Category Archives: Ad Astra Exclusives
#2: The Poor People’s Campaign (Savannah, GA)
The events depicted in this comic are as recent as last Friday (January 15, 2016). We wrote, drew, inked, and did layout within 48 hours, in time for Savannah’s Martin Luther King parade, in which the Poor People’s Campaign participated.
This comic and others are viewable on our Patreon Page, where we are collecting pledges to continue doing this work.
Talk is Cheap #7: Friends Don’t Let Friends Go to Grad School
Episode #7 of Talk is Cheap!
Since the election is over, we’re taking a break from Canadian electoral politics and looking at the politics of academia, so to speak.
We will be going from weekly to bi-weekly as of November (that’s one comic every two weeks, not two comics every week. Sowwy), but this gives you the time to check out all the previous episodes!
Talk is Cheap: Episode #4
Hey Everyone,
We’re back this week with a fresh episode of “Talk is Cheap”. This week’s comic features those lovable little critters that come out this time of year: the opinion pollsters.
We’re still looking for a few more newspapers interested in running the comic! TiC is timely, ever so witty, and a steal-of-a-deal. E-mail us at adastracomix@gmail.com for more info.
Episode 3 of “Talk is Cheap”
Welcome to ‘Talk is Cheap’, our new newspaper-style comic covering the Canadian political scene – such as it is. Following in the tradition of Doonesbury, Bloom County and Weltschmerz, TiC aims to measure the space between rhetoric and reality with a mixture of surrealism, snark and snappy visuals.
Currently running in Trent University’s Arthur Newspaper, with art by Ad Astra Comix founder Nicole Burton and text by lead staff editor Hugh Goldring,
‘Talk is Cheap’ is available for syndication, so send us an e-mail for details if you’re interested!
Next: Episode 4
Episode 2 of “Talk is Cheap”
Welcome to ‘Talk is Cheap’, our new newspaper-style comic covering the Canadian political scene – such as it is. Following in the tradition of Doonesbury, Bloom County and Weltschmerz, TiC aims to measure the space between rhetoric and reality with a mixture of surrealism, snark and snappy visuals.
Currently running in Trent University’s Arthur Newspaper, with art by Ad Astra Comix founder Nicole Burton and text by lead staff editor Hugh Goldring,
‘Talk is Cheap’ is available for syndication, so send us an e-mail for details if you’re interested!
Next: Episode 3
Episode 1 of “Talk is Cheap”
Welcome to ‘Talk is Cheap’, our new newspaper-style comic covering the Canadian political scene – such as it is. Following in the tradition of Doonesbury, Bloom County and Weltschmerz, TiC aims to measure the space between rhetoric and reality with a mixture of surrealism, snark and snappy visuals.
Currently running in Trent University’s Arthur Newspaper, with art by Ad Astra Comix founder Nicole Burton and text by lead staff editor Hugh Goldring,
‘Talk is Cheap’ is available for syndication, so send us an e-mail for details if you’re interested!
Episode 1 (Week of Sept 7)
Next: Episode 2
Drawing the Line: An Exclusive Sneak Preview!
Ad Astra Comix, in cooperation with Zubaan Books has officially opened pre-orders for “Drawing the Line: Indian Women Fight Back!” here in North America. If you have already ordered your copy off our Kickstarter but can’t wait to see what’s in store, here’s a little teaser to keep you going! Below you’ll find an exclusive sneak preview of the beauty and power of ‘Drawing the Line’, which connects issues of gender, sexuality, shade/race, class, and inter-generational dialogue in one exciting volume. In short, we feel that this book includes a little of everything that North American feminism needs: international and intersectional perspectives on the ‘every day’ of womanhood.
Continue reading Drawing the Line: An Exclusive Sneak Preview!
Climate Comix! A Guest Post by Seth Tobocman
Seth Tobocman is a radical comic book artist who has been living in Manhattan’s Lower East Side since 1978. Tobocman is best known for his creation of the political comic book anthology World War 3 Illustrated, which he started in 1979 with fellow artist Peter Kuper. He has also been an influential propagandist for the squatting, anti-globalization, and anti-war movements in the United States. We’re very pleased to be working with Seth, and to share his experience and knowledge with Ad Astra readers. -NMB Why does one read a book? One reason is to inform oneself.
Why does one create a work of art? The earliest art referred to hunting, which was the means through which we survived.
Climate change is a matter of survival about which we are very poorly informed. So it’s natural that there are comics about global warming. Here are four good ones.
Title: POST YORKAuthor/Illustrator: James Romberger
Published: Uncivilized Books (2012)
Pages: 40
Dimensions: 8″ x 11″
Published: Uncivilized Books (2012)
Pages: 40
Dimensions: 8″ x 11″
If you want to know exactly what New York City will look like when its permanently flooded up to the second floor, then James Romberger is probably the guy to show you. James is one of the best draftsmen in comics. He can draw anything, from any angle, without reference. He has the kind of skill that we are all jealous of. His pastel cityscapes are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yeah, you heard that right, in the Met with Rubens and Rembrandt.
James wrote POST YORK in collaboration with his son Crosby who is a rap performer. A disk of Crosby’s music is included in the package. It is the story of two teenagers, a boy and a girl, living in the ruins of Manhattan who encounter each other by chance. It is a concept reminiscent of the movie PLANET OF THE APES and the comic: KAMANDI THE LAST BOY ON EARTH, by one of James’ big influences, Jack Kirby. Romberger also uses a plot device from the experimental films of the 1960s: The story has two endings. The encounter can turn out to be fortuitous or fatal. It is, in the end, a pretty simple story, but Romberger has great compassion for his characters, whose vulnerability is made clear.
There is not much information or analysis of global warming here. But I’ll take heart without analysis over analysis without heart any day of the week. And POST YORK has heart!
Continue reading Climate Comix! A Guest Post by Seth Tobocman
Ad Astra Comix to Release the North American Edition of “Drawing the Line: Indian Women Fight Back!”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 6th, 2015
Ad Astra Comix and Zubaan Books are pleased to announce a North American edition of the groundbreaking comic title ‘Drawing The Line’. The book is a 162-page anthology of 14 accounts by Indian women of their day-to-day experiences in India, illustrated by the authors. After a successful debut in India, ‘Drawing the Line’ is coming to North America where a whole new audience can glean insight from the diverse perspectives of its contributors.4
Released as part of an ongoing national conversation in India around sexual violence and the experience of women in public spaces, ‘Drawing the Line’ is an anthology of comics that range from comics journalism to autobiography. Though some of the comics address sexual violence, other themes include beauty standards, patriarchal attitudes in the workplace, experiences of sisterhood on public transit and other experiences of womanhood in India.
Although the sexual assault case that sparked this national conversation around gender in India was covered in the western press, that coverage has been heavily skewed. Sexual violence has been portrayed as an Indian problem as though it was not also common in North American society. Rather than allowing western media to speak for Indian women, this title presents the individual, on-the-ground experiences of women in their own words and pictures.
At a time when white feminism is struggling to embrace intersectionality in a meaningful way, titles like ‘Drawing the Line’ offer western feminists an opportunity to engage with the lived experiences of Indian women in other parts of the world. For South Asian women living in the diaspora, ‘Drawing the Line’ represents an opportunity to compare similarities and differences between diasporic life and the experience of women still in India.
Zubaan Books, the title’s Indian publisher, are an independent feminist publishing house based out of New Delhi that has been operating since 2003.
Ad Astra Comix is a Toronto-based comics press specializing in the production and publication of comics and graphic novels that amplify marginalized voices. Founded in 2012, Ad Astra is working on several publishing projects in addition to ‘Drawing the Line’.
Press Contact: Nicole Marie Burton
E-mail: adastracomix@gmail.com
Phone: 1-647-863-4994
Phone: 1-647-863-4994
adastracomix.com 