The Sunday Spotlight – The ‘You? President, Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!’ Edition

It’s Sunday, why don’t we spotlight a few comics stories in the news? Why, that would be The Sunday Spotlight …

Joe Sacco at The Wire — talking ‘The Once and Future Riot’ and Penguin India dropping the book…

Joe Sacco‘s an internationally acclaimed comics-journalist who made his name with his books on Gaza and Palestine, yet his latest book, The Once and Future Riots, focusing on the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 between Jats and Muslims in India, won’t be sold in India.

Distributors Penguin Random House India have decided that they won’t be putting it out in India. And that’s really just a damn shame, Sacco’s book does his usual thing, of shining a light on things that others don’t want illuminated. In this case, it appears that the subject matter is a little too hot for his publishers and distributors to handle in the country he’s writing about.

From The Wire article…

“I think they’re finding excuses because ultimately this is about communal violence in India. It’s about how politicians use violence as a means of advancing themselves electorally. I actually think it’s a very fair book. I think I’m looking from different angles. When I was in Muslim villages, I was lied to, I think. When I was in Jat villages, I was lied to. I’m trying to show the whole spectrum. I think it was a very fair book. But ultimately you can’t… the conclusion is that Hindutva is on the rise and that it benefited from the riot. You know to me it’s a definite conclusion, and I think it’s a fair one to make. And I think this is embarrassing, you know perhaps for the publisher, the Indian publisher. They don’t want to distribute a book like this because of the current political climate in India. Perhaps they’re being leaned on. I know Penguin India is also the publisher of Prime Minister Modi’s book. So, I mean, there could be all kinds of reasons of which I don’t know. But to me, the fact that they want changes from me, which I think were unfair, I’m just not going to do that.”

Forbidden Planet signing — Simon Bisley, Rob Williams, Henry Flint — 18 July…

In advance of the releases of the Judgement on Gotham Anniversary Edition and the Judge Dredd: And To The Sea Return collection, both essential books of your favourite fascist lawman, Forbidden Planet London is hosting a signing with Simon Bisley, Rob Williams, and Henry Flint…

Call for submissions — the 20th Rachel Cooke Graphic Short Story Prize …

It used to be The Observer/Cape/Faber/Comicon Prize, but it’s been, quite rightly, renamed to honour journalist Rachel Cooke, who died last year. She was a journalist who regularly wrote about comics at The Guardian and The Observer. She was also a judge for the prize now given her name since its inception in 2007.

Basically, they’re after aspiring graphic novelists and makers of comics to put together a four-page story. The winner will receive the £1,000 prize, plus their winning entry will see print in the Observer’s New Review. The runner-up gets £250 and their entry is published online. Of course, more importantly, the winners and runners-up get seen by publishers, particularly Faber, who sponsor the whole thing, and it’s no coincidence that an awful lot of those winners and runners-up have seen their works subsequently published.

Past winners and runners-up include Kirsten Campbell, Paul Hatcher, Lesley Imgart, Elly Bazigos, Anna Readman, Candy Gourlay, Rebecca K. Jones, Ed Firth, Paul Rainey, Edith Pritchett, and Tor Freeman.

Details here for the 2026 prize. And here’s the winner from 2025, Kirsten Campbell …

Evan Dorkin interviewed at The Comics Journal — ‘It hasn’t really struck yet that this is my life in a book’ …

God, I love Evan Dorkin‘s work. Have done since the Pirate Corps days. Way, way back. Loved Milk & Cheese, loved Dork, loved all of it really. His last project, published by Dark Horse, was Nerd Inferno: The Essential Evan Dorkin, a truly massive omnibus edition collecting so much of his work, including Milk & Cheese, Dork, and The Eltingville Club. All absolutely essential works.

Jason Bergman at The Comics Journal interviews Dorkin about this and more. An extensive, 40-year career in one book sort of thing. Dorkin’s always worth reading, brutally honest, painfully so at times. But his comics are just a glorious delight. Must buy.

Publishers Weekly interviews Maia Kobabe, author of the essential Gender Queer …

Over at Publishers Weekly, Iyana Jones interviews Maia Kobabe, author of the absolutely brilliant Gender Queer, a vital graphic memoir dealing with gender identity and what that means today. As Jones points out in the intro to the interview, Kobabe and Gender Queer has become something of a poster child for book bans, with the book regularly featuring in those hateful library purges in America.

Kobabe speaks to PW about “how censorship efforts are shaping the publishing landscape, and the importance of young people having access to queer literature in their formative years.”

Oni Press recently published an annotated edition of Gender Queer, “featuring marginalia from friends, collaborators, and other queer and trans comic artists, along with Kobabe’s new middle grade graphic novel collaboration with Swati “Lucky” Srikumar, Opting Out (Graphix).”

Way back in 2019, I made Gender Queer one of my best books of the year, saying this.:

“As you will have no doubt gathered, I loved Gender Queer. It’s got a lightness of tone in the art, with Maia drawing simply yet expressively, something essential when dealing with these complex issues, but also essential for engagement with a young, questioning audience who could find this to be the book that could change their lives. It filled me with hope for both Maia’s future and with a future for us all. It educates us to treat people as they wish to be treated, shows us that seemingly minor things, such as personal pronouns … can be the difference between making a person feel respected and valued and causing great personal pain.”

And I’ll stand by that, a bloody beautiful book that should be on all your reading lists.