The Alphabet Anthology Kickstarter is running right now! Alphabet is a celebration of LGBTQIA comics organized by Prism Comics, to be published by Stacked Deck Press in 2016. Prism Comics is a non-profit volunteer-run organization that has been supporting queer comics creators since 2005. Each year at Wondercon in Southern California Prism awards a $2000 grant to help an aspiring comics author publish their work. (Full application details can be found on their website.) Past winners of the grant include Steve MacIsaac (Shirtlifter), Ed Luce (Wuvable Oaf), Blue Delliquanti (O Human Star), Justin Hall (True Travel Tales), Christine Smith (The Princess) and Robert Kirby, one of the writers of this blog.
Alphabet Anthology, edited by Jon Macy and Tara Avery, is a collection of short comics by over 40 different queer creators. This book was designed both as a fund-raiser for the grant program and also as a show-case of many authors who applied for, but did not receive, the grant. Jon Macy said in his press release, "This is going to be a great anthology with many established comics creators as well as fresh and exciting new voices. Yes, the ultimate goal is to raise money for the grant, but my secret agenda has always been to find a way to promote the many amazing artists that have submitted over the years. I want to give them the chance to show off their talents in a sweet full color hard back book. Doing this makes us really happy."
Tara Avery has founded Stacked Deck Press to publish Alphabet and also future projects supporting gender, sexual, regional and ethnic diversity among creators. "Alphabet is an attempt to bring cartoonists together that represent the broadest cross section of our community and culture," Avery wrote on the Prism website.
The Alphabet Anthology author lineup includes Ajuan Mance, Ahri Almeida, Ashley R Guillory, Elizabeth Beier, Christianne Benedict, Bex, Jennifer Camper, Jon Macy, Vi Cao, Tyler Cohen, Howard Cruse, Dave Davenport, Dylan Edwards, Tana Ford, Tara Avery, Melanie Gillman, Maia Kobabe, Diego Gomez, Dorian Katz, Dylan Good, Soizick Jaffre, Emeric Kennard, Robert Kirby, Hanna-Pirita Lehkonen, Ed Luce, Steve MacIsaac, Hazel Newlevant, Hanna Oliver, Eric Orner, Ingrid Mouth, Knave Murdock, David Quantic, GZ Biazus, Carlo Quispe, Sonya Saturday, Nero O'Reilly, Pam Harrison, Mike Sullivan, Roberta Gregory, Dax Tran-Caffee, Scott Adams, Josh Trujillo, Ted Clossen, Tod Bower, Kelsey Wroten,Victor Hodge, Justin Hall, Zak Plum and more!
