Backwards Burd have been establishing themselves as a small press collective with a noticeably irreverent and off-the-wall approach to comics for a while now. Last summer I reviewed Petty Beach…
Columns · Eyecatcher · Small Pressganged
Over twenty tales of public humiliation from creators across the indie comics scene make up Birdcage Bottom’s Cringe: An Anthology of Embarrassment, a collection of shorts detailing those best forgotten…
With a foot in both the worlds of comics and traditional children’s storybooks, Richy K. Chandler and Sally-Anne Hickman’s Bang! Crash! Whizz! is a delightful piece of storytelling designed primarily…
Brigid Deacon’s work has cropped up in a number of anthologies lately – from Eyeball Comix to the second issue of Donya Todd’s Bimba – and has immediately grabbed my…
Columns · Eyecatcher · Small Pressganged
Snackies is a compilation of the previously self-published minicomics work of cartoonist Nick Sumida – alongside some new material – collected by San Francisco-based micropublisher Youth in Decline. Sumida’s comics…
Write and Draw Your Own Comics strives to build a participatory relationship between its target audience and the medium of comics. How do we get children more involved with comics?…
Columns · Eyecatcher · Small Pressganged
Is the rapidly expanding number of UK comics-related shows, fairs and festivals to exhibit at an advantage? Or is this level of growth actually stretching small press creators and their…
Comic Book Slumber Party may exist primarily to promote the work of women creators from across the globe but it also seeks to showcase the work of newer creative voices…
In the year or so since I reviewed Darren Cullen’s scathing anti-armed forces comic/zine Join the Army the London-based artist has continued to provoke debate with his own unique brand…
One of the great privileges of my involvement, in a judging capacity, in last year’s Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition was the opportunity it provided for an exclusive look at…
Columns · Eyecatcher · Small Pressganged
As has become something of a tradition for the first ‘Small Pressganged’ of the New Year it’s time once again to look back on the self and micropublished material featured in this…
The rapid rise of Jessica Martin’s profile in UK comics is an object lesson for anyone looking to push their own creative brand within the small press scene and beyond….
The transformation of Avery Hill Publishing from enthusiastic proponents of the DIY culture of self-publishing to one of the UK’s leading boutique publishers is, of course, no secret to anybody who…
If comics are to continue to evolve and permeate the consciousness of a broader readership we need far more breakout books like Supercrash and, by definition, far more Darryl Cunninghams…
Just before Christmas we began a major series of articles here in ‘Small Pressganged’ at Broken Frontier dealing with the current state of play of small press publishing in the…
It’s an old reviewer’s standby to describe their subject as work that will stay with the reader long after they have put it down. In the case of the emotionally…
Yesterday we began a major multi-part series of articles in ‘Small Pressganged’ looking at the challenges facing micro and self-publishers as we go into 2015. Over the next few weeks…
Throughout December the fine folk at the Forbidden Planet International blog ask the assembled masses of the comics world to look back on the previous twelve months and select their…
“Human Identity is a Very Complex Thing” – Yudori on ‘Lovers of the Empire’, Period Piece Comics, and the Importance of EscapismAugust 31, 2026
“There’s Nothing More Tedious than a Predictable Protagonist” – Roberta Gregory On Revisiting the Life of Her Classic Character in ‘Bitchy! The Exasperating Existence of Midge McCracken’August 31, 2026
“Shedding Light on the Absence of Queer Narrative is Like Laying Flowers for the Ghosts of Queer Souls” – Marina Lisa Komiya on the Themes of ‘On Their Frontlines: The Lives of Japanese War Brides’August 31, 2026
“I Like to Try to Write from a Place of Power” – Katie Skelly on Her New Graphic Novel ‘Heaven’, the Camaraderie Between Working Women, and Taking Readers on a Narrative RideAugust 27, 2026
“Comics, Similar to Zines, Exist as a Proletariat Art Form Within Popular Consciousness” – Raquelle Jac on Her Powerful Debut Graphic Memoir ‘Bimbo Agitprop’ from FantagraphicsAugust 13, 2026
