Comics have their own way of being read. People tend to learn that as soon as they start getting really into them (and everybody gets really into comics, or graphic novels, or whatever you want to call them at some point, right?). Maybe the appeal is that comics induce a mode of reading that is different than the channels we usually sink into when we read internet clickbait or crack open a novel. They offer up the dialogue, exposition, narrative and general text we expect from a book, but they provide more than just wordy richness—they offer us artwork that has the potential to expand the story with all the visual richness of a moving picture. Comics have their own way of being—one part literature, one part visual art. In the way they span these two mediums, comics can articulate ideas that can’t be expressed in any other way, allowing the form and the concept of a story to coexist on a single flat sheet of paper. Perhaps that is why they have become so foundational to so many readers, as Junot Diaz described them, “a gateway drug for all manner of literacy”—while simultaneously offering up some of the best literature humanity has to offer, regardless of medium. For this issue we invited local artists to share their carefully crafted comic brilliance. Here we have work by the Indigo Ignited team (Samuel Dalton and David Pinter), local artist and illustrator Kelly Williams, multimedia artist and comic Ian Kerstetter and the team behind the Gorilla Bomb (that is, Desmond Fox and Joseph Millard). Liberate your literacy by diving in below.
The Zero Issue Alibi Comic Reader
3 min read
