My very last comic for The Nib! End of an era! Transcription below the cut. instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

The first event I went to with GENDER QUEER was in NYC in 2019 at the Javits Center.

So many of the people who came to my signing were librarians, and so many of them said the same thing: "I know exactly who I want to give this to!" Maia: "Thank you for helping readers find my book!" While working on the book, I was genuinely unsure if anyone outside of my family and close friends would read it. But the early support of librarians and two American Library Association awards helped sell two print runs in first year.

Since then, GENDER QUEER been published in 8 languages, with more on the way: Spanish, Czech, Polish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portugese and Dutch.

It has also been the most banned book in the United States for the past two years. The American Library Association has tracked an astronomical increase in book challenges over the past few years. Most of these challenges are to books with diverse characters and LGBTQ themes. These challenges are coming unevenly across the US, in a pattern that mirrors the legislative attacks on LGBTQ people. The Brooklyn Public Library offered free eCards to anyone in the US aged 13-21, in an effort to make banned books more available to young readers. A teacher in Norman, Oklahoma gave her students the QR code for the free eCard and lost her job. Summer Boismeir is now working for the Brooklyn Public Library. Hoopla and Libby/Overdrive, apps used to access digital library books, are now banned in Mississippi to anyone under 18. Some libraries won’t allow anyone under 18 to get any kind of library card without parental permission. When librarians in Jamestown, Michigan refused to remove GENDER QUEER and several other books, the citizens of the town voted down the library’s funding in the fall 2022 election. Without funding, the library is due to close in mid-2024. My first event since covid hit was the American Library Association conference in June 2022 in Washington, DC. Once again, the librarians in my signing line all had similar stories for me: “Your book was challenged in our district" "It was returned to the shelf!" "It was removed from the shelf..." "It was moved to the adult section."

Over and over I said: "Thank you. Thank you for working so hard to keep my book in your library. I’m sorry you had to defend it, but thank you for trying, even if it didn't work." We are at a crossroads of freedom of speech and censorship. The future of libraries, both publicly funded and in schools, are at stake. This is massively impacting the daily lives of librarians, teachers, students, booksellers, and authors around the country. In May 2023, I read an article from the Washington Post analyzing nearly 1000 of the book challenges from the 2021-2022 school year. I was literally on route to a festival to talk about book bans when I read a startling statistic. 60% of the 1000 book challenges were submitted by just 11 people. One man alone was responsible for 92 challenges. These 11 people seem to have made submitting copy-cat book challenges their full-time hobby and their opinions are having an outsized ripple effect across the nation. WE NEED TO MAKE THE VOICES SUPPORTING DIVERSE BOOKS AND OPPOSING BOOK BANS EVEN LOUDER. If you are able too, show up for your library and school board meetings when book challenges are debated. Send supportive comments and emails about the Pride book display and Drag Queen story hours. If you see a display you like– for Banned Book Week, AAPI Month, Black History Month, Disability Awareness Month, Jewish holidays, Trans Day of Remembrance– compliment a librarian! Make sure they feel the love stronger than the hate <3

Maia Kobabe, 2023

The Nib

got to hang out with Maia Kobabe (@redgoldsparks) in October when e came to my school as a Visiting Artist, and it went pretty much exactly like this

IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY

Jenny Holzer, Truisms // Bears In Trees, Evergreen // I Hope You Heal, illustrated by @Redgoldsparks, text by @prettypositivity, @i-don’t-believe-in-perfect, & @lilbutch // Juno Roche, Gender Explorers // art by @inkipri // Clementine von Radics, In a Dream You Saw a Way to Survive (The Last Poem)

My personal experience of fandom has involved retreating to older platforms: revisiting Dreamwidth, joining more fandom Discords, and seeing many comic and fanartists revive their Tumblr accounts. The past 12 months have been the most active and more joyful on Tumblr since before the 2018 exodus. I never left, but for a while being on Tumblr felt like inhabiting a quiet, peaceful, abandoned house being slowly overtaken by vines and mosses. Now it feels flooded with new energy. I’ve loved watching Reddit users join Tumblr for the first time and be charmed by its odd holidays and other quirks. ... As I watch nearly every social media platform crumble into chaos, Tumblr and Discord, despite their flaws, feel like the best places to be right now.”

— for our anniversary episode, @redgoldsparks discussed the plaforms where e has been spending eir fannish time this past year. Click through to listen to eir full letter or read a transcript!

Some months ago I bought the most banned book in the USA 2022 as a protest and it was ONE OF THE BEST DESICION OF MY LIFE! I found myself in this book in so many ways that it helped me understand myself better. At the same time I found enough differences to my own experiences that I started to draw and write something like a personal response (one that I will never publish but that I hold dear to my heart). There were pages in this book that made me want to gift it to anyone who didn't understand my gender or sexuality.

Book banning does nothing but harm. It keeps people from understanding themselves, or history, or others... And it is not lost to anyone, that this is a war on queer people and people of colour specifically.

MOCCA Arts Festival

Announcing the 2023 MoCCA Arts Festival Featured Guests

The Society of Illustrators is proud to share a list of Featured Guests who will appear at the MoCCA Arts Festival, taking place April 1 - 2, 2023 from 11:00AM - 7:00PM on Saturday and 11:00AM - 6:00PM on Sunday. The Exhibitor Hall will be held at Met Pavilion, a spacious venue nestled in the heart of the Chelsea neighborhood, and is within walking distance to many great restaurants and attractions. Programming will be a few steps away at the SVA Flatiron Gallery, located at 133 West 21st Street. 

Maia Kobabe is the author of Gender Queer (Oni Press), a critically acclaimed Young Adult graphic memoir that has also been named a Stonewall Honor book. Gender Queer was also ranked by the American Library Association as the most frequently banned or challenged book in the United States in 2021. Kobabe will talk about eir work in a special spotlight session moderated by Michele Kirichanskaya and will also participate in a panel on comics and censorship hosted by PEN America’s Jonathan Friedman.

In her career, Colleen Doran has written and drawn the long-running creator-owned series A Distant Soil and has worked on titles including Wonder Woman, Amazing Spider-Man, and many others. Her body of work includes a series of collaborations with writer Neil Gaiman which are the subject of the exhibit “Colleen Doran Illustrates Neil Gaiman,” running from March 22nd to July 29th at the Society of Illustrators. She will appear in conversation with Gaiman to discuss their comics collaborations and her overall body of work in a special programming event moderated by exhibition curator Kim Munson.

Barbara Brandon-Croft became the first Black woman to write and draw a nationally syndicated comic strip when Where I’m Coming From debuted in American newspapers in 1991. Featuring a cast of nine women of color commenting insightfully on current events, her groundbreaking comic strip has now been anthologized in a book edition from Drawn and Quarterly. Brandon-Croft will talk about her trailblazing work in a special spotlight session. 

Other featured artists at this year’s festival will include:

Kim Deitch, a pioneering underground comix artist who began publishing comics in the East Village Other in 1967 and whose most recent graphic novel, Reincarnation Stories (Fantagraphics) was published to critical acclaim in 2019. 

Drew Friedman, whose most recent book of portraiture, Maverix and Lunatix (Fantagraphics), celebrates the artists of the underground comix generation

Miriam Katin, whose out-of-print graphic memoir of escaping the Holocaust as a child refugee accompanied by her mother, We Are On Our Own (Drawn & Quarterly), will be republished in a forthcoming paperback edition. 

Toma Vagner, the award-winning illustrator who designed this year’s MoCCA key image and has produced striking graphics for clients including Harry Styles, Google, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and The New Yorker. 

Noah Van Sciver, whose body of graphic novels includes Joseph Smith and the Mormons (Abrams ComicArts), Fante Bukowski (Fantagraphics Books), and the forthcoming comic book series Maple Terrace (Uncivilized Books). 

These and other Featured Artists will participate in programming and signings, schedules for which will be announced in the coming days and weeks. A full list of exhibiting artists can be found on the MoCCA Arts website. 

About the Museum of Illustration at the Society of Illustrators and the MoCCA Arts Festival

Founded in 1901, the Society of Illustrators and its Museum of Illustration together comprise America’s longest-standing nonprofit organization dedicated to the art of illustration. The mission of SI/MI is to promote the art and appreciation of illustration and its history and evolving nature through exhibitions and educational programs. 

The MoCCA Arts Festival is a 2-day multimedia event, Manhattan’s largest independent comics and cartoon festival, drawing over 7,000 attendees each year. With over 500 exhibiting artists displaying their work, award-winning honorees speaking about their careers and artistic processes and other featured artists conducting demos, lectures and panels, our Festival mission accelerates the advancement of the Society’s broader mission to serve as Manhattan’s singular cultural institution promoting all genres of illustration through exhibitions, programs and art education. 

The Society will continue to release additional information about the Fest in the near future. Tickets are available to purchase online as well as at the door.  The Society is following all state and city safety protocols. Protocols are subject to change, so be sure to check back for the latest information. As of now, face coverings are optional at Metropolitan Pavilion and the Exhibitor Hall. Proof of vaccines, boosters and masks are required to enter SVA buildings and programming. 

To learn more about the Fest, please visit the website.

For media inquiries please contact:

Kate Feirtag

Director of Communications and External Relations

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

goodreads

In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.

Mod opinion: I've read this one and I enjoyed it.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

I am not a huge memoir reader, but you can bet that if it's a graphic memoir I will pick it up, plus I want to expand my queer book collection, and this book was an amazing addition, that I know I will reread in the future. The author is non-binary and uses e/em/eir pronouns, which I never had to use before so if I fuck up while writing and editing please let me know. With this being said Gender Queer is a memoir and focuses on the author's journey of getting to know eir own self from a sexuality and gender point of view. But it feels reductive to describe this book as just that. The author does a great job at telling the story of eir life without skipping on all the existential crisis, the confusion and the fear. It's a very raw and honest work in my opinion, and it's amazing just because of that. Em couldn't have done a better job at explaing this complicated journey with all its ups and downs. There's fear and confusion, but also joy in getting to understand yourself more. It doesn't skip on any kind of thought, there's a few points that hit so close to home, ans that will keep sparking thoughts. The way the author talkes about gender and eir way of presenting is incredibly clever. I particularly liked how em used a landscape to talk about gender. It's not easy to put into words how good this graphic memoir is, and the fact that it was banned so much is scary and should be a good enough reason to pick it up. I feel like this could be a great way to let non-queer people understand a little better how figuring these things about yourself is, and how complex it gets. It's a little like being in the author's head sometimes, which is why I feel like this could be a great tool for queer allies to understand some things on a deeper level. As a queer person who is actually pondering a lot of these questions, it was very comforting to read about someone who stuggled just as much, but honestly reminds you of how layered and complicated these things are. Additionally I really liked the illustrations, the colour palette felt nice and overall I just really liked the look of this book (I should mention my edition which is the Italian on wasn't as curated as it should have because a few pages were blurred to a point you couldn't clearly read, which is absolutely unacceptable especially for how expensive graphic novels are. I never had such problems with this publisher, but that was kinda disappointing because I expected a bit more cure on the details, but again that is the Italian publisher's fault).

I read this for the jumbo reading challenge non binary author prompt.

I made a poster board!

This was meant to go to work, but apparently we can't display solicitations bc as always the MLM huns ruined it for everyone.

So here it is! I was feeling very elementary school science fair when I made this and gosh I am delighted!

I'm starting bright and early tomorriw- I'm cheating a little by already starting 'When the angels left the old country" but it's so flapping good you guys!

Ok the organization is my local trans support project that provides clothing and other necessities to trans folks in my state. If you want to donate to your own, that's cool, I know in US every state is going full nazi on trans folks, just keep in mind SOUTH DAKOTA is a trash pit of human rights and were very small.

Heres the link. Any amount pledged helps.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.

Happy New Year! Here is my holiday card from 2023. As an experiment, I ran this image through Glaze, one of several projects being developed at the moment to protect art and artists from having their work stolen by machine learning algorithms to feed computer generated art programs. Glaze was developed by the SAND Lab at the University of Chicago. It was quite a lengthy process- after I downloaded the app it took me well over an hour to glaze this single 200dpi image. I can see the subtle differences the program made when comparing this version to the original, but no one looking at it without the original would be likely to spot them. Unless the process of glazing an image speeds up considerably, I am unlikely to glaze everything I post online. However, I do plan to glaze artworks that I especially love, took me a long time to complete, or which I feel are more vulnerable to being stolen. Here's to making and sharing lots more art in 2024, despite all the complications!

instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

For the last two years, one graphic novel has been the source of controversy and censorship in the United States of America. Young audiences all over have been gravitating toward the deeply personal and frank discussions of self and exploration that is Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer: A Memoir.

Join Behind the Yellow Boxes as Steph and Brook explore the controversial graphic novel, return to their opinions on censorship and book bans, and provide a brief overview of the story within.

For more information about current book bans as well as advice on what you can do to battle censorship in your community, visit bit.ly/GenderQueerbans

We’re on patreon! Support us at patreon.com/yellowboxespodcast

Follow us on twitter @yellowboxespod, email us at [email protected], and find our full show notes over at yellowboxespodcast.blogspot.com.

Feelin’ Good Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

love ...

Episode 200: Maia Kobabe

For their 200th!!!! episode, Elizabeth and Flourish are joined by artist, author, and longtime Fansplaining collaborator (and fan!) Maia Kobabe (@redgoldsparks) to celebrate the occasion. Topics discussed include the fandom elements of eir graphic memoir, Gender Queer, the pleasure of creating fanart while working as a professional artist, eir experiences in K-pop fandom, and the secret to making friends, whether fellow fans or a pair of podcast hosts (spoiler: make art for them!) (like the cover of this episode—thank you, Maia!).

Click through to our site to listen or read a full transcript!

It’s Banned Books Week!

In 2021, 729 book challenges were reported to the American Library Association, naming 1597 individual books. That’s a huge spike up from 2019′s 377 challenges. Nearly double in two years.

This continues a worrying upward trend in book challenges in recent years, and many of these titles have actually been removed from library or classroom collections in parts of the US. It feels like every day I’m hearing news of a new challenge or removal somewhere, or an attempt to codify those removals into law. Libraries who stand their ground by refusing to remove materials have seen their funding slashed, librarians and teachers have lost their jobs and been harassed, even threatened.

But it’s not just libraries. Proponents of book banning are even trying to make it illegal to publish or sell books they don’t agree with.

So now, more than ever, its important to stand against these attempts at censorship. Keep aware of goings on in your area. Speak at city council meetings, run for your local school or library board, donate to your local public library, write to your local representative. Or see what else the ALA recommends to get involved.

Anyway, here are the Top 10 Challenged Books of 2021:

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson

Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin