Emma Lawson

Marjane Satrapi’s incredible work Persepolis focuses on the experiences of a young Marji and her family growing up during the Iranian Revolution. The Revolution caused many changes to the relatively peaceful Iran of Marji’s youth, including gender segregation, the abolition of secular education, and the strict enforcement of sharia law. In Persepolis, Marji becomes increasingly rebellious, wearing denim jackets emblazoned with “punk rock,” and going to the black market to buy illegal copies of popular music. It became illegal for women to dance in public, or for men and women to dance together; listening to Western popular music and getting her dance on was a way for Marji to rebel. We’ve put together a mixtape of musicians and songs mentioned in Persepolis to inspire you to celebrate life and rebel a little yourself.

Sarah Stern is an up-and-coming talent in the world of comics. She primarily provides color art for comics like Goldie Vance and Brave Chef Brianna, but she's also created storyboards for animation, and recently created a webcomic, Cindersong, which she writes, illustrates, and colors herself. ComicsAlliance had the chance to talk to Stern at Emerald City Comicon, where we nerded out about how the heck colorists create magic on the page, and talked about fantasy worldbuilding and making friends in the comics world.

With Neil Gaiman’s American Gods coming to television soon, what better time to explore his work? While his writing career is extensive, including short stories, novels, movies, kids' books, and more, we’re going to focus on his work in the field of comics. Gaiman is considered to be part of the British Invasion, a group a British writers of American comics who rose to prominence in the late 1980s. They tended to move away from traditional superhero tales or, like Gaiman, repurposed old comic characters to tell new stories. Since then, Gaiman has been sharing his delightfully dreamy but creepy sensibility with comic readers, for which we are very grateful.

So you find out you’re sick. Like, really sick. And then a guy pops up in your home saying he’s a demon here to talk to you about some business before you die. This is the bleak scenario facing protagonist Anthea Chambers in Mikaela B.'s dark comedy Brain Damage.

Tamra Bonvillain is one of the hardest working people in comics. She's coloring a ton of comics: Doom Patrol, Wayward, Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur, Nighthawk... the list goes on and on. If you're into comics, whether it be Marvel and DC superhero books, or creator-owned comics, you've read something colored by Bonvillain. ComicsAlliance sat down with Bonvillain at Emerald City Comicon to talk about her history in comics, her coloring style, and giving credit where credit is due.

The Strong Female Character trope is in some ways as damaging as the Damsel in Distress; an archetype that rejects the feminine, and thus presents new limits to what a woman can be. Alison Green, the actual protagonist of Strong Female Protagonist, is indeed physically strong --- the strongest on Earth --- but she transcends the trope. She’s just a girl, standing in front of a world, asking it to let her live a normal life.

Andrea Demonakos is one of the many women in comics whose hard work is never properly appreciated. Working as an organizer and coordinator at Emerald City Comicon, then ReedPOP, and named last year as the new festival director for the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival, Demonakos is an integral figure in the comics convention and festival scene, and that gives her a great perspective on the comics community. ComicsAlliance reached out to Demonakos post-ECCC to find out more about what it takes to run a comic con, why comic conventions are so important for creators, and what advice she has for first-time attendees.

Ngozi Ukazu is a sensation in the world of webcomics. Her series Check, Please has an amazingly strong fandom --- translating the comic into other languages, indexing it, creating fanart and fanfic --- and her Kickstarter to print Check, Please Year 2 destroyed its goal in a matter of hours. Check, Please follows Eric Bittle, former figure skater, during his years at Samwell University. He joins Samwell's hockey team and, well, it changes his life. ComicsAlliance had a chance to chat with Ukazu at Emerald City Comicon about hockey fandom, relationships, and finding humor in all kinds of situations.

Imagine spending your whole life living in the same place, doing the same thing, with the same people. You’re happy, you think. But when an opportunity of a lifetime comes along, are you happy enough to stay?

This week, Riverdale's 75th annual variety show takes place, featuring Archie (if he can get over his stage fright) and the Pussycats (if they can stop fighting long enough to perform). Back at the home for wayward girls, Jughead and Betty visit Polly and learn much more about what Jason was planning when he ran away from home. "Faster, Pussycats! Kill Kill!" was written by Tessa Williams and directed by Steven A. Adelson.