I poured months of work into the fifth‑anniversary issue of Athenaeum Comic Art, and seeing the printed copies finally made the whole obsessive grind worth it. Sean Watkins and Colin Blanchette kicked off the idea, and I jumped in to wrangle pages celebrating a roster that runs from Lee Lai’s luminous cover to Tom Manning’s ever‑leveling wizardry. The book mutated through multiple rebuilds and even cross‑pollinated with Die With Your Mask On #4, sharpening both projects until they felt alive on the page. In true small‑press fashion, even our YouTube rollout got eaten by tech gremlins. But the finished zine stands as exactly what Sean intended: a snapshot of Athenaeum’s fiercely distinctive artists and a calling card that says the operation isn’t going anywhere.

On Indigenous People’s Day 2026, I watched Seattle City Hall turn into something like a mausoleum as Joe Sacco and Chris Hedges took the stage to discuss Requiem for Gaza. When Sacco and Hedges spoke, the room snapped into focus: two men carrying the weight of stories no one should have to witness, recounting targeted doctors, erased homes, and friends lost to bombardment. The talk was brutal, clarifying, and impossible to shake. On a day meant to honor Indigenous people, the parallels were painfully obvious. Their book may never reach the masses, but it won’t leave me. If you care about what comics can reveal that journalism won’t, read Requiem for Gaza and confirm details with a trusted source.

Short Run became the place where A.T. Pratt’s parallel‑universe mindset, Anders Nilsen’s quiet devastation, and Casanova Frankenstein’s reflective and yet eerie comics rewired my sense of what comics can be. Kelly Froh and her crew built a festival that still feels alive, unruly, and defiantly human. This year Colin and I get to unleash on the attendants both the Athenaeum Comic Art anniversary issue and our commissioned 2026 Canon Special, which makes the whole thing feel even more electric. If you care about comics as an art form rather than a corporate product, Short Run is the one you show up for.

The new Marvel Midnight Universe launched this week with exactly the right amount of excitement: none. It arrives with all the subtlety of a corporate memo disguised as a comic line, the kind of initiative that feels less like it was dreamed up by a mad scientist in a basement and more like it was assembled in a sterile conference room by someone whose job title includes the word ‘synergy.’ Yes, the creators are good, that’s how these things work now, but the whole project still carries the unmistakable scent of a cash grab wearing prestige cologne.

Even so, one of the three books managed to rise above the laboratory fumes, and I hope you agree with me about which one actually deserves to exist.

David F. Walker remains one of the singular voices in comics today, the kind of creator who keeps showing up, keeps making work, and keeps reminding the rest of us why the medium still matters. Meeting him at Rose City Comic Con 2026 was a genuine pleasure, the sort of encounter that feels less like meeting a ‘name’ and more like talking shop with someone who never stopped being a fan. What follows is my overview of the books I picked up from him at the show, each one a reminder that Walker continues to produce interesting, original work in a field that desperately needs more of it.

Rose City Comic Con 2026 was fun, weird, and unmistakably itself the kind of show that reminds you the Northwest still has a pulse beneath all the corporate varnish. It was especially gratifying to see Dark Horse Comics staging a genuine resurgence at a convention that, geographically speaking, is practically in their backyard. There’s something oddly comforting about watching a legacy publisher remember it has roots and then deciding to water them in public.