April roundup: podcast interview & cartooning workshop video

It’s been a few weeks, so here’s a quick roundup of recent stuff while I keep my head down to finish drawing Lies My Teacher Told Me by the end of the year— both that book AND Fall Through will be released in 2024!

Thanks for checking in!

roundup for SAVE IT FOR LATER

Thanks to everyone who’s stood behind Save It For Later over the past year and half, reflecting what we’ve collectively weathered over the past decade— unfortunately it’ll only be increasingly relevant as both a time capsule and a letter to our days of future present.

Along the way, Save It For Later received 2 starred reviews, 4 award nominations, and was featured on 5 best-of-the-year lists. You can order a signed/sketched copy directly from me here.

Keep fighting, keep loving, look out for each other and stay human. See you in the streets.

'SAVE IT FOR LATER'-- new expanded paperback edition out today!

Today marks the release of a new, expanded paperback edition of Eisner Award-nominated Save It for Later, with 16 new pages of post-2020 conversation between Derf Backderf and myself (including citations), a recommended reading list of work which informed or influenced my book, some creative process images of formative thumbnail and script, and more.

You can learn more and order through many outlets here, or you can order via Bookshop, IndieBound, Powell’s, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon here.

If you’re in Indiana tomorrow (August 10th), I’ll be having a book-launch discussion with Erin Tobey moderating, followed by a signing— Morgenstern Books (849 S. Auto Mall Rd.) at 6:30 pm. See you there!

New "About Face" interview for Gear Patrol

I was honored to speak with Evan Malachosky for this Gear Patrol piece about the infiltration of “tactical” paramilitary aesthetic into every corner of our consumer lives, and how that relates to our social and political reality— it’s a thorough and nuanced look into the history of many outdoor and tactical equipment companies as well as their marketing considerations, and I encourage everyone to read it! I learned a lot along the way.

It remains a profound honor that my comics essay “About Face” has continued to serve such a crucial role in our larger cultural discussion about the crisis of mainstreamed fascism— and how our lives as consumers play into this nightmare. “About Face” is the central chapter of my essay/memoir hybrid Save It For Later, which was an Eisner Awards nominee for Best Graphic Memoir this year. Please pick up a copy if you haven’t yet— thanks!

SAVE IT FOR LATER is out today!

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Today is the day: Save It For Later is on shelves everywhere!

(Order here via your local comics shop, indie bookstore, directly through me, Abrams, or Amazon if you must.)

So much gratitude for all the folks at Abrams ComicArts, The Nib, Popula, and my agent Charlie Olsen for their faith and support getting this work out into the world.

I’m gonna be signing & packing the next wave of mailorders today— thank you, friends near and far, for sticking with me & each other. <3

Here are three new interviews today:

And two book launch discussions:

2nd starred review for SAVE IT FOR LATER!

I’m moved to find that Save It For Later has received its second starred review, this time from Publishers Weekly!

“Powell perfectly sums up his mission: ‘It is we, together, who will determine what kind of society our kids grow into— by what we each choose to do, or not do.’ This sincere volume carries off parenting inspiration with gravitas.”

Save It For Later will be released everywhere on April 6th— there are still a few days left to order signed & sketched copies via my local shop, Vintage Phoenix Comics, and these copies will hopefully arrive before release day.

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Starred review for SAVE IT FOR LATER at Booklist!

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It’s an honor to find a starred review for Save It For Later over at ALA Booklist!

“Much of this work feels like visual poetry: the line-by-line sentences mirrored by stacked horizontal panels that become image-stanzas; spare, nuanced colors punctuated by fearsome splashes of aggression and encompassed by expressionistic darkness… This is a deeply personal, deeply partisan book, distinctly not a call for national unity… A virtuoso work of artistry with important content that might alienate some but powerfully stir others.”

Save It For Later will be out April 6th from Abrams ComicArts— go here for more info and multiple ordering options.

If you’d like to pre-order signed/sketched copies of Save It For Later, do it here— thanks!

Signed SAVE IT FOR LATER bookplates for retailers!

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If you’re a bookstore or comics shop, please holler at me about signed bookplates for Save It For Later— Abrams ComicArts and I will send as many as copies ordered. Available everywhere April 6th!

Please email me at seemybrotherdance@yahoo.com, and we’ll work it out— thanks!

Readers: signed & sketched copies of Save It For Later are still available for direct pre-ordering here.

New interview up w/ Noah Van Sciver!

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In case you’ve been missing my excessive hand movements in-person, I’ve got a brand new video interview up at Noah Van Sciver’s YouTube page, discussing my new book Save It For Later, creative process, my fiction vs. non-fiction comics, parenthood, pandemic, the puppies and the kitties.

Thanks for inviting me, Noah!

Related— you can pre-order signed & sketched copies of Save It For Later here.

"Pecking Order" online now at The Nib-- plausible deniability, pop culture, and our ongoing armed fascist threat

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In light of last week’s violent, premeditated armed siege of the U.S. Capitol by organized white supremacists as part of an ongoing fascist movement to overthrow democracy, The Nib has made my comic “Pecking Order” available online here.

“Pecking Order” was originally published last summer as part of The Nib’s “Power” issue, and is a crucial chapter in my forthcoming book Save It For Later (out April 6th from Abrams ComicArts)— pre-order it here.

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Since the January 6th fascist siege, there has been a huge level of interest in my comics essay “About Face” (also included in Save It For Later)— reupping that link here too.

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Stay safe, stay vigilant, stick together. We’ve gotta do everything we can to hold on to a fragile democracy.

Love and solidarity,

Nate

Announcing SAVE IT FOR LATER

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I’m eager and proud to announce my next book, Save It For Later, to be released on April 6th, 2021 by Abrams ComicArts!

Save It For Later is an essay/memoir hybrid covering the intersections between my family’s personal experiences and social/political engagement throughout the 2010s, as mass people’s movements have emerged in resistance against horrifying (but entirely predictable) shifts toward authoritarianism and fascism in the US.

Here’s the book’s cover reveal and announcement from The Hollywood Reporter.

The more personal narratives highlight my parental experiences, as so many millions of us have worked to equip our children, at their respective levels, to handle such a chaotic, foreboding future. Interspersed essays trace the American consumer’s complicity in normalizing a clearly-telegraphed paramilitary fascist presence, with much of white America blinded by intergenerational myths of exceptionalism, security, and by our own privilege. These essays include both “About Face” (my viral comic from early 2019 about paramilitary aesthetic evolution and fragile masculinity) and “Pecking Order” (my new comic in The Nib’s “Power” issue about fascist cosplay and geek subcultures).

This is a book for everyone. It’s neither a parenting guide nor an activist handbook. Save It For Later lays bare feelings and reflections we’ve been gaslit into denying or suppressing in the past five years, reckons with our own delusions of the inevitability of progress, and contains an urgent call to speak truth and stick together if we’re to have any hope of salvaging an eclipsed promise of a shared society.

I look forward to making this book a part of our vital, ongoing conversations and work. Thanks for being there with me— for the People Power.

160-page color hardcover // ISBN: 978-1-4197-4912-4

(I’ll be doing signed pre-orders in partnership with my local shop early in 2021, but for now, you may pre-order it from Abrams, at your local indie bookstore or comics shop, at Barnes & Noble, or on Amazon.)

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Steve Bannon's snake oil in "About Face"

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In light of fascist grifter Steve Bannon’s arrest for (alleged) intentional duping of the pro-fascist base, I’ve been thinking a lot about my last paragraph in the above excerpt from my essay “About Face”, written in late 2018 as the Wall Scam was launched, but also applicable to the regime broadly.

“About Face” will be released in print— stay tuned for a big announcement next Tuesday involving my next book!

Re-upping link to "About Face"

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A quick, perfunctory post amidst this massive uprising against white supremacy, police brutality, and fascism:

There’s been a massive increase in interest in my viral comics essay “About Face” (addressing the relationships between military/paramilitary aesthetic and apolitical consumer goods to normalize fascism and exploit fragile masculinity), so here’s a direct link.

Thanks to everyone at Popula for believing in this essay— and thanks to everyone who’s read it and used it to contribute to our urgent national discussion and struggles! <3

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