C. Spike Trotman and Andrea Purcell at Iron Circus Comics have acquired The Lucky Poor by the cartoonist Mazie Lovie, a middle-grade graphic novel memoir about the author’s time growing up in a Habitat for Humanity house, written with the involvement and support of Habitat for Humanity itself. It’s slated for publication in Winter 2023. The deal was initiated from the #dvpit hashtag on Twitter, a social media tool created for unagented, marginalized voices to showcase pitches.

Habitat for Humanity is an international non-profit organization that builds homes for underprivileged families. And when Mazie Lovie was thirteen, her family — her mom, autistic brother, and herself — qualified for one of their newly built houses. For seven years before that, they all lived in a tiny, two-bedroom apartment with mice, mold, unsavory neighbors, and a room barely big enough for Mazie and her brother to share.

But Habitat for Humanity didn’t simply move Mazie and her loved ones into a free home. It came with a lot of work . . . much more work than she ever expected, both physically and emotionally. And of course, the home did not magically fix every problem in her life.

Mazie Lovie is a London, Ontario-based illustrator that makes cute and silly things. Her previous work includes participation in the Dirty Diamonds anthology, The Nib, and official work for Habitat for Humanity, Canada. This will be her first full graphic novel.