hope nicholson

Graphic novels are a great gift idea for the comics lovers in your life, but the last few years have also seen a huge rise in the number of comics anthologies being published, many of them centered on a particular theme, or showcasing work from marginalized creators, such as people of color, women, LGBTQ people. The next generation of comics stars are making their start right now, eight pages at a time, in these brilliant anthology projects --- so here's our guide to some of the best comics anthologies to pick up this holiday season.

Following the huge success of Moonshot, the indigenous comics anthology, editor Hope Nicholson and publisher AH Comics announced a few weeks ago that they'd be bringing a sequel book to Kickstarter. Featuring stories by and about indigenous comics creators, the anthology collects comics from both new and established writers and artists, spreading their voice and stories around the world. With the campaign for the second Moonshot anthology now running on Kickstarter, Back Pages got in touch with Nicholson and contributors David Robertson, Elizabeth LaPensée and Richard Van Camp to find out what makes Moonshot such an important project, and what kind of stories they bring to the second volume.

Enough Space for Everyone Else is a space and sci-fi themed anthology with a difference: the book promises to feature absolutely no stories about war, imperialism, or anything that looks to turn the grand unexplored majesty of space into yet another battleground. With the galaxy stretching out infinitely, why do so many authors seem intent on using that canvas as merely another place to do a war story? Editor J.N. Monk's PG-13 anthology looks to truly make use of the endless possibility of space, widening the types of stories that can be told within its limitless scope. ComicsAlliance stopped to explore the galaxy with J.N., and find out what they have in store for the project.

What a week! I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to sit back and read some comics. The weekend is finally here, and the world can relax and rest once more — but the comics industry has been busy too, you know, and the last seven days have seen a flurry of comics-based news and announcements fly past at high speed. ComicsAlliance has got your back, though: when it comes to comics, we never slow down, so here’s a look back and just what’s been going on. New comics, new stories, new podcasts, new art being made — it’s all part of the ComicsAlliance Weekender!

Read “fashion comic” and it’s easy — it’s really easy — to visualise genteel elegance, perhaps (if you want to get nutty) with a side of razzle-dazzle. Dior, Chanel, the '50s-through-'70s girls’ comics with paper dolls and reader-designed costumes... What was once daring and new, liberating for the wearer, has become established, gender-restrictive, rote and retro. Things "for girls," or about us, are easy enough to dismiss without the added impression that comics, as an English-language industry, doesn't think girls want much more than the feminine or the shallow. We imagine "fashion comics" and see good clean fun — easily, we see compliance. Interrogating that reductive response is hard when we look around and see very little to contradict it, or to comfort our non-compliant selves with, as we explore what fashion and gender mean personally, to us. Fashion in Action, currently halfway through a healthy Kickstarter campaign, is something to cling onto: Fashion in Action is kind of grotty.

The weekend is here! Put down your paperwork, throw your stationery out of the window, and do a victory spin in your office chair, because it’s time to catch up on that greatest of all media: comics! What’s been going on this week? There’s so much comics that there’s no way anybody can keep up with all of it — so Weekender is here to catch you up on some of the stories you may have missed, and some of the best writing about comics from the past few days.

Dark Horse comics has announced plans to publish the Kickstarter-funded anthology The Secret Loves of Geek Girls in October 2016. The book, which already got a lot of buzz during its Kickstarter funded campaign, is edited by Hope Nicholson and features a mix of prose and comics about relationships and sex by more than 50 creators.

In 2014, Toronto publisher Alternate History Comics launched a Kickstarter for an anthology of indigenous comics, with the goal of “showcasing the rich heritage and identity of indigenous storytelling.” The resulting anthology, Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, Volume 1, is now available, and it presents a unique and much needed look into aboriginal storytelling in multiple aspects. It’s easy, as an indigenous person, to slip into what sounds like hyperbole when discussing a project like this. This is one of the most important comics of the year! But it’s easy for the same reasons that make it hard for any statement to actually be that hyperbolic; the blunt reality of comics as a business and popular medium is that there really aren’t that many aboriginal stories being told, and what few aboriginal characters there are usually employ crude stereotypes. These stereotypes aren’t continued out of any real sense of hatred, but out of the almost complete lack of aboriginal people involved in the telling of these stories.

Following two successful Kickstarters collecting the comics work of classic Canadian cartoonists, this year sees writer and editor Hope Nicholson return to crowdfunding for a completely new project, The Secret Loves of Geek Girls. Gathering a varied collection of thematically-linked pieces, including comics, illustrated stories, and prose, the anthology --- now running on Kickstarter --- will feature work from creators including Mariko Tamaki, Sam Maggs, Jen Vaughn, Irene Koh and, yes, Margaret Atwood. The Secret Loves of Geek Girls will focus on just that --- real and imagined stories on the topics of dating, love, romance and (whisper it!) sex. Nothing more, nothing less; love is the best. This is a huge undertaking, but one that Nicholson is certainly qualified to bring together. To find out more about the project, ComicsAlliance spoke to her about what we can expect from the collection, how Margaret Atwood got involved, and the story that Hope herself will write for the anthology.

Canada offers an impressive range of comics talents, but its comic industry has usually been overshadowed by the buying power of the U.S. market -- but for one brief period in modern history. During the Second World War Canada restricted the import of non-essential items -- and that included comic books. For much of the 1940s, Canadians could only read Canadian comics. The era has become known as the Canadian Golden Age. Hope Nicholson was a researcher on a documentary about the characters created during this era, Lost Heroes. Fascinated by the subject, Nicholson and her partner Rachel Richey launched a project to restore and republish the stories of one of the first comic superheroines, Adrian Dingle's Nelvana of the Northern Lights. With that book now in print, Nicholson has launched a Kickstarter to revive another lost Canadian hero; the square-jawed action man Brok Windsor.