A History Comic About Fighting Colonizers

Good comics for hard times.

Author

Crucial Comix
February 04, 2025

 Read new comics!

» Toypurina - Artist Lindsey Danae Perez tells the historical story of how Tongva medicine woman Toypurina rallied her people to fight Spanish colonizers.

» A Richer Picture - When asked to describe a person in a photo, Al Benbow wound up reflecting on assumptions about gender presentation.

Cartoonists for Palestine Event

Things are feeling bleak. But here’s some good news: Crucial was able to make our first donation to Palestinian aid groups from Cartoonists for Palestine book profits. We donated a total of $1,315 in January to Palestinian aid, and will continue to donate all future profits from the book. This upcoming weekend, contributors are hosting a book launch party in San Francisco. If you’re in the Bay Area, come say hi, buy a book, and meet new friends! Saturday, Feb. 8th, 7-9pm at Silver Sprocket (1018 Valencia Street)

Donation-based workshop: Taxes for Artists

Anxious about how to do your taxes? You're not alone. We’re running a donation-based workshop where tax advisor Elisabeth Parker from Brass Taxes will talk about common questions, problems, and issues that come up for freelancers doing their taxes in the United States, then take questions from participants. This is not a time to help individual people with their personal tax returns, but a great place for working artists to bring general tax questions. Such as: How the heck do I do my taxes?! This one-hour workshop will get you started with some helpful knowledge. Thursday, Feb. 20th, 1pm-2pm PST/4pm-5pm EST

 Upcoming classes and workshops

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!

Intro to Clip Studio for Personal Comics: Clip Studio is a sophisticated and useful software specifically designed for making comics. Buuuut it can also be pretty intimidating to new users. Artist Kane Lynch leads this two-hour workshop about Clip Studio basics. Wednesday, February 19 from 4-6pm PST/7pm-9pm EST

Making Memoir Comics: This seven-session memoir comics class led by Shay Mirk focuses on telling real-life stories about your life, identity, and family. We will aim to write and draw a 20-panel personal story, and participants will also create shorter comics to practice different techniques and find their visual voice. Wednesdays, March 5 – April 16th from 5pm-7pmPST/8pm-9pm EST 

How to Get an Agent: In this two-hour workshop, cartoonist Al Benbow will cover the basics of how to get an agent for a graphic novel project: preparing your pitch, querying agents, and how to know when you’ve found an agent that’s right for you. Thursday March 6, 5-7pm PST/8-10pm EST

Free Meetup

Chronic Illness Comics Club: This very chill monthly meetup facilitated by Zareen Choudhury kicks off with a drawing prompt, then participants are encouraged to share their own work dealing with chronic illness. Sunday, February 16 at 1pm PT / 4pm ET

News ☹️ 

Meta is now an “anti-LGBTQ company,” says the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer media advocacy organization GLAAD, following a hard-right shift in the company’s policies. In early January, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company would get rid of fact-checking teams and end DEI programs. It also deleted trans and nonbinary themes on Facebook messenger and modified its hate speech policies to allow more anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on the platform. This leaves many artists wondering if it’s time to leave Instagram and Facebook, which Meta owns, and scrambling for ways to promote their work without putting money in Zuckerberg’s pocket. One of the main reasons Crucial Comix exists is to build a cartoonist-run place to publish our work that’s not owned by a billionaire or subject to ever-shifting algorithms. For now, Crucial Comix is still on Instagram, but we also started a Bluesky account, where you are welcome to follow us if you’re leaving the Metaverse.

$$ Opportunities for artists $$

• The Comics Advisory Group is offering mini-grants of $500 to people making comics. This is open to comics of all genres, and creators around the world (hell yeah!). Applications are open now through February 12th. 

• 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 April 18.  

• Trailer Blaze is a comics residency at the Sou’wester Lodge on the Washington coast run by Seattle comics festival Short Run. The “women-centered” residency is open to comics creators who are cis or trans women, nonbinary, or genderqueer. Applications are open through February 28th. 

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