Megan Purdy

Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History by Joel Christian Gill is a narrative history for young readers. The book was released in May of 2014 to some acclaim, but didn’t quite break through to a wider audience. Mark Waid and JG Jones' controversial recent Boom project of the same name has made Gill'’s excellent book a topic of conversation again. J.A. Micheline and Megan Purdy dig deep into Gill's exploration of some of the forgotten faces in black history.

I have not yet checked out Wimmen’s Comix, the all woman, feminist, underground comics anthology that ran for twenty years. Twenty years and I haven’t read a single issue! Well, it was out of print for ages. In September, Fantagraphics will publish a beautiful deluxe edition of The Complete Wimmen’s Comix, and... there goes my autumn.

Love Machines #4 is interested in romance and time and ideas; the black and white comic anthology is devoted to “love stories about technology with an eye to the past.” Written and published by Josh Trujillo through his Lost Key Comics line, Love Machines is, essentially, about relationships between people and objects through time.

Drawn & Quarterly recently celebrated its 25th anniversary at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF). Making the occasion especially poignant was the revelation that Chris Oliveros was stepping down and leaving the company in the hands of longtime associate publisher Peggy Burns and her partner, former D&Q creative director, now executive editor, Tom Devlin. Megan Purdy looks back over Olvieros's accomplishments and celebrates D&Q's contributions to comics.