In addition to reviewing and sharing political comics, Ad Astra Comix is hard at work as a small press. We focus on publishing comics that are critical of power structures, tell diverse stories and are fun to read.
The Beast:
Making a Living on a Dying Planet
Editor & Producer: Patrick McCurdy
Author: Hugh Goldring
Illustrator: Nicole Burton
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This graphic novel is based on the research of Dr. Patrick McCurdy, Dept of Communications (University of Ottawa)
From environmentalists to oil sands workers, this book has something for everyone to chew on. Full of difficult questions and imperfect answers, ‘The Beast’ offers the kind of uncomfortable chuckle that comes from the creeping tendrils of existential dread tickling our sense of uncertainty. Join Callum and Mary as they drift through bars, strip clubs and vegan wing joints not so much struggling to answer life’s difficult questions as doing their best to avoid having to ask those questions in the first place. Peppered throughout the narrative is a dismantling of the glib cliches that make up our current, intractable discussion of energy policy.
Additional Info
Publisher: Ad Astra Comix, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9940507-8-6
Additional Specs: 118 pages, black and white (with full-colour satirical ads at the front and back of the book).
Recommended reading level: 16 and up (depictions of drinking, smoking, and sexual harassment in the workplace)
Undocumented:
The Architecture of Migrant Detention
List Price: $20
Using comics, interviews, and architectural sketches, ‘Undocumented’ explores a growing industry in an era of militarized borders, state surveillance, and criminalized migration. Originally released in 2014 to an architectural audience, this special edition from Ad Astra Comix features an updated afterword by Syed Hussan (No One Is Illegal, Toronto), as well as an interview with a former detainee. Focusing on Canada’s migrant detention system, where detainees are often held in maximum security prisons without charges for indefinite periods of time, ‘Undocumented’ draws chilling conclusions about the societies that tolerate these punitive spaces of confinement. Proceeds from the sale of each book go to the End Immigration Detention Network.
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Find out more about the project at undocumented.ca
Other Information:
137 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9940507-6-2
Author and Artist: Tings Chak
Afterword: Syed Hussan
Dimensions: 6.69 x 9.252 inches | 17 cm x 23.5 cm
Weight: 13 ounces | 350 grams
Eugenie SHARK!
An all-ages comic that explores our oceans through the life of marine biologist and shark expert, Eugenie Clark. Full colour illustrations with maps, timelines, and lots of fun facts about marine wildlife.
List price: $5 USD | $6 CAD
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Other Information:
32 pages
Author and Artist: Nicole Marie Burton
Dimensions: 6.63 x 10.24 inches | 16.84 com x 26.01 cm
Weight: 2 ounces | 57 grams
War in the Neighborhood
List price: $32 CAD | $26 USD
A graphic novel by New York comics artist Seth Tobocman, about the gentrification of Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the late 80s/early 90s. This 300-page graphic memoir is an intimate look at Occupy-style organizing that took place in NYC in the 1980s when an entire city block was being squatted by a tenant’s rights movement.
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Media: This book has a press kit.
Other Information:
340 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9940507-2-4
Author and Artist: Seth Tobocman
Foreword: Luc Sante
Introduction: AK Thompson
Dimensions: 8.5 x 11 inches | 21.6 cm x 28 cm
Weight: 2.2 pounds | 967 grams
EXTRACTION: Comix Reportage
List price: $15 USD | $18 CAD
An anthology of comics journalism. Over the course of 2 years, journalists and researchers teamed up with illustrators to document the horrific and often criminal activities of mining companies here in North America, and abroad. It includes dispatches from Guatemala, India, and various places in Canada, to talk about the origins of resources like gold, aluminum, uranium, and oil.
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Media: This book has a press kit.
Other Information:
118 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9940507-0-0
Authors/Journalists: Dawn Paley, Sophie Toupin, Tamara Herman, Peter Cizek, Marc Tessier and Phil Angers
Artists: Joe Ollmann, Ruth Tait, Stanley Wany, Phil Angers, Jeff Lemire, Alain Reno, Carlos Santos
Editors: Frédéric Dubois, Marc Tessier, David Widgington
Dimensions: 7.1 x 8.3 inches | 18.03 cm x 21.08 cm
Weight: 5.6 ounces | 159 grams
Drawing the Line:
Indian Women Fight Back
List price: $20
“Drawing the Line: Indian Women Fight Back!” is a comics anthology by 14 women of their day-to-day experiences in India. Produced out of a week-long workshop with Indian women artists, both amateur and professional, Drawing the Line is part of a larger national conversation in India around sexual discrimination that emerged in the aftermath of the brutal gang-rape and murder of a young medical student in 2012. First published in cooperation with feminist Indian publisher Zubaan Books and the Goethe Institute, Ad Astra Comix is pleased to bring “Drawing the Line” to a North American readership, reminding us that feminism must be intersectional and global in its approach.
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Media: This book has a press kit.
Other Information:
172 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9940507-1-7
Authors and Artists: Vidyun Sabhaney, Harini Kannan, Reshu Singh, Soumya Menon, Bhavana Singh, Deepani Seth, Deeti Mistry, Anjela Ferrao, Kaveri Gopalakrishnan, Ita Mehrotra, Priyanka Kumar, Samidha Gunjal, and Neelima P.A.
Editors: Priya Kuriyan, Larissa Bertonasco & Ludmilla Bartscht
Introduction: Soni Sapathy Singh (aka “Sketchy Desi”)
Dimensions: 7.2 x 9.2 inches | 18.29 cm x 23.37 cm
Weight: 12.6 ounces | 358 grams
