Hello, everyone! This is the Comics NEWS Digest, an aggregation of all the top comics and comics-related stories that caught my attention that I thought you might enjoy reading. I post these two weeks after every regular newsletter.
Let’s dive in with the first of a couple reversals. The crowdfunding platform Kickstarter became the latest entity pressured by payment processors to ban adult content. If you follow the work of Kevin LaPorte, you know how much this would affect the comics campaigns on there. After a great deal of outrage that was both understandable and completely predictable, Kickstarter amended their statement to explain that they would not be banning adult content outright but that the payment processors handling the funds raised by campaigns with adult content may decide to ban or block them, which feels arbitrary and not at all reassuring. This is a ridiculous and unnecessary controversy generated by a handful of sanctimonious extremists with outsized influence and yet another functional monopoly, payment processing company Stripe.
One of the most upsetting pieces of news in the past month was the revelation that a comic created using generative AI had made its way into an anthology that was subsequently nominated for an Eisner. The anthology in question was eventually pulled from the list of nominees, which you can find in full in the Awards section below. ☞ 𝙱𝚢𝚛𝚘𝚗 𝙾’𝙽𝚎𝚊𝚕 of Comic Book Yeti created a petition to close the loophole in the Eisner nominating process to ensure this never happens again. It’s got almost 4,000 verified signatures at time of writing.
In other AI news, deceased Marvel creator Stan Lee’s voice and likeness have been licensed by the company ElevenLabs, because nobody learned anything from that ghoulish hologram at LA Comic Con last year.
In more monstrous news, Neil Gaiman is suing one of the many women who has accused him of sexual misconduct for half a million dollars for breaking a nondisclosure agreement. I don’t know if he thinks this will make him look less guilty or if he reasons he has nothing to lose, but he can go to hell.
Saturday, May 16 was the Nakba Day March in New York City for Palestinian liberation, although you might not have known from the extent of the coverage it received. There was a whole contingent of comics professionals who showed up for this event, and good for them.
In other New York City news, the NYC Public Schools’ Civics for All Comics Group program released an educational Know Your Rights comic for residents of the city, including undocumented immigrants. It was written by Alex Segura, with art by David Hahn, letterer Taylor Esposito, and colorist Ellie Wright.
Also in May, HR 2616 passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. This is different from the national book ban, but also would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and prohibits the teaching of “gender ideology” and would force teachers to out trans students to their parents. This is why it’s been nicknamed the “Don’t Say Trans” bill. It’s stuck in committee in the Senate now, so voice your displeasure to your senators if you’re in the United States.
In corporate comics news, the Diamond bankruptcy has caught the attention of business outlets framing it as a fight between JPMorgan Chase & Co and publishing companies over the latter’s assets that are being held to recoup from the bankruptcy. It should be fairly obvious what “side” I’m on here. JPMorgan is Diamond’s largest creditor but it’s also one of the largest banks in the world and I fail to see how much they’ll gain in the long run by sending a dozen companies spiraling into bankruptcy for physical stock valued at an amount their executives can probably find in their couch cushions.
In Dark Horse news, the board of directors of their owners, Swedish gaming conglomerate Embracer Group, has decided to spin off the comic company’s immediate parent company, Fellowship Entertainment, into its own, public company. The announcement reads something like Dark Horse is being converted into an IP farm, but here’s hoping that’s just my failure to understand business jargon. Good news, though! Jay Komas, interim CEO of Dark Horse, released a statement that management had chosen to voluntarily recognize their employees’ union. Congratulations to Dark Horse Workers United!
This all comes in the wake of Dark Horse closing all three of its physical Things from Another World storefronts after almost 50 years in business.
Applications for the Cartoonist Cooperative’s Digital Comics Residency are open until June 30! If you’re a webcomic creator, be sure to apply.
Lastly, the Black Comics Alliance has called for a boycott of DC with the hashtag #DCBlackout as the second phase of a protest that began with #DCSoWhite. The fight for representation in media continues.
In Publishers Weekly, Zack Quaintance has this look at how comics series develop readership and word of mouth beyond their first issues. It’s nice to see comics creators think unconventionally from a marketing perspective to entice new readers as there is a lot more to most series beyond their debuts.
Over at CBR, Austin Allen Hamblin has a couple of pieces about DC. The first is this look at Superman and how he’s more radical than people realize. It should come as no surprise that I heartily agree with this one. The second is about lesser-known characters who deserve a comeback (always nice to know there are more Wildcat fans out there!).
Continuing a look at DC characters, Stephanie Burt has this look at the recently deceased Gerry Conway’s Firestorm, the Nuclear Man and Tilly Bridges interviewed Nicole Maines about the character Dreamer, whom she portrayed on the Supergirl tv show and is writing as part of the Justice League: Dream Girls DC Pride Event comic.
Tilly Bridges herself was interviewed along with her wife, Susan, by Avery and Ollie Kaplan about writing Star Trek comics and their own original work and how their relationship as a married trans woman and cis woman, respectively, informs their work.
The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in London is hosting an exhibition titled Queer as Comics that explores the history of queer representation in comics. It’s Nice That contributor Jenny Brewer spoke with curator Paul Gravett about the exhibit and the uniqueness of comics and queer representation.
I had the pleasure of meeting creator Kasey Iris at a signing of her graphic novel Ghoul recently and found this interview she did with Writers Digest.
SKTCHD had a couple of great interviews this past month, one of which was a reprint. Tim Leong interviewed legendary artist Neal Adams back in 2005, which was reposted back on the fourth anniversary of Adams’ death. And David Harper spoke with IDW editor Bixie Mathieu about the publisher’s new line of Hello Kitty comics.
For the final interview of this section, Andrew Irvin at Comic Book Yeti spoke with Myfanwy Tristram about her new nonfiction comic, Noisy Valley: The Art of Protest, about Welsh resistance.
Hank Kennedy at Responsible Statecraft wrote a brief history about the role comics have played in war propaganda.
Heidi MacDonald at Comics Beat wrote a piece about keeping gatekeeping out of comics. It’s disheartening to see that comics shops can still be such hostile places to women and marginalized populations.
Writer Mina Ruyle had a couple of interesting pieces for SOLRAD recently. The first was this nuanced look at Osamu Tezuka’s MW and queer representation. The second was an examination of Paul Karasik’s and David Mazzucchelli’s graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster’s City of Glass.
The Comics Journal delved into the history of the Third Reich and its response to comics and cartoonists, which included marking some creators for death if they successfully invaded their countries of origin.
Ending where we began at Publishers Weekly, Zach Rabiroff has this look at the Comic Arts Fest that took place in Manhattan back in April and how it bridged the divide between American and European comics. More of that, please!
As promised, here’s the list of nominees for the 2026 Eisner Awards. The winners will be announced at San Diego Comic-Con next month. Here’s Byron O’Neal’s petition again to create an explicit “No AI” policy for these awards.
The 2026 Minicomic Award winners were announced! Winners in seven categories were chosen from almost 700 entries.
The 50th Annual Kodansha Manga Awards were given to Gachiakuta for Best Shōnen Manga, Re-Living My Life with a Boyfriend Who Doesn’t Remember Me for Best Shōjo Manga, and The Darwin Incident for Best General Manga.
The 30th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Manga Grand Prix was given to Ao Kojima’s Hon Nara Uru Hodo (Have Plenty Enough Books to Sell). Kojima got his start in manga after getting sick during the pandemic and deciding to publish his comics online, which caught the attention of an editor.
Keum Suk Gendry-Kim was given the rank of Chevalier in France’s Order of Arts and Letters, the first Korean comics or graphic novel artist to achieve this honor.
Jeff Smith was honored with the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Cartoonists Society.
The Independent Book Publishers Association Awards were given out, including a Graphic Novel category. Essentials, Volume 1 by Chris “Doc” Wyatt and Luke Arnold won Gold, while the two Silver winners were Creatures & Corridors written by Brandon Auman with art by Andrea Mutti and Super Science, Volume 1 written by N. Alessandro K. with art by M. K. Perker.
The 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Illustrated Reporting and Commentary was given to Anand RK, Suparna Sharma, and Natalie Obiko Pearson for “trAPPed,” a work of comics journalism published in Bloomberg about a digital scam victim in India.
The winner of the National Newspaper Award for Illustrated Commentary was Michael de Adder of The Globe and Mail, with finalists Judith Lachapelle from La Presse and David Parkins, also of The Globe and Mail. The 2026 National Headliner Awards for Editorial Cartoons went to Jeff Koterba of Cagle Cartoons for First Place, Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News for Second Place, and Rick McKee, also of Cagle Cartoons, for Third Place.
Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters: The Killing Stone by Jessica Maison won the 2025 Nebula Award for Best Comic.
Lee Lai became the first nonbinary person to win Australia’s literary Stella prize for Cannon, which is also the first graphic novel to be given the award.
Cannon also won the Bédélys Québec Award, one of several of the 27th Bédélys Awards given out at the Montreal Comic Arts Festival.
The 2026 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize winner was The Weight by Melissa Mendes, published by Drawn & Quarterly.
The winners of the 22nd Doug Wright Awards were announced last week.
This past month also saw the creation of a new award thanks to Comic Art Fans and Indie Comic Creator Con! Named for artist Dan Tancredi, the Dan T Award will recognize indie comic book creators and be given out at the IC3 conventions in July and September. Good luck, everyone!
I thought I’d end this section with a bit of fun. The 2026 Grantie Awards were announced via the blog of writer Grant Stoye. Congratulations to all the winners!
Sadly, the comics world experienced more loss this past month. Larry Stark, a scholar and critic who became famous for his examination and fandom of EC comics, died last month at the age of 93.
John Lent was also a comics scholar, the publisher and editor of the renowned International Journal of Comic Art. He passed away at the age of 89.
Ted White was an editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic magazines who entered publishing after winning the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1968. He died at the age of 88 after suffering complications from a fall.
Marjane Satrapi was a comics creator and filmmaker of great esteem with many great works of memoir, history, and activism in her bibliography. Indeed, Persepolis was one of the first comics we read for the Comics Book Club back when we first started meeting. She was 56.
That’s all for this month. Did I miss anything? Comment below if I have. Feel free to subscribe if you haven’t already. The Comics Book Club will be meeting again on June 17 to discuss Us. Thanks again for everything.
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