have the following creators as Special Guests to this year’s show:

Ngozi Ukazu

Ngozi Ukazu is a DC Comics artist, New York Times-bestselling graphic novelist, and the creator of comics like Check, Please!, BUNT!, DC Comics’ Barda (which will debut at SPX), and the forthcoming graphic novel FLIP.

She graduated from Yale University with a degree in Computing in the Arts, and since 2020 her cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker. Her comic Check, Please! won the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic at Small Press Expo 2019.

https://www.ngoziu.com

Glynnis Fawkes

Eric Cline’s 1177 B.C. from Princeton University Press, illustrated by Glynnis Fawkes, tells the story of one of history’s greatest mysteries: what caused the ancient civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean to collapse more than three thousand years ago, bringing the Late Bronze Age to an abrupt end?

In this vivid and captivating full-color graphic adaptation of the landmark book, author-illustrator Glynnis invites us to follow two young friends living in the aftermath of the cataclysm as they unravel why it happened—and reveal important lessons for today’s interconnected and vulnerable world.

https://www.glynnisfawkes.com

Tara Booth

Known for her buzzing colors, delightful patterns, sharp humor, and unflinching vulnerability, Tara Booth does not miss any mark in this exquisitely woven collection of pure and nasty magic. Part advice column and exhibit, exploration of psychic pollution and tranquility, Processing is—quite simply—intrepid: in its honesty; its unapologetic grossness; its unrivaled and frank portrayal of life with a body that bleeds. With color that vibrates and fluids that impose, Processing: 100 Comics That Got Me Through It from Drawn and Quarterly, lays Booth bare—literally and figuratively.

https://www.tarabooth.club

Yasmeen Abedifard

Yasmeen Abedifard, last year’s Ignatz Award winner for Outstanding Minicomic, debuts her first graphic novel from Silver Sprocket, When to Pick a Pomegranate, at SPX 2024. It is a strikingly lyrical and heart-wrenching collection from a lauded young talent. In this collection of contemplative and cathartic short comics, the pomegranate Anar and the woman Guli exist as reflections of each other — repellent to one another and yet inexorably drawn together once more. As they evolve through each story, proceeding through the stages of the plant life cycle, they take on new roles: muse and artist, gardener and seed, lover and fruit.

Abedifard’s comic form evokes Persianate storytelling and draws on stylistic elements found in illuminated manuscripts, building an experience as rich and complex as the taste of pomegranate on one’s tongue. A poetic and evocative exploration of destiny and survival.

https://www.yasmeenabedifard.net

Emma Hunsinger

Emma Hunsinger, the creator of the popular “How to Draw a Horse” published in The New Yorker, will be debuting her funny, vulnerable, and disarming graphic novel How It All Ends at SPX 2024. It is a book about being overwhelmed by who you are and who you might be—and all the possibilities in between

https://www.emmahunsinger.com

Beth Hetland

We are thrilled to have Beth Hetland as a guest at SPX! She’ll be presenting and signing her graphic novel debut Tender, from Fantagraphics. It is a psychological thriller about a woman obsessed with her vision for a picture-perfect, curated life. Katie Skelly deemed it “a Jeanne Dielman for the Instagram generation” and Publishers Weekly called it “nimble and unsettling”.

https://www.beth-hetland.com

Sara Lautman

Sara Lautman’s cartoon art has been published in The New York Times, Playboy, Mad, The Paris Review and elsewhere. She is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, where her cartoons have appeared since 2016. Support Craft (Parsifal Press), a new collection of three stories about work, aging, and the supernatural lesbian rumor mill, will debut at SPX 2024. 

www.saralautman.com

Retrofit Comics 2018 Includes 12 new Graphic Novels. Now on Kickstarter

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Retrofit Comics is one of the best kept secrets in comics publishing some of the best indie comic work out there. They comic company has a new Kickstarter which runs until April 27 where you can get their 2018 releases (and more).

If you get all 12 comics/graphic novels, you get them at over 50% off, and if that’s still too much, you can pick and choose what you want.

What’s on tap for 2018?

  • All the Sad Songs – Summer Pierre – a 104 page black and white softcover graphic memoir.
  • Fashion Forecasts – Yumi Sakugawa – 72 color pages and explores fashion in a not-so-distant future.
  • I Love You – Sara Lautman – 72 color pages, collects stories and strips from 2017.
  • John, Dear – Laura Lannes – This 48 page comic is about a bad relationship.
  • Our Wretched Town Hall – Eric Kostiuk Williams – 64 color pages, explores a whole bunch of trippy subjects.
  • The Prince – Liam Cobb – 120 two color pages, this softcover graphic novel is a take on the Frog Prince fairytale.
  • Survive 300 Million 1 – Pat Aulisio – this 76 color paged comic traverses the post-man ruinscape of the future.
  • Survive 300 Million 2: Serpentine Captives – Pat Aulisio – is a 92 page color graphic novel and the second of the series.
  • The Troublemakers – Baron Yoshimoto – a 248 black and white graphic novel is a collection of some of the best stories of Yoshimoto.
  • TRUMPTRUMP vol. 2: Modern Day Presidential – Warren Craghead III – 208 black and white pages of grotesque portraits of Donald Trump and his minions.
  • Understanding – Becca Tobin – 100 color pages of short stories about going to parties, spending money on stuff, voyeurism and ritual.
  • The Winner – Karl Stevens – 104 color pages hat dissects the line between the worlds of high and low art.

You can find out more about each project including preview art. Go back it now, you won’t be disappointed.

Review: The Ultimate Laugh

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the-ultimate-laugh-coverA popular talk show is retro-scripted through the medium of food. The administration intervenes to manipulate human bonding. A Jenny Craig commercial is honored in silent ballet. Death proposes. The Ultimate Laugh collects eight of Sara Lautman‘s best stories from 2015 in autobiography, illustrated essays, and tall tales.

The Ultimate Laugh, the Ignatz nominated comic for “Promising New Talent,” is a stream of thought by creator Sara Lautman. The comic book is a fun take on those strange ideas and observations so many of us have… well maybe not all of us. The observations can be out there such as a talk show that’s manipulated through food which early on sets the tone of what follows.

You can see why Lautman is nominated. The comic is a hilarious look at life and brings a perspective, and thoughts, that aren’t often put down in paper. The comic is funny throughout, constantly entertaining.

Like the observations throughout, the art itself is pretty free-flowing breaking free of the rigid constraints of traditions comic panels. Lautman impressively still makes the comic easy to understand and read, even without some of the traditional clues peppered in comic layouts to guide the reader. The art adds to the free and fun style of the comic.

Lautman bursts on to the scene with this one and is a talent to keep an eye on. Already nominated for an award, this is a comic to pick up and find out why.

Story: Sara Lautman Art: Sara Lautman
Story: 8 Art: 8 Overall: 8 Recommendation: Buy

Tinto Press provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review