Oni Press

Portland-based comics publisher Oni Press is launching a new imprint called Limerence Press, dedicated to erotica and sex education comics. Limerence will focus on "positive, diverse, and approachable stories that reflect a wide variety of emotional and intimate experiences." The first books released under the Limerence imprint will be the first three collected volumes of Oh Joy Sex Toy, the sex education webcomic by by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan.

Best Comic Books Ever (This Week) is our weekly guide to the best new comics in stores, but today we're taking a special look at the best free comics on offer at this year's Free Comic Book Day on Saturday 7 May. Free Comic Book Day is an annual event in which publishers offer readers a chance to pick up free comics and samplers at local comic book stores. To find a participating store near you visit FreeComicBookDay.com. Most stores will only let you pick up a limited number of free comics, so that there are enough to go around, so here are our recommendations of the cream of the crop.

The question most often asked of the ComicsAlliance staff is a variation of, “Which comic books should I be reading?” or, “I’m new to comics, what’s a good place to start?” The Wednesday deluge of new comic books, graphic novels and collected editions can be daunting even for the longtime reader, much less for those totally unfamiliar with creators, characters and publishers, and the dark mysteries of comic book shopping like variants, pre-ordering, and formats. It’s with these challenges in mind that we’ve created Best Comic Books Ever (This Week), an ongoing guide curated by the ComicsAlliance staff. This is where new comics readers and seasoned Wednesday shoppers alike can find our picks of the best books the medium has to offer.

Dan Harmon's hit animated show Rick and Morty is a property tailor-made for comics, packed full of mad science, alternate worlds and family drama. The ongoing series from Oni Press has been a huge hit with fans of the show, and later this year one of independent comics In an exclusive interview with LA Times, Oni Press announced that Sexcastle writer Kyle Starks will be taking over the ongoing series beginning in July. Drawn by the regular team of CJ Cannon and Ryan Hill with back-ups by Marc Ellerby, Starks' joins the book for five issues beginning with Rick and Morty #16.

The question most often asked of the ComicsAlliance staff is a variation of, “Which comic books should I be reading?” or, “I’m new to comics, what’s a good place to start?” The Wednesday deluge of new comic books, graphic novels and collected editions can be daunting even for the longtime reader, much less for those totally unfamiliar with creators, characters and publishers, and the dark mysteries of comic book shopping like variants, pre-ordering, and formats. It’s with these challenges in mind that we’ve created Best Comic Books Ever (This Week), an ongoing guide curated by the ComicsAlliance staff. This is where new comics readers and seasoned Wednesday shoppers alike can find our picks of the best books the medium has to offer.

Last year, Oni Press opened their submission policy to anybody interested in pitching, and was inundated with over 2,500 creators seeking to have their work published by Oni. This weekend at Emerald City Comic Convention, Oni announced five of the books that will be published thanks to this initiative The first comic to be published via Oni’s open submission initiative was Natalie Riess’ Space Battle Lunchtime, which is released next month. There are plans to publish ten titles in total as a result of the initiative, with four more to be announced at a later date.

The question most often asked of the ComicsAlliance staff is a variation of, “Which comic books should I be reading?” or, “I’m new to comics, what’s a good place to start?” The Wednesday deluge of new comic books, graphic novels and collected editions can be daunting even for the longtime reader, much less for those totally unfamiliar with creators, characters and publishers, and the dark mysteries of comic book shopping like variants, pre-ordering, and formats. It’s with these challenges in mind that we’ve created Best Comic Books Ever (This Week), an ongoing guide curated by the ComicsAlliance staff. This is where new comics readers and seasoned Wednesday shoppers alike can find our picks of the best books the medium has to offer.

WrestleMania was this past weekend, and outside of perhaps the infamous "Attitude Era" of the late-'90s, it's never been more socially acceptable to proudly admit that you love the King of Sports, professional wrestling. The Rock is the biggest star in Hollywood, the Total Divas are taking over E, and John Cena is viral meme superstar; wrestling has officially broken through to the mainstream again. It's also never been a better time for comics about professional wrestling, a far cry from the days of the old WCW comic or the weird one where Chyna is a bodyguard in her spare time. We've assembled a list of five of the best independent comics about wrestling, if you're still in the mood for some pro-graps after watching The Granddaddy of Them All.

It used to be, before most of us were born, that comics were made about anything that was popular. Westerns, war stories, romance, celebrities: whatever people were into, comics would jump on it. Then for several decades superheroes were totally dominant, but that's starting to come back around again. Today, readers' ideas about what comics can be and do has been expanded by companies like Oni, Boom, and Image. What I'm getting at here is that there was once a version of the comics industry in which it would be surprising that it's taken this long for there to be a comic book about a cooking competition show. But in this reality, even as someone who watches and loves cooking shows, it never occurred to me that this was a possibility. But here we are, with the first issue of Space Battle Lunchtime, an Oni comic with words and art by Natalie Riess.

KC Green’s Graveyard Quest is the tale of an odd little man who works as a graveyard and keeps his mother’s remains in a box in his shack. His father was the gravedigger before him, and his spirit haunts the graveyard, berating his son for his perceived weaknesses. When The Gravedigger wakes up one morning to find his father has absconded with his mother’s remains, he finds the resolve within himself to chase his father through the underworld and into Hell to bring his mother back. Originally published as a webcomic in 2013, Graveyard Quest drew wide praise and has been likened to a modern day Dante’s Inferno. The comic balances wacky situations, Curb Your Enthusiasm style misunderstandings and very heavy emotional moments, and is now coming to print courtesy of Oni Press on March 23. Ahead of the collected edition’s release, ComicsAlliance spoke to KC Green about Graveyard Quest, father issues and the inherent differences that come with stories published as webcomics.