Sad news last week from the direction of Jamila Rowser and the acclaimed Black Josei Press that the multiple Broken Frontier Award-winning publisher will be going on indefinite hiatus from January 2025. Founded in 2018, Black Josei Press has built its reputation by being “focused on celebrating comics by and for people of color from marginalized genders and sexualities.”
Comics, as we know, is not an easy place to maintain a presence in at the best of times but despite the particular challenges of the last few years BJP continued to put out work that embraced both the language of the form and its capacity for communicating the lived experiences of the marginalised. It will be hugely missed.
You can read more about Rowser’s understandable and eminently sensible reasons for the decision on the Black Josei Press site here. In the meantime we still have the Black Josei Press Indefinite Hiatus Tour (poster above by Robyn Smith) to look forward to and the BJP shop is open with print (while stocks last) and digital comics to buy for the rest of the year. We’ll see you at Thought Bubble, Jamila!
To push our readers towards some of the fab Black Josei Press work out there we’re linking to some of our previous coverage below. Visit the BJP online store here and buy yourselves some truly outstanding comics practice!
The Gift
Jamila Rowser (W), Sam Wade (A)
Publisher info: With Ghibliesque art and storytelling, “The Gift”, by Jamila Rowser and Sam Wade, takes the reader on a fantastical journey that will leave them with a new perspective on ancestry.
The comic follows 10-year-old Kenya and her father visiting an African art museum. At the museum, Kenya meets a mysterious visitor who takes her on an unexpected journey that leaves her with a new perspective on her roots.
Broken Frontier soundbite: The Gift is an insightful, thoughtful and unforgettable reflection on Black identity and heritage, and undoubtedly one of the finest constructed minicomics I’ve read in 2023.
Arrive in My Hands
Trinidad Escobar (W/A)
Publisher info: Using poetry comics and speculative comics, Trinidad Escobar explores the power of the erotic and her demisexual lesbian experience. These comics play and tease the reader with doses of temptation, waves of fantasy, and a bit of magic.
The artist finds the erotic, unexpectedly, in apocalyptic scenes, touchless sex, revenge, voyeurism, and even decay. Trinidad invites others to Arrive as their whole being, sensitive to the world within themselves.
Broken Frontier soundbite: Arrive in My Hands is a lyrical, sometimes dreamlike, and often spiritual foray into queer comics erotica that speaks to us on a purely emotional level as much as it does a literal one. Its careful pacing inviting the reader to dwell far longer on each image, allowing them to immerse themselves in the passion of each scenario.
Ode to Keisha
Jamila Rowser (W), Trinidad Escobar (A)
Publisher info: Ode to Keisha is an autobiographical comic about friendship, racism, and identity. In this 18-page comic, Jamila recounts her Kindergarten friendship with Keisha, and why this bond was fundamental in shaping her concept of sisterhood. Trinidad’s beautiful black and white illustrations tenderly convey how racism and shared culture impacted the budding friendship between these two 5-year old Black girls living in The Netherlands.
Broken Frontier soundbite: Concluding with a joyous coda that is replete in layered meanings, Ode to Keisha combines explorations on identity with reflections on the ingrained nature of societal oppression, alongside a tribute to the friends who have had the profoundest influences on our lives.
The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town
Robyn Smith (W/A)
Publisher info: In The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town, Robyn Smith recounts her experience being one of the only Black people in a rural Vermont town and how that affected her mental health. Her delicate graphite illustrations and poetic words take the reader on a journey through three chapters: Sad, Angry, and Black. Being a Black girl in a majority white space is to be ignored but constantly observed. Robyn examines this experience of being simultaneously invisible and hyper-visible with such honesty and self-awareness.
Broken Frontier soundbite: For those of us who sit at the very centre of the Venn Diagram of privilege this will be an often uncomfortable read. And so it absolutely should be. As we’ve said on so, so many occasions here at Broken Frontier comics as a form have a remarkable ability to communicate personal experience on the most deeply empathetic level in a way that no other medium can. You won’t find a finer example of that than The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town.
Tags: black josei pressjamila rowser
— Andy Oliver
Andy Oliver is Broken Frontier’s Editor-in-Chief and site owner. He is also a co-organiser of the annual UK Small Press Day and has been a judge or committee member for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition, the British Comic Awards and the SICBA Awards.
English (US) · 