Dylan Williams Needs Your Help

As anyone who is Facebook friends with him knows, Dylan Williams is very seriously ill and could use the help and support of the comics industry. The cartoonist and publisher of Sparkplug Comic Books indicated that beyond getting good vibes of support from his many, many friends, he could use financial support in the form of people ordering books.

It's no secret that Sparkplug has been one of my favorite publishers over the past decade, as Dylan has really put his money where his mouth is in publishing work that he truly loves. Please consider stopping by their shop and ordering some books, comics or minis. Williams has been distributing books from like-minded souls for quite some time, so chances are there's something you've missed. Please consider buying something from my suggested shopping list below, or anything that strikes your fancy from their extensive catalog.

Here's a quick baker's dozen or so of Sparkplug's greatest hits:

1. Asthma, by John Hankiewicz. One of the greatest books of the past fifteen years and the best example of comics-as-poetry.

2. Bookhunter, by Jason Shiga. A hilarious and exciting homage to both 70s police procedurals and library practices.

3. Gay Genius, edited by Annie Murphy. A top-notch assemblage of talent mostly unknown in wider comics circles.

4. Orchid, edited by Dylan Williams & Ben Catmull. Sparkplug's first release contains work by a number of cartoonists who would have a big impact, like Kevin Huizgena and Gabrielle Bell.

5. The Heavy Hand, by Chris Cilla. A dizzyingly inventive book, one of the best of 2011.

6. Inkweed, by Chris Wright. A collection of short stories united by Wright's scratchy line and monstrous character design, along with his bleak but humanistic outlook.

7. Department of Art and Habitat, by Dunja Jankovic. Inventive and oppressive "immersive" comics about a woman facing the terrors and ennui of work and then home.

8. Rock That Never Sleeps, by Juliacks & Olga Volozova. A delightful and strange series of interpretations of a town related to memory.

9. Whirlwind Wonderland, by Rina Ayuyang. A lovely collection of autobiographical short stories.

10. The Hot Breath of War and Mine Tonight, by Trevor Alixopulos. Fascinating and cleverly cartooned stories dealing with politics, sex, war and living in the modern age.

11. The Airy Tales, by Olga Volozova. A series of lovely, immersive fairy tales of a sort.

12. Reich #1-8, by Elijah Brubaker. This is a biography of controversial psychologist and researcher Willhelm Reich, told as objectively as I've ever seen.

13. Christina and Charles, by Austin English. English's first long-form comic is still my favorite in the way he depicts music and familial relationships.