Francine

Death stalks a quartet of girls – or is it the other way around?

A simple, elemental story of a group of adorable, little girls evading the specter of Death perfectly complements Gabriel Howell’s poetic diary/manifesto/wishlist. What looks like a Victorian children’s book complete with moral lessons, depicts an internal and external tug-of-war between vulnerability and intimacy, relatability and honesty, observation and isolation. The message remains raw and uncensored: don’t hide it in a book; forget about who is or isn’t watching; Forget Me Not.

Whatever happened to Marchenoir?

Enter the Marchenoir Library, a different kind of graphic novel from A. Degen, an artist Michael DeForge (Lose, Ant Colony, Leaving Richard’s Valley) says is “one of the smartest and funniest cartoonists in the game.”  A gallery of the most beautiful covers from the beloved series, Marchenoir, is all that’s left of the mystery of Marchenoir, ex-celebrity singer/songwriter working as a superheroine to pay off her debts, and defend our dreams and reality, as she searches for a terrestrial paradise. Can you solve a book by its covers?

Have you ever gotten turned on while stuffing a turkey? Get a Little Stranger with Edie Fake.

What’s silly, scary and sexy? Edie Fake’s comics forged an entire aesthetic of art and queer culture. Since his Ignatz Award winning Gaylord Phoenix, Fake’s comics have only appeared in underground anthologies and zines. At last, these rare comics can all be found under the covers of a Little Stranger. You’ll never look at a turkey the same way again.

People and places come and go, but the after-party never stops when it's 2AM Eternal.

Your host, Eric Kostiuk Williams, captures a decade of nightlife in Toronto’s queer community, from basements to the backstage to back rooms. Collecting one hundred event posters from 2012 to 2022, short comics stories, and hand-written notes from the author, the organizers, the performers, and the crowd, 2AM Eternal makes a scene – until last call. The pandemic prompts a series of posters for cancelled events, and a pivot to digital events in the days of lockdown, before the manic, uneasy re-emergence of face-to-face, wall-to-wall living.

You have reached the end of the Motel Universe.

The Skins, a slave race once hunted for their pelts, have turned the tables on their masters, the Jeffs, making for the hottest reality show in Depression Land. Meanwhile, the Skins’ home planet of Epidermis is ravaged by inflation, a Neuro drug epidemic, and an all-controlling hyperconglomerate, the Shackler Corporation. Sounds like another uprising may be in order!

Motel Universe 3 is the final volume of a trilogy of graphic novels from Joakim Drescher, an artist Print Magazine says is “is carving a place for himself in the image world.”

"Sean Ford creates a world that's both eerie and warmly mundane. Not an easy feat." —Alison Bechdel (Fun Home)

Only Skin is an exploration of the hallucinatory and grim landscape of rural America seen through the eyes of two orphaned siblings searching for answers in a world filled with terrible questions.