» Creating Space for Trans Joy and Rage by Teddie Bernard - During my first Trans Day of Visibility after starting hormone replacement therapy, I’m feeling like being trans is such a gift.

» Lake Erie Was Dead, Now We’re Fighting for Its Life  by Kelci D. Crawford - Everyone deserves clean water to drink and swim in. But agricultural waste turns the water of the Great Lake toxic. What can we do about it? 

» Uprooted: Voices of Student Homelessness - Over one million students in the United States don’t have a stable home to return to at the end of the day. 

» Toxic Excellence - As vaccine-skeptic RFK now holds immense power in U.S. health policy, a public health worker looks back on what we can learn from 2020. 

» Crying at the Orgy by Laura M. - I felt comfortable being polyamorous. But diving into my first play party filled me with anxiety.

All of our classes are sliding-scale and offered online, so they’re affordable and you can join from anywhere. We also have free spots available in every class and workshop for people who can’t afford the price—get in touch if you’d like to request a free spot!

• Comics for Grief: Grief is different for everyone. Sometimes comics can help you process. In this 3-hr workshop, led by teacher Ali Holmes, we will be focused on how comics artists process grief through the creation of comics.This workshop will include reading portions of several comics and drawing your own comics through prompts and exercises. Saturday, April 12, 10am-1pm PST/1pm-4pm EST

• Forms and Folds: Innovative Shapes for Zines: Unfold new possibilities for storytelling in this hands-on, two-hour workshop exploring the art of forms and folds in comics! Jillian King leads this workshop on how to reimagine the single-page zine, experiment with accordion folds, and dive into the basics of pop-up techniques to transform your comics into interactive and tactile experiences. Wednesday April 23rd, 5-7pm PST/8-10pm EST

• Big Fat Comics:  Do you find yourself gravitating towards drawing one type of body image in your work? This two-hour workshop led by Nicole Testa LaLiberty playfully examines fatphobia in comics art and offers a couple fat-positive prompts to explore.  Wednesday, May 14th at 4pm-6pm PST/7pm-9pm EST

• Navigating Climate Anxiety and Grief Through Comics: Artists Denali Sai Nalamalapu, author of Holler: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance, and Madeleine Jubilee Saito, author of You Are a Sacred Place: Visual Poems for Living in Climate Crisis, team up to lead this timely and reflective two-hour workshop.  Tuesday, May 20th, 2pm-4pm PST/5pm-7pm EST

Over the next two months, Crucial is tabling at two comics festivals in Europe and one in Canada. If you live in any of these places, come say hi! 

May 3rd: Comic Invasion Berlin - A very fun, free, volunteer-run festival celebrating indie creators at Berlin’s Museum for Communication. The theme this year is dis_ability. 

May 16-18: Fanzineist Vienna - We’re excited to table at this rad gathering of independent publishers from over 33 countries, all coming together for this free three-day festival. 

June 7-8: Toronto Comics Arts Fest (TCAF) - Canadians! Come revel at this beloved, long-running comics festival that takes over Toronto for two days.

The title of Cara Gormally’s new graphic memoir Everything is Fine, I’ll Just Work Harder hits close to home. Cara describes themselves as “a former badass”—someone who used to pride themselves on getting everything done (career! exercise! family!!) but that comes to a crashing halt as they takes time to deal with grief and trauma. 

I resonate a little too deeply with the title of your book. Can you tell us how your internal monologue shifts over the course of the book? What phrase do you try to keep in mind now? 

CARA: My inner monologue changed tremendously over a few years in therapy. In the beginning, I had such a harsh inner critic—always pushing myself to do more. Between radical acceptance and compassion, I got to a place of deep care and kindness for myself and others. We’re all doing the best we can in every moment. Shit happens—we can’t control everything. What is the grace we can offer ourselves and others? I believe another world is possible—both inside ourselves and outside.

What was the hardest part of writing this book? 

CARA: The hardest part of writing this book was trusting the process. It’s long. It’s lonely. Yet I found everything I needed inside of me and from loved ones and the comics community. It just wasn’t always on the timeline I “expected”—it was on the timeline I didn’t know I needed. Trusting that is challenging.

You have a distinctive drawing style—how do you describe your own style and what do you like about your own drawings? 

CARA: I’d describe my drawing style as simple clean line drawings. Two things come to mind when I think about what I love about my drawings: they feel like a gift of time and play and wonder for myself; and I love that my style continues to evolve—just as I as a human continue to evolve.

Check out the book: Everything is Fine, I’ll Just Work Harder.

• A huge and prestigious prize for people working on graphic nonfiction books is open for applications: The Whitting Creative Nonfiction Grant is $40,000 to work on a “book-length work of deeply researched and imaginatively composed nonfiction for a general adult readership.” Tantalizing. 

• Solstice Magazine is offering a $500 award and print publication for a new piece of graphic fiction of nonfiction. If you’ve got a 1-6 page comic, consider submitting it before June 1!

• Want to make a zine about disability justice? Wild Ramp publishing is offering four $250 micro-grants to creators who want to make disability-focused zines. Applications due April 18.

• Ignatz Award submissions are now open! The Ignatz Awards are the biggest small-press award for comics in the United States. Winners receive a literal brick. It’s totally okay to submit self-published work! 

This newsletter is written by Shay Mirk. If you have comics or opportunities you think we should feature, email Shay at [email protected]. 💌