The Cartoonist Cooperative Newsletter January 2024
Happy New Year! Here’s a roundup of what we’ve been working on at the Cartoonist Co-op–a collection of comics, zines, webcomics, and crowdfunding, plus all new articles, news and features.
Want to join the Cartoonist Co-op? Send us your info here or email us at cartoonistcooperative@gmail.com , and become part of our community of indie comics creators! The Cartoonist’s Co-op is committed to helping build the community of comics artists and to improve and protect the labor rights of comic industry workers worldwide.
As a member, we’ll help you find collaborators, share resources, get the inside scoop on the industry, and have your stuff promoted in this very newsletter! Members of our cooperative gain access to career development resources, creative feedback and assistance, promotional campaigns for members’ comics, exclusive discounted benefits, and more. Let’s dive into it!
New in 2024: The Cartoonist Co-Op Webcomics RSS Feed!
The Cartoonist Co-op Webcomics RSS Feed is now LIVE!
It’s a collection of all ongoing webcomics featured in our catalogue with feeds, so people can follow a whole bunch at once.
The URL is https://cartoonist.coop/freshrss/p/i/?a=rss&get=c_2&rid=659242381e54a&hours=168 .
You can preview what webcomics would be showing up in at https://cartoonist.coop/tag/webcomic+ongoing/ . If there’s a comic in the catalogue that doesn’t show up in the feed, that means it doesn’t have one accessible atm or isn’t listed under webcomic or ongoing.
Use an RSS reader like Feedly to subscribe and you can have a whole array of webcomics curated by the Co-op delivered right to you in one easy, convenient package!
Cartoonist Cooperative “Buy an E-Sim for Gaza” Donation Drive
As you may know, Palestinians in Gaza are being subjected to internet and communications blackouts as part of the ongoing siege by Israel. Members of the Cartoonist Co-op are getting involved in a new way to combat this violence by offering art in exchange for those who donate e-SIMs to Palestinians through the Connecting Gaza Campaign.
This campaign has been running since early November, but we want to make sure that everyone who’s interested in our activities is kept up to date. Click here to see how you can contribute to these efforts!
Featured Comics For Purchase From Our Members
A fully illustrated guide to intuitive cooking from mixed afro-indigenous artist Mariah-Rose Marie! This beginner-friendly cookbook includes a primer on tools, ingredients, and using your own five senses to make delicious food, as well as twenty vegetarian recipes from worldwide cuisines.
Rent is due, nothing new. But tonight is different.
Tonight slypriestess69 is taking her camgirl moonlighting to the next level and summoning a demon to join her bedroom stream… and he’s fine as hell.
But a pact with a demon is not to be taken lightly. will what she has to offer be enough? f*ck around and find out in HORNY.LIVE <3
First in a series, Nidhi Chanani’s Super Boba Café is a sweet and magical middle-grade, full-color graphic novel about a secret teashop, an earthquake-causing monster, and an unforgettable summer.
In the fog-laden hills of San Francisco sits a sleepy independent boba café. Run by Jing Li and guarded by her kitty, Bao, it comfortably fades into the background. But inside the boba café, there’s a secret. Jing is the keeper of the monster of San Francisco. Each day she prepares one giant boba for nine hours to feed it.
When Jing’s granddaughter, Aria, comes to stay with her for the summer, she makes it her mission to turn the café around. Aria is quickly aided by Bao, who gives birth to eight perfect kittens. Aria spreads the news of the boba cat café on social media and overnight it is overrun with excited customers. Each day Nainai Li (Grandma Li) finds reasons to close the café, but the demand only increases.
When she opens, the hill monster is left hungry and small earthquakes begin to plague the city. When Aria secretly follows her nainai to the hill monster’s cave, she isn’t sure what awaits. Will Aria be able to reason with the monster, or will she become its new favorite meal? Or might she disturb its underground existence and cause the Big One?
By ReYtzin. A humanoid creature paints all of their lifeforce away in order to return to the all-loving embrace of nothingness. About dealing with the world in a mind and body that transgress the gender binary.
By Elain M. Will. Issue #5 is now available as a pay-what-you-will comic on Kofi!
Nat and her bandmates in The Dead Layaways want to go on tour, but the demonic entities who run their city have other ideas…and the dark cloud that hangs over everything stifles their creativity. Is there really nothing but endless wasteland beyond the city limits, as the demons claim? If so, where can a fledgling band perform?
In the penultimate chapter, things go from bad to worse for our heroes – but a small glimmer of hope arrives in the form of a phone signal, and an email from a half-remembered name…
By Virus Visal. Something terrible happened to Gaby at the office and she doesn’t know how to deal with it, she is so powerless… Or so she thought until watching a swarm of locusts. When there are many others like you it doesn’t matter if you are small and unimportant, together we can destroy anything!
A GRIFFITH CHRISTMAS – A BERSERK FAN COMIC
Six years ago, Hannah Hallman drew a 20 page Berserk mini comic retelling the plot of berserk only using Christmas song lyrics. It’s an endearing throwback, and she wanted new readers to have an opportunity to read it. It’s pay-what-you-will on Kofi. Happy (Belated) Holidays!
By Toby. A young werewolf accidentally transforms after being invited back to the apartment of the cute nonbinary warlock he’s got a crush on. How embarrassing!! But maybe they can salvage this night after all…
Webcomics By Our Members
By Jess Soffian. For generations, Katya’s family has owned and operated the Moondrop Carnival, an old-school traveling circus. Katya, like her ancestors, has a secret: the ability to travel between their world and another, a magical fey realm home to the Second Circus. For years the two circuses have existed in harmony, but now Katya’s mother—who does not believe the Second Circus exists—wishes to sell the Carnival and settle down in time for Katya to attend high school.
The Second Circus is a coming-of-age story about parents and children and the baggage that can unwittingly be conveyed from one generation to the next. It is also a story about magic and wonder and a rebuttal of the idea that growing up has to mean leaving these things behind.
The Second Circus will ultimately be a three-volume series. This is the first volume. The second will be available in 2024.
By Lukasz Kowalczuk. To Hell and Galgenbeck is the official comic book based on MÖRK BORG – “a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls and fools seeking redemption, forgiveness or the last remaining riches in a bleak and dying world.”
THaG is not nice. Protagonists are ugly, world stinks, there is a little hope for tomorrow and there are no colors besides black, white, pink and yellow.
By C. S. Garcia Martinez . Despite the promises of the last twenty years, the Isahek river is flooding again. When a tax collector is shot by its banks, the provincial court must respond to the rising violence. The members of the court vie for control, all the while their system of governance is on a steep decline. A story about environmental disaster, “rational” governance, and what it means to have power over death.
Sombulus, by Christina Major, is a humorous fantasy adventure in the spirit of Discworld and style of a shounen manga. A zealous paladin, brilliant energy harvester, and curious spiky haired tinkerer set off on fantastic adventures through the strange, surreal, magical and mystery-riddled Myriad Worlds of Sombulus, leaving each place a little more weird than the last.
Sombulus launched on May 16, 2010. It updates on Tuesdays and Thursdays at midnight Pacific Time.
A schizophrenic GMO is kidnapped by fringe militants. When it’s revealed he’s part of a top-secret project, he goes on the run with a PTSD alcoholic alien while his kidnappers try to figure out the truth.
Inhuman, by Hekshano, has been online since 2003. It is drawn on paper with ink and paint, then scanned and lettered digitally. It’s meant for readers aged 16+. It explores themes of trauma, identity and choice.
By Sketch. The story of several children, victims of brutal experiments, escaping the horrors of their dying universe.
This webcomic by Reese Arquette just wrapped up its first chapter.
Long ago, a lone god attempted to destroy the world he’d created, and long ago, that god was slain by a human with a blow so powerful that it ruptured the world itself.
Humanity was left to pick up whatever scraps were left of the world and, though it took a millennia, they made something new. They failed to realize, however, that there were things they missed in the process. Truths and ideals. Secrets and lies. Hopes and fears. All these things will soon bubble to the surface, rendering the world asunder once more…
Where the Heart Is tells the story of a small group of people as they strive to put together the missing pieces of this puzzle and, consequently, their lives.
A new chapter of this horror comic by Alberto Velasco is now available.
Laila wants to dream, but in a world controlled by a dreamless tyrant that feeds the dreams of children to the Dark Harvesters, she will have to give up her dreams or fight for them.
You can subscribe to Alberto’s Patreon page to read upcoming chapters of the comic early:
By Juliejam.
Marin is the black sheep of the family. Rather than wearing elegant dresses and adhering to the expectations placed upon them, they’ve been moonlighting as a prison guard in a desperate bid to be left alone.
But while they patrol the prison halls, instead of solitude, they find Rayne, a flirtatious and kindhearted pirate with secrets of his own.
As the two grow slowly closer, Marin starts to wonder how someone behind bars can be more free than they’ve ever felt, and faced with the choice to either follow their heart or succumb to the expectations of their family, Marin must find the courage to decide for themselves where they truly belong.
By Yuri Hellworld
After dying and going to hell, Sion’s life gets REALLY bad when she finds out she’s a distortion—an afterlife aberration worth money to the assassins of hell. Good thing she can’t die (again). Too bad she has no memories.
By Kayla Konnichibot. PNEUMA VITA is a comic about a 10-year-old girl named Lyka, who lives with her family in a secluded city where humanity desperately tries to protect itself against a toxic, fungal-infested earth. Her father works in a factory but his asthma worsens everyday. After obtaining a mysterious book about plants, she discovers a medicinal plant of the name “Pneuma Vita”, that is able to treat asthma. The only problem is it grows in the farthest region outside of the city, far beyond everything Lyka knows….
Featured Article: “THE COST OF COMICS: A HISTORY OF THE COMIC BOOK LABOR MOVEMENT”
By CJ Standal. In the wake of “the season of strikes” and the ratification of a comic book workers union (Comic Workers United), CJ Standal takes an in-depth look back at the history of the labor movement as it applies to comics.
Click here to read the article.
Featured Article: “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PLAN NINE PUBLISHING?”
By CJ Standal. In the wake of “the season of strikes” and the ratification of a comic book workers union (Comic Workers United), CJ Standal takes an in-depth look back at the history of the labor movement as it applies to comics.
Click here to read the article.
Featured Opportunity: THE CENTER FOR CARTOON STUDIES: CARTOONIST STUDIO PRIZE
To receive additional opportunities and resources every month, we invite you to become a member of the Co-op!
Each year the Cartoonist Studio Prize will be awarded to work that exemplifies excellence in cartooning. The creators of two exceptional comics for this year will be awarded $1,000 each. The winners will be selected by The Beat and The Schulz Library staff at The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS).
The two award categories for the 12th Cartoonist Studio Prize are Long-form Comic of the Year and Short-form Comic of the Year.
Submissions in both categories must be received by January 30, 2024.
Shortlists of finalists for each category will be announced in April. The two winning comics will be announced shortly after.
