Pepita Sandwich ’19

“A book that I’ve been researching and working on for the past 3 years… I’m already crying tears of joy.”

The brilliantly researched and illustrated book officially hits bookstores on April 30, 2024. More from Hachette Books: “In The Art of Crying, Pepita Sandwich makes the case that crying is humanity’s most misunderstood and magical special effect. We are the only animals who shed tears as a result of the emotions we feel. But crying is not our weakness: it’s our superpower. Our tears are a path to growth and healing that leads to deeper and more fulfilling experiences.”

Lauren Hinds ’10

100 Goats and Granny! by Atinuke and illustrated by Lauren Hinds ’10 released May 20th!

“…Atinuke’s text rollicks while Hinds’ illustrations urge readers to slow down to take in every delicious detail. . . Great goatish fun.” –Kirkus Reviews

With a hefty dollop of humor, Atinuke’s rollicking counting story takes on a life of its own when Granny’s mischievous goats start escaping. Excitement is in the air as Granny collects more and more goats! Eight are great, fifty are nifty . . . but when their number reaches one hundred, things start to get out of hand. There’s a brown goat beeping on the bus, a gray one sitting in the salon, a white goat stealing panties from the line, and one has gone missing altogether—who can count in all this mayhem? Beloved storyteller Atinuke has a field day following goats throughout the town, while a gleeful crowd of children try their best to track them. With colorful, spirited illustrations by Lauren Hind, here’s an uproarious read-aloud you can count on to bring giggles and smiles.

Mary Shyne ’18

You And Me On Repeat by Mary Shyne

“A cheeky, smart romance with appeal for fans of Heartstopper.” —Booklist

A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year! A Morris Award Finalist for Best YA Debut!

For fans of Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me and Groundhog Day, this delightful rom-com follows two childhood friends who are trapped repeating their high school graduation day over and over and over…and catch feelings along the way.

Chris O’Brien has a genius plan: If he can share the perfect first kiss with his crush, Andy, then of course he’ll break free from the time loop that has him repeating graduation day over and over…and over.

Alicia Ochoa thinks Chris’s plan is doomed. Valedictorian and a total nerd, she knows it’ll take more than a kiss to escape the loop they’re trapped in together. Besides, Chris may be a hopeless romantic, but Alicia doesn’t think he has a real shot with Andy.

Once close friends, Alicia and Chris have history—lots of it. As they got older, the pair fell out after Chris ditched her for the “cool kids” and left her in the dust. But when you’re looping side by side, you never know if friendship might rekindle or what new feelings could spark along the way.

Emma Hunsinger

Emma Hunsinger started her career making New Yorker gags before getting her MFA at The Center for Cartoon Studies. Her short comic How to Draw a Horse appeared in The New Yorker and was nominated for an Eisner Award and National Cartoonist Society Division Award. Her comic She Would Feel The Same was one of the AV Club’s “Best Comics of 2020”. Her picture book with fellow faculty member Tillie Walden, My Parents Won’t Stop Talking, released in February 2022. Her middle grade graphic novel How It All Ends debuted in August 2024.

Beth Hetland ’11

TENDER, a psychological thriller about a woman obsessed with her vision for a picture-perfect, curated life.

“An incredibly paced horror story that’s equal parts sardonic, gruesome, and tender. A Jeanne Dielman for the Instagram generation.” —Katie Skelly

“A brutal critique of gender roles, social media, cultural pressures & expectations, Tender is a triumph.” —Rob Clough, High Low Comics

“Chicago cartoonist and educator Beth Hetland’s graphic novel debut is a brilliant psychological thriller that tears down the wall of a genre — body horror — so often identified with male creators. Heady and visceral, Tender uses horrific tropes to confront women’s societal expectations of self-sacrifice despite those traditional roles often coming at the expense of female sexuality and empowerment.” —Fantagraphics

Coco Fox ’19

Let’s Go, Coco! by Coco Fox

When Coco joins the school basketball team, she’s ready to rock. Joining the team means new friends—something she’s desperate for—but it also means dealing with bossy teammates, confusing crushes, and less-than-flattering new nicknames. When the team’s all-star player, Maddie, starts calling her “shrimp,” Coco realizes it’s not actually a joke and that she’s going to need new moves if she wants to score both on and off the court. But her resilience is put to the ultimate test when a courtside catastrophe threatens to put an end to the new world she’s worked so hard to be a part of.

Told with tenderness, humor, and above all heart, Coco Fox delivers a sorta-true story about taking your best shot, even when the odds are stacked against you.

Sarah “Chu” Wilson ‘15

Slightly Damned by Chu

Sarah “Chu” Wilson ’15 is a web comic maniac. She has two series going, Slightly Damned and The Junk Hyenas Diner, and continues to make various minicomics. Slightly Damned started in 2004 and continued through her time at The Center to Cartoon Studies to now. Chu posts one color page per week. The fantasy story follows Rhea through Hell after she was murdered in an action-adventure romantic comedy.

Dakota McFadzean ‘12

Don’t Get Eaten By Anything by Dakota McFadzean

Dakota McFadzean is a Canadian cartoonist who graduated from The Center for Cartoon Studies in 2012. He went on to win a Doug Wright award in 2015 for for Don’t Get Eaten By Anything, a collection of his daily comics.  Dakota has been published byMAD Magazine, The New Yorker, The Best American Comics, andFunny or Die. He has also worked as a storyboard artist for DreamWorks TV.  dakota-mcfadzean.com

Adam Staffaroni ’07

The Curie Society by Adam Staffaroni ′07 and Heather Einhorn is releasing with MIT Press in April 2021.  In this 200-page color comic, a covert team of young women—members of the Curie Society, an elite organization dedicated to women in STEM—undertakes high-stakes missions to save the world. And the comic is only the beginning of the adventure.

Adam Staffaroni ’07 is also co-creator and executive producer on two scripted podcast series. Lethal Lit: A Tig Torres Mystery is a teen detective story. Tig Torres investigates the infamous “Lit Killer” murders in her hometown, Hollow Falls. Season one has completed with five episodes, and season two is coming soon. And Daughters of DC is a teen political thriller set in Washington, DC. Prep school student Jaymes and friends are thrust into a global conspiracy after the DDOC app, where they share all their secrets, is hacked.

Jarad Greene ’17

A FOR EFFORT, the second semi-autobiographical graphic novel by Jarad Greene ‘17.

“A for Effort’s refreshingly witty and honest story is a heartfelt exploration of how it’s not always the outcome but the journey itself that truly matters.”  -HarperCollins

A FOR EFFORT follows the hit graphic novel A-OKAY (2021) and its lead character Jay, this time as he navigates his freshman year of high school. If you enjoyed following Jay’s self-discovery journey through 8th grade in A-OKAY, you are sure to enjoy A FOR EFFORT.

“Liberal amounts of comedy interspersed with drama make this an enjoyable read, while the ace/aro protagonist and depiction of a teenage boy’s poor self-image keep the otherwise familiar storyline fresh.” —Kirkus Review on A-OKAY

Alexis Frederick-Frost ’07

Team Unihorn and Woolly #1: Attack of the Krill by Alexis Frederick-Frost

Meet the coolest new superhero team on Burlap Beach in the first in a series of graphic novels for young readers.

Raina the rhino, Nigel the narwhal, Shu the horseshoe crab, and Woolly the mammoth have more in common than the fact that they all have horns. (WARNING: Never try to tell Shu that hers is really more of a tail!) They were also all exposed to a Super Blood Full Moon Eclipse that gave them each strange powers. Now Shu can fly, Raina is lightning quick, Nigel has supersonic sonar, and Woolly, well, he’s extra fluffy.

Unfortunately, our heroes aren’t the only ones who were gifted by the eclipse. Now they’ll need to stave off a giant krill monster who was also caught up in the event. If they can’t stop him, it might just mean the end of Burlap Beach, Team Unihorn (and Woolly), and even–gasp!–summer’s tastiest treat, ice cream!

Tillie Walden ‘16

Spinning by Tillie Walden

Ignatz Award winner Tillie Walden’s ’16 powerful graphic memoir Spinning captures what it’s like to come of age, come out, and come to terms with leaving behind everything you used to know.

“Tillie Walden has published three books, been nominated for an Eisner and won two Ignatz awards. Not bad for anyone, let alone a young artist born in the mid-90s. Her work ethic and ambition are evident through previous projects I Love This Part, The End of Summer and A City Inside , and now First Second has released her biggest project yet, Spinning, a 400-page memoir that uses her years as a competitive figure skater to tell a story about learning to follow your own path….” –Paste Magazine

“Spinning’s Tillie Walden on the Power of Pursuing and Ending Childhood Dreams” by Hillary Brown, September 26, 2017.

Dan Nott ‘18

Dan Nott is an artist, cartoonist, and educator living in Vermont.

His debut nonfiction graphic novel, Hidden Systems (Random House Graphic, 2023) was long listed for a National Book Award, won the Vermont Book Award, and has been honored by the National Science Teaching Association, National Council of Teachers of English, the American Booksellers association, among others. He has released two comic books with the Center for Cartoon Studies, This is What Democracy Looks Like: A Graphic Guide to Governance, and Freedom and Unity: A Graphic Guide to Civics and Democracy in Vermont.

Kit Anderson ’22

SAFER SPACES, a new collection of stories about isolation, memory, liminal spaces, and small magic from one of comics’ up-and-coming voices.

From road trips to doctors’ offices to the mysterious spaces under the house, Kit Anderson’s short stories explore the secrets and magic typically unseen in everyday life. A walk through the forest, a family move, a day in a normal life – Anderson’s depictions of these ordinary moments transform them with a double-take, revealing the strangeness, surreality, and transformation within.

With powerful and personal emotional writing and art, thoughtfully combining magic and life as we all know it – these stories establish Kit Anderson as a presence in short comics-format fiction.

Eleri Harris ‘14

Reported Missing by Eleri Harris

Eleri Harris ’14 looks at what it is like when your mom is charged with murder. Reported Missing is The Nib’s first serialized work of long-form comics journalism. Originally from Tasmania, Eleri went to school with Sarah Bowles, whose mother is the one convicted of murder. With this insight, she delves into the emotional nightmare behind Tasmania’s most controversial murder conviction. The first of seven posts went up just a week before the Supreme Court appeal could change everything.

Eleri Harris is deputy director at The Nib.

Rebecca Roher ‘15

Bird in a Cage by Rebecca Roher

Bird in a Cage tells the story of Rebecca’s grandmother as she goes through early onset dementia, and how the family is affected by and responds to her decline. It’s an intense tale full of family memories and surprising revelations.
Rebecca Roher received a Doug Wright Award nomination for the Best Book Award for Bird in a Cage, published by Conundrum Press. Originally published in The Nib, the minicomic won the Expozine Award. Conundrum Press gave Rebecca the opportunity to expand on the original comic into a graphic novel. Bird in a Cage was Rebecca’s CCS MFA thesis project.

Dan Archer ‘09

AP Sports: The “Daily Draw” by graphic journalist Dan Archer appeared throughout the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Dan Archer was a 2014–15 Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow and a 2011 Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, where he also taught non-fiction graphic novel writing from 2008–14.

Andy Warner ‘12

Brief Histories of Everyday Objects by Andy Warner

Andy Warner is the New York Times Best Selling author of Brief Histories of Everyday Objects (Picador, 2016). His comics have been published by Slate, Fusion, American Public Media, The Nib, Symbolia, Medium, KQED, popsci.com, The Showtime Network’s Years of Living Dangerously, IDEO.org, The Center for Constitutional Rights, UNHCR, UNRWA, UNICEF, and Buzzfeed.

He is a contributing editor at The Nib and has taught cartooning at Stanford University, California College of the Arts, and the Animation Workshop in Denmark.

Penina Gal ‘14

Orbit by Penina Gal

Orbit is a poetic letter of love to a friend.

Penina won a SPACE Prize in 2014 for best minicomic (Limp Wrist, published by Paper Rocket Minicomics, in collaboration with Scout Wolfcave). Their comics and illustration work has been published in Cicada Magazine, Narratively, Seven Days, Limestone Post, and a variety of comics anthologies.

Luke Howard ‘13

Our Mother  (Retrofit) by Luke Howard

Our Mother is a comedy about growing up with a parent who has an anxiety disorder. Luke Howard mixes genres to tell an utterly open personal reflection about his childhood and his relationship with his mother. Jumping between noir, giant robots, fantasy adventure, and even scientific animal research, Luke brings a very intimate story to life with humor and cartooning experimentation.

Luke Howard’s work includes Trevor, Talk Dirty to Me (AdHouse Books), and The Big Mystery Case which released at CAKE 2017. Luke is faculty at The Center for Cartoon Studies.