I’m so pleased to say that Pawn Shop, by me and Sean Von Gorman, is being published by Z2 Comics this fall, as announced by Publishers Weekly earlier today.
The book is currently available for pre-order on Amazon and at your local book and comic stores. If you were a Kickstarter backer or purchased one of the self-published editions from us at some point, your support means the world! If you enjoyed it, we’d love if you could continue spreading the word and get your local shops to order a copy or just tell a friend!
Spoilers for Game of Thrones. And early ’90s Superman comics, I guess.
Death in stories is important. Or at least, it should be.
Coming from comics, we’re used to death being a revolving door. Heroes and villains die frequently and eventually return. It’s part of the tapestry that makes superhero comics what they are. The impact of these deaths, when done well, is a source of great drama and character exploration. Their purpose is to reinvigorate the ongoing stories with a new status quo and open up new paths of storytelling. Likewise when the same characters return.
The most well-known example — and the best, I would argue — would be the death of Superman. By 1992 Superman had become sort of passe, an optimistic character in a pessimistic world. In an era of things like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, Superman had become almost anachronistic. The public’s wants seemed to be shifting, and this was reflected in Hollywood as much as in comics. 1987 delivered the ill-conceived and repugnant Superman IV: The Quest for Peace — an abysmal flop — while the grittier Dark Knight found smashing success in Tim Burton’s Batman only two years later. The era of the morally upstanding hero was done, it seemed, and the ’90s ushered in the era of the anti-heroes and grim avengers. More brooding, more bullets, more blood.
If you haven’t seen It Follows, there are spoilers here. I highly recommend avoiding this post until you have a chance to watch and unpack this movie. Not even because I’m spoiling it for you, but because I want you to spout your theories and your reads. Let’s dig into this shit.
It Follows is the modern horror movie that finally understands that over-explanation is, in fact, the removal of horror.
That writer/director David Robert Mitchell rejects any notion of explanation is why It Follows is as compelling as it is. In this interview with Yahoo! he has a lot of interesting things to say, but his quote “something from a nightmare can’t be explained” sums up his movie perfectly.
It Follows is a horror movie with something to say, but ultimately it’s up to the viewer to unpack what that might be. It could be read as an allegory for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, a celebration of monogamy, an exploration of true love, a condemnation of casual sex, the terrible effects of a non-present parent, the nature of death, facing the consequences of our choices, or… it could just be a nightmare caught on film. And there are no rules for a nightmare.
Over two years ago, I posted a piece calling out some severely inappropriate behavior by a comics retailer in my home state of MA. While I can’t say if his behavior has changed at all during this time, I can say that we followed through on the promise I made in that post — that we’d put together an anthology that uses comics to fight the type of bullying that, unfortunately, happens even within our own community of creators, retailers, and readers.
With the help of my co-editors Adam Pruett, Erica Schultz, and Kristopher White, we assembled an elite comic-book-making team ranging from superstar A-listers to exciting up-and-comers that donated their time, effort, and creative juices to create an anthology that we’re proud of with a variety of different styles and a theme that unites. It’s been a long, hard road to make this book a reality, with conversations with nearly every comic publisher you can think of, but we’re blessed to have teamed up with Northwest Press to get this book out the door.
A RISE cover by Sean Von Gorman
NWP launched a Kickstarter last month that ended yesterday — exceeding its goal of $10,000. The money was to cover printing costs to distribute these books to our partner organizations so they can give them away for free at schools and events. Our partners were also instrumental over these past two years of getting this thing together — GLAAD, Stand for the Silent, and PRISM Comics — and we can’t thank them enough.
So to everyone that kicked in or spread the word, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. This project has been a labor of love (and oftentimes a mountain of stress) for everyone involved, but knowing that people supported a project like this — getting it into the hands of kids for free — is amazing.
Head on over to the Kickstarter updates to see some of the stories that we’ve posted for a free sample!
