How Dungeons & Dragons Shaped My Gender

New comics plus opportunities for artists

Author

Crucial Comix
August 08, 2025

 Read new comics!

» Character Bleed: Creating characters for role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons helped me realize I'm trans.

» Hoy No Circula: To fight pollution, in 1989 Mexico City passed a law to limit the number of cars on the road. How did that turn out?

» Yield: To survive as a disabled person, I have to give away so much of myself to this dehumanizing bureaucracy. 

» It’s Not Everyday: A personal reflection on inpatient treatment for depression and anxiety—it didn’t heal me, but it stabilized me.

What We’re Reading

Dan Archer is a British comics journalist and author of Voices from Nepal, a graphic novel about human trafficking and the efforts taken to stop it in Nepal. The book is also a guide for how comics journalism can be used in awareness-raising campaigns. It holds up a mirror up to the ways that international and local NGOs study and combat trafficking, reflecting on both the positive and negative impacts they can have. Through a combination of live sketches, illustrated reportage, and visual testimonies, Dan champions the use of graphic journalism in human rights reporting and emphasizes the need for a survivor-centric approach to this work. We asked Dan to share three nonfiction comics he loves. 

Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco - This work couldn't be more urgent reading these days. But what truly sets it apart is how Sacco blends different strands of history to chronicle the catastrophic suffering of the Palestinian people. 

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton - This is a slow-burn masterpiece about underreported parts of Canada I had no idea about, as well as the toxic culture surrounding it.

March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell - Powell's fluid panel layouts spill out of the fixed panel grid and really elevate this to another level.

 New Art in the Shop!

Postcard print: We printed up the title panel from Ree Artemisa’s gorgeous comic “The Land Is an Ancestor We Refuse to Abandon” as a print that can either be hung on your wall or mailed as a postcard. We’re donating $1 from every sale to life-saving migrant support group No Más Muertes.  

Top Surgery Care Zine Pack: Do you know someone who’s getting top surgery? Maybe this person is you! We put together an adorable pack of three zines about top surgery experiences, plus a holographic Gender Euphoria sticker. 

Normalize Crying in Public: The perfect sticker for our times.

 Upcoming classes

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!

Flyer illustration by Casper Mayberry.

• Pleasure is Powerful: A Sex-Positive Zine-Making Workshop: Whether you’re a seasoned sex educator, or you’re just beginning to unlearn the culture of sex negativity, come join artist Caitlin Chow-Ise for some low-stakes reflection and creation! Saturday, August 23rd at 10am-noon PST/1pm-3pm EST

• Make Your Dang Comic! Cartooning Fundamentals: Artist Kane Lynch’s popular class on kickstarting your creativity returns for a new eight-week session in August. Whether you’re an experienced artist or a total beginner, this class will put you on track to create a finished comic you can be proud of. Tuesdays from 5pm-7pmPST/8pm-10pm EST from August 12th – September 30 

• Intermediate to Digital Drawing with Procreate: Get to know Procreate for real! This workshop led by Audra McNamee will challenge you to use new Procreate tools and settings as you make an illustration. Monday, August 18 from 5-7pm PST/8-10pm EST

Free Meetup 

Chronic Illness Comics Club: This free, low-key meetup is a place for people with chronic illnesses to connect and create art. Artist Zareen Choudhury will lead the group through a writing and drawing prompt, then everyone is given the chance to share their work. Next meetup is this Sunday, August 10, at 11am-12:15pm PST/2pm-3:15pm EST

Project Spotlight: Drawing Resistance

Portraits of Palestinian journalists and healthcare workers

Over the past year, Italian artist Gianluca Costantini has devoted himself to a difficult task: creating portraits of journalists and healthcare workers who have been murdered by the Israeli military in Palestine. Gianluca especially focuses on people where there are no photographs available. “My illustrations are not mere portraits; they are activist testimonies that seek to restore dignity and humanity to those who are often reduced to statistics or erased by major international media,” writes Gianluca. “With an essential but intense line, I aim to give a human face to those brutally erased by violence, turning these images into a living memorial and an urgent call to defend freedom of information.” Gianluca began this project as a collaboration with the Committee to Protect Journalists—since 2023, 186 journalists have been killed in Israel and Occupied Palestinian territories. He makes all the portraits available to download, print, and share, so they’ve been displayed at vigils and protests across the world.

$$ Opportunities for artists $$

• The Nonfiction Comics Fest in Vermont just extended its application for artists. This is a free festival in November that’s on the smaller side, but every single artist is amazing. It’s a great festival for first-time tablers, so if you’re a slightly anxious artist… get in there! Applications are due August 10.   

• The Black Zine Fair is a very cool festival of Black zine makers and they’re hosting a mini-festival in Detroit, Michigan on August 9th. If you’re near Detroit, check it out! 

• Portland, Oregon artists! Applications are open for Regional Arts and Culture Council grants for projects with budgets ranging from $1,000-5,000. This is the perfect grant for funding a comic! Applications close September 24. 

• A ton of zines are currently looking for submissions. These are unpaid, but contributing to a group zine is a great way to get a comic published and connect to community. Here’s just a sampling of zines looking for art right now: Bird’s Nest zine out of Spokane, Washington is looking for submissions on the theme of “analog,”  Junk Drawer is a zine out of Nebraska (cool!) that’s looking for artists with any connection to the state to submit, the Twin Cities Collage Collective is looking for queer and trans artists to submit to a new issue (make a collage comic!), and Austin’s Sherwood Forest zine library is looking for downloadable zines to feature in their archive. 

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