Broken Frontier

Broken Frontier is a comic book and graphic novel news site established in 2002. Our international team of staff writers covers quality stories from all corners of the comics universe, with a penchant for independent and creator-owned material.

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The Gosh Comics and Broken Frontier Drink and Draw Returns Online! – Join Us Thurs, June 23rd with Guest Creators Scarlett & Sophie Rickard

The Gosh Comics and Broken Frontier Drink and Draw Returns Online! – Join Us Thurs, June 23rd with Guest Creators Scarlett & Sophie Rickard

Your favourite online comics social is back! Our fortnightly Gosh! Comics and Broken Frontier Drink and Draw returns this Thursday, June 23rd as Scarlett and Sophie Rickard, who recently adapted The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists for SelfMadeHero, join us as guest artists. Not only do our online D&Ds keep all those who would meet at The King’s Arms in Soho, London every month (in those fondly…

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The Comics Time Capsule - Creating Comics UK and LDComics' Much Anticipated UK Indie Comics Documentary Series Debuts on YouTube

The Comics Time Capsule – Creating Comics UK and LDComics’ Much Anticipated UK Indie Comics Documentary Series Debuts on YouTube

The Comics Time Capsule, an eagerly anticipated documentary project from Creating Comics UK and LDComics, has debuted on YouTube. With interview contributions from 31 movers and shakers in the UK indie comics scene it’s an essential watch.  Speakers include Broken Frontier team members like Jenny Robins and EdieOP, BF ‘Six to Watch‘ artists including Sabba Khan, Mereida Fajardo and Jem Milton,…

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Marvel to Publish 'Planet of the Apes' Comics for the First Time Since the 1970s

Marvel to Publish ‘Planet of the Apes’ Comics for the First Time Since the 1970s

Interesting developments today as Marvel have revealed that they have regained the license to the Planet of the Apes comics for the first time since the 1970s. Part of the black and white magazine line-up of the era Planet of the Apes ran for 29 issues in the mid-’70s with some of the early movie adaptations being reprinted in colour comic format as Adventures on the Planet of the Apes which ran…

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Black Heroes of the Wild West -

Black Heroes of the Wild West –

Earlier this week at Broken Frontier we looked at Tales of the Talented Tenth, another comics biographical publication that put a spotlight on notable Black figures of the past largely forgotten by a history largely recorded from a white perspective. James Otis Smith’s Black Heroes of the Wild West looks at three Black names of the era whose stories have perhaps not been lost to posterity but…

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Tamlin - Aven Wildsmith Reimagines Scottish Folk Song as Queer Fairy Tale in this Eerily Beautiful Graphic Narrative

Tamlin – Aven Wildsmith Reimagines Scottish Folk Song as Queer Fairy Tale in this Eerily Beautiful Graphic Narrative

Celebrating Pride Month! Taking a Scottish folk ballad dating back to the sixteenth century as its starting point Aven Wildsmith’s Tamlin, from Knight Errant Press, brings queer romance, mythology and graphic poetry together in self-contained comics package. The original story revolves around the character of Tam Lin who, having fallen off his horse in the forest, was captured and enslaved by the…

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Vault Comics and Gatecrashers Announce Charity Auction in Aid of the William Way LGBTQ Center

Vault Comics and Gatecrashers Announce Charity Auction in Aid of the William Way LGBTQ Center

Celebrating Pride Month! Vault Comics have certainly taken the initiative this year for Pride Month with their Unbanned initiative featured here recently at Broken Frontier. This week they have announced another community-focussed event for Pride Month in partnership with the entertainment site Gatecrashers. Full details of the Pride Charity Auction in support of the William Way LGBT Community…

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Tales of the Talented Tenth #3: Robert Smalls - Joel Christian Gill Brings the Story of Another Remarkable Black Figure from History to New Audiences

Tales of the Talented Tenth #3: Robert Smalls – Joel Christian Gill Brings the Story of Another Remarkable Black Figure from History to New Audiences

Projects like Joel Christian Gill’s Tales of the Talented Tenth may be celebratory in intent, but they are also a vital reminder of how much work there is still to be done in making visible the stories of key Black figures who have largely been erased from an “official” history. One, of course, written largely from a white perspective. We’ve all seen pushback on attempts to decolonise curricula,…

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Heartstopper Vol. 1-4 - Alice Oseman's "Boy Meets Boy" Story Lives Up to the Hype

Heartstopper Vol. 1-4 – Alice Oseman’s “Boy Meets Boy” Story Lives Up to the Hype

Celebrating Pride Month! Sometimes in comics commentary you can be very aware of work that can only be described as a true publishing phenomenon without having directly experienced it yourself. There’s only so much even the most committed review outlets can get to at any given time after all. Coming into our Pride Month coverage here at Broken Frontier this year though I wanted to think beyond…

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New Comics Exhibition 'The Graphic Novels of Mary Talbot' Opens at London's Bookery Gallerie this Weekend

New Comics Exhibition ‘The Graphic Novels of Mary Talbot’ Opens at London’s Bookery Gallerie this Weekend

Opening tomorrow at the Bookery Gallerie in London ‘The Graphic Novels of Mary Talbot’ is a new exhibition of original art by Bryan Talbot, Kate Charlesworth and Alwyn Talbot from their graphic novel collaborations with Mary. It runs from June 11th to July 8th, and more information can be found on the gallery’s website here. Check out the press release below for extra details on the work…

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I Think Our Son is Gay Vol. 1 & 2 - Okura's Coming-of-Age Manga is a Funny Yet Touching Tale of the Anxiety of Coming Out

I Think Our Son is Gay Vol. 1 & 2 – Okura’s Coming-of-Age Manga is a Funny Yet Touching Tale of the Anxiety of Coming Out

Celebrating Pride Month! Despite social awkwardness being at the heart of each instalment, Okura’s I Think Our Son is Gay is a truly delightful collection of short strips that sits somewhere in the “coming out story” subgenre of queer comics. Ironic, perhaps, given that the entire premise of the series in these first two volumes is based on a central character who does just the opposite. Set…

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The Girl from the Sea - Molly Knox Ostertag’s YA Queer Romance is a Character-Led Delight

The Girl from the Sea – Molly Knox Ostertag’s YA Queer Romance is a Character-Led Delight

Pride Month! As we move ever onwards into this year’s Pride Month it’s important to remember that, while graphic memoirs and graphic biographies exploring the prejudice and challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community are vital and compelling, there’s also a need to promote work that is celebratory in tone and stories that are aimed at a younger audience. Molly Knox Ostertag’s The Girl from the Sea,…

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Archie & Friends: Summer Lovin’ #1 - New Pansexual Character Eliza Han Debuts as the Riverdale Gang Take a Trip to the Funfair

Archie & Friends: Summer Lovin’ #1 – New Pansexual Character Eliza Han Debuts as the Riverdale Gang Take a Trip to the Funfair

Pride Month! Arguably no publisher has done as much as Arche Comics in the last several years in terms of both taking decades-old iconic characters in radical new directions and experimenting with alternative iterations of their properties. And while the success of projects like Afterlife with Archie have sometimes been counterbalanced with more eyebrow-raising choices like Archie Vs. Sharknado,…

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The Gosh Comics and Broken Frontier Drink and Draw Returns Online! – Join Us Thurs, June 9th with Guest Artist Norm Konyu

The Gosh Comics and Broken Frontier Drink and Draw Returns Online! – Join Us Thurs, June 9th with Guest Artist Norm Konyu

Your favourite online comics social is back! Our fortnightly Gosh! Comics and Broken Frontier Drink and Draw returns this Thursday, June 9th as Norm Konyu joins us as guest artist. Not only do our online D&Ds keep all those who would meet at The King’s Arms in Soho, London every month (in those fondly remembered pre-March 2020 days) in regular contact, they also allow us to expand our reach for…

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The Stonewall Riots: Making a Stand for LGBTQ Rights - Archie Bongiovanni and A. Andrews Take Younger Readers Back to a Pivotal Point in History

The Stonewall Riots: Making a Stand for LGBTQ Rights – Archie Bongiovanni and A. Andrews Take Younger Readers Back to a Pivotal Point in History

Pride Month! Part of First Second’s History Comics series spotlighting pivotal points in history for younger readers, The Stonewall Riots: Making a Stand for LGBTQ Rights is an obviously timely release for Pride Month this year. Written by Archie Bongiovanni and illustrated by A. Andrews it uses a time travel twist to explore the events of the 1969 police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a popular…

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Broken Frontier 'Six to Watch'-Watch for June 2022 - Catching Up with the Latest Work from Creators in Our BF Mentoring Initiative Including Alxndra Cook, Norm Konyu, Shanti Rai and Sabba Khan

Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’-Watch for June 2022 – Catching Up with the Latest Work from Creators in Our BF Mentoring Initiative Including Alxndra Cook, Norm Konyu, Shanti Rai and Sabba Khan

With 8 years of creators featured in our annual Broken Frontier ‘Six Small Press Creators to Watch’ initiative it seems long overdue that we start giving some regular reports on what our very talented #BF6toWatch graduates have been up to both within comics and in their other creative pursuits. So in the first of a semi-regular ongoing series of catch-ups here’s some recent updates they’ve shared…

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Vault Comics to Make Free Queer Comics Available as Part of Their 'Unbanned' Pride Month Initiative

Vault Comics to Make Free Queer Comics Available as Part of Their ‘Unbanned’ Pride Month Initiative

Pride Month! With Pride Month well and truly with us now US publisher Vault Comics have announced an initiative for free queer comics that we can really get behind here at BF. More details on ‘Unbanned’ in the press release below. Vault Comics proudly announces “UNBANNED” — a Pride month initiative to give away free queer books to everyone, everywhere.    Banning books is nothing new to the…

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Lure – Lane Milburn Explores Climate Change, Privilege and the Commodification of Art in His Socially Relevant Sci-Fi Story from Fantagraphics

Lure – Lane Milburn Explores Climate Change, Privilege and the Commodification of Art in His Socially Relevant Sci-Fi Story from Fantagraphics

It hardly needs saying that science fiction has always been a powerful medium for allegorical explorations of contemporary socio-political issues. Lane Milburn’s graphic novel Lure, from Fantagraphics, is an excellent example of this, examining discussion points that feel like extrapolations of multiple news headlines from our post-millennium world. Climate change, inequality, colonialism,…

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