Three Delicious Comics About Food

Anxiety-eating our way through the week.

Author

Crucial Comix
November 04, 2024

 Read new comics!

» I Didn’t Feel Like I Lived in America Until I Left California: Artist Ness Ilene Garza reflects on how feelings of safety shape our political participation. 

» Going Gluten Free: A sweet story by Zareen Choudhury shows that what seemed like a setback actually opened up her culinary horizons.

We also published a series of works created by Stop Project 2025 Comics: 
• Voting Can Be a Life and Death Choice 
• Project 2025 Aims to Outlaw Trans People
• How Project 2025 is a Christian Nationalist Dream

Three Foodie Comics I Love

Artist Mariah-Rose Marie is leading this Sunday’s workshop Cooking up Comics: Make a Recipe Zine. Mariah-Rose is the author of the gorgeous and insightful illustrated guide Cook Like Your Ancestors, so we asked her to recommend three comics she loves about delicious food.

• Golden Kamuy by Satoru Noda spends a lot of time accurately depicting Ainu culture (a people native to what is now known as Northern Japan and Eastern Russia) and food is one of the main highlights! Ainu people continue to fight through a history of land theft, violence, and cultural erasure that mirrors those faced by indigenous peoples in the Americas and beyond, so Noda's care and accuracy when illustrating the process and significance of these dishes was enough to make me cry more than once. It's also my favorite manga of all time, as it's an extremely funny read, has an excellent story, and is beautifully drawn.

• The Poorcraft Cookbook by Nero Villagallos O'Reilly is a brilliant and beautifully drawn guide to cooking cheaply and deliciously. Nero not only walks readers through how to make a wide range of meals with beginner friendly recipes, but he also goes into knife care, pantry staples, food safety, storage, and how to shop. The rubber-hose cartooning style is also mad cute.

• She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat by Sakaomi Yuzaki follows the rather lonely life of a kindhearted office worker and single woman who loves cooking insta-worthy meals that she can never finish eating. Enter: a big, handsome, stoic neighbor woman (also a lonely single office worker) with a huge appetite. It's the loveliest, sweetest sapphic slow-burn full of delicious, meticulous meals cooked with love. I cannot wait till volume five comes out next January!

 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!

Multi-week classes

Comics Editing with Shay Mirk and Whit Taylor // Two cartoonists who each have over a decade of comics-editing experience will guide you through this hands-on class that focuses on editing other peoples’ nonfiction work while also improving your own.  Tuesdays from 4pm-5:30pm PST (7pm-8:30pm EST), November 12 – December 3rd

One-off Workshops 

Cooking up Comics: Make a Recipe Zine! // Make a mini-comic of your favorite recipe with Cook Like Your Ancestors author Mariah-Rose Marie! Participants will be shown how to draw juicy dishes, cook up accessible and easy-to-follow recipes, and preserve the stories that made them. Sunday, November 10th, 11am-1pm PST (2pm-4pm EST)

Introduction to Digital Drawing with Procreate // Just picked up a new iPad? Want to get into drawing digitally?This beginner-friendly workshop led by tech savvy youth and Crucial Comix editor Audra McNamee will go over a basic comics-making workflow in Procreate. Thursday, November 21, 5pm-7pm PST (8pm-10pm EST) 

Decolonize the Superhero: New Approaches to Writing Superhero Comics // The history of superheroes has long been dominated by capitalist narratives that glorify masculinity, imperialism, and colonial narratives, particularly from U.S. points of view. Syrian-Canadian comics writer Yazan al-Saadi leads this workshop on exploring how to subvert this U.S.-centric idea of superheroes. Sunday, December 1 from 10am-12pmPST (1pm-3pm EST)

What we’re reading

New nonfiction comics we recommend. 

✏️”When the world is full of noise” is a comic Chanel Miller made last year documenting the beauty of mundane car ride, but it feels perfect to read during this anxious week. If you don’t subscribe to The New Yorker, Chanel generously posted it for free on Instagram. 

😭 A beautiful, perfect comic by Rubyetc about grieving a pet dog who has passed. 

📕 Veteran comics journalist Dan Archer has a powerful new book of graphic journalism, Voices from Nepal: Uncovering Human Trafficking Through Comics Journalism. Dan’s been working on this project since 2012! You can read an interview with Dan about the book at Down the Tubes.

 Opportunities for artists

• The LA Zine Festival is now accepting applications for tabling at their 2025 festival, which will be March 1-2 at The Broad (fancy!!). Applications close November 16. 

• Biggest Little Zine Fair is an innovative monthly zine market in Long Beach, CA, where you can submit your zine (from anywhere!) and volunteers will sell it for you. Cool idea! Submit your zine here. 

• How to Touch Grass is a new comics anthology from Power & Magic Press that’s looking for submissions of comics about connection, isolation, and accessibility. Accepted artists are paid $125/page. Submissions are open until January 12th. 

• An Asexual and Aromantic comics anthology published by Lifeline Comics is accepting submissions from artists for comics across all genres ace and aro identities. Work samples due by November 24th.

Don’t Miss It!

The Nonfiction Comics Festival is November 16th in Burlington, Vermont. If you’re anywhere near Vermont, it’s absolutely worth checking out this free, one-day celebration of nonfiction comics creators. Look at this all-star lineup of exhibitors and special guests! This is a truly delightful comics festival that’s smaller and more chill than a lot of other comics conventions, which makes it more manageable and less overwhelming—especially if you’ve never been to a comics convention before. 

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