Crucial Comix is here!

Crucial Comix is now live! We are so proud of what we’ve made!

Crucial Comix is the home for essential nonfiction comics. We are a cartoonist-run small press that publishes narrative nonfiction comics and offer compelling classes on comics-making and practice. As cartoonists face down book bans, political censorship, and financial difficulty in publishing boundary-pushing work, it’s more important than ever to build a community of artists that is rooted in mutual support and enthusiasm.

Audra and Shay spent the summer building the lovely website that showcases nonfiction comics, classes, zines, and one very cool hat. Check out the site and tell us what your favorite comic is so far.  

Celebrate Crucial’s Launch 

If you’re in Portland, come to our drink and draw launch party outside Books With Pictures on Wednesday, September 25th from 6pm-8pm. Snag some bubbly water, spend some time drawing, and connect with other people who love comics! It’s a win-win-win.

Get Free Stickers! 

Wherever you live, we want you to be able to celebrate Crucial’s debut with some fun stickers. Fill out this form and we’ll snail mail you two free Crucial stickers. Thanks for being part here to support us at the very beginning. 💚

Upcoming classes

The whole idea behind Crucial is to create a space where anyone can experiment, learn, and play with making comics. Whether you’re someone who’s devoted years to developing illustration skills or you’re someone who’s a bit intimidated by drawing, we want to help you create whatever idea is in your brain. Here are a few of our classes and workshops this fall:

• Make Your Dang Comic! Cartooning Fundamentals with Kane Lynch // Tuesday evenings starting October 15th

• Facing the Blank Page: Creating Comics When You’re Afraid of Drawing with Ali Holmes // Saturday mornings starting November 9th

• Making Memoir Comics with Shay Mirk // Wednesday evenings starting October 23rd

• Workshop: Drawing Queer Ecology with Frances Cannon // Thursday, October 17th

• Workshop: Decolonize the Superhero with Yazan al-Saadi // Thursday, November 14th

What’s next?

This is weekly newsletter that will include links to all the comics we publish, upcoming events, mini-interviews, and some of our favorite nonfiction comics published on other sites. See you next week!