Promotion and Self-Promotion: Abadzis, Sezen, Comics Reporter

Last fall, I wrote a piece on international small press comics, I reviewed a comic called Zakkum, by Turkish cartoonist Beldan Sezen. With a chunky drawing style mixed with digital collage, her story about a murder-mystery in Turkey drew in pieces of her actual life along with noir elements. Most interesting was the way she drew in elements of queer identity as a key part of the story. Sezen is now doing an indiegogo campaign to fund her new book, Snapshots of a Girl, which is more explicitly about growing up and figuring out one's sexual and personal identity in the Muslim/Christian world. The book will be published by a small concern in Italy, and she's looking to find funding to help support herself until she's done. Sezen is an artist whose work bears watching, and I hope you will consider funding her. Nick Abadzis asked me to pass note along, and it's based on his good character that I'm passing this along. He's noted that The Phoenix, a comics anthology for children published in the UK, is now available as an Ipad application. Abadzis is one of the contributors and is among a group of quality cartoonists who also submit work to it. Please consider checking it out, especially if you have kids. Finally, I wanted to point readers in the direction of my interview with Tom Spurgeon of the Comics Reporter, as part of his annual Holiday Interview series. I was honored to take part in a feature I look forward to reading on a yearly basis, acting as his critical sounding board for the year's alternative comics releases.