Farewell to Joyce Brabner: Microcosm remembers a beloved author and mentor

September 03, 2024

Microcosm Publishing founder Joe Biel recently shared a remembrance of his close friend, mentor, respected comic artist and writer, and Cleveland publishing legend Joyce Brabner, who died August 2, 2024 after a long fight with cancer. She was 72 years old.

Though Brabner is perhaps best known through her marriage to comics pioneer and American Splendor creator Harvey Pekar, she was herself an esteemed artist, activist, and writer, publishing numerous books of her own alongside collaborations with other graphic publishing luminaries such as Alan Moore, Denny O’Neil, and Stephen R. Bissette.

*The Courage Party* was Brabner’s final published work before her death.

Brabner’s final published book was The Courage Party: Helping Our Resilient Children Understand and Survive Sexual Assault, a project of great importance to her which Microcosm published in 2020 at the very beginning of the COVID crisis. This groundbreaking YA comic book tells the story of a child who fights off a sexual attack (she prefers to be called a “crime fighter” over “survivor”) and the support she receives from her community, including an empowering “courage party” thrown for her by older women with their own stories to share. The book contains thorough and age-appropriate insights on how to navigate interactions with police, the legal system, support groups, and how to deal with teasing and inappropriate behavior from peers; it also offers extensive resources both for children and adults.

Detailed obituaries for Brabner have appeared in Cleveland Scene and Cleveland 13 News. Microcosm mourns the loss of Joyce Brabner as a friend, a Cleveland fixture, a fierce activist, and a publishing visionary.

Microcosm expands Cleveland warehousing operation

September 03, 2024

Microcosm Publishing has purchased the building adjacent to their Cleveland, OH warehouse, where construction is currently underway to connect the two buildings. This major project will double Microcosm’s warehousing capacity, as well as create an additional sales capacity of $5 million per year to serve the needs of Microcosm’s vertically-integrated publishing and distribution operation, which earned their recognition in 2022, 2023, and 2024 as a Publishers Weekly Fastest Growing Publisher.

Too Much Coffee Man to be distributed by Microcosm

September 03, 2024

Microcosm will be the new distributor for publisher Too Much Coffee Man, home of the iconic socially analytical humor comics and character created by Shannon Wheeler. Founded in 1991 and appearing everywhere from The New Yorker to The Daily Texan to MTV, Too Much Coffee Man remains an enduring and influential presence in independent comics.

Microcosm’s collaboration with Too Much Coffee Man will include the forthcoming Too Much Coffee Man: The Original Comic Books #1-9, currently slated for release in March 2025, along with other reissues of prior releases and updated and new material. Stay tuned!

Microcosm becomes first independent publisher to join bookseller tech Batch

September 03, 2024

Microcosm Publishing has become the first U.S. independent publisher to sign on with Batch, a business tool owned by the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland designed for independent bookstores to electronically store and organize invoices, reduce administrative workloads, and prepare publisher payments.

Microcosm hopes that this exciting and innovative development will strengthen relationships with independent booksellers, streamlining payment processes to create more ease and better communication for everyone. Booksellers and shop owners have already responded enthusiastically to the news from Microcosm’s sales team, such as Kelly Justice of Fountain Bookstore, whose response to the news was, “GOD BLESS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for the all-caps, but seriously, thank you.”

Of the Batch partnership, Microcosm founder Joe Biel says, “When Allison Hill told every bookseller at Winter Institute to simplify their workloads by signing up for Batch, my next move was marching over and signing up as a publisher. Our field sales reps have always cited that the greatest impediment for opening new accounts to Microcosm is convincing stores to take on the payables workload of a self-distributed publisher. I know how much work goes into managing payments on our 242 accounts and how consolidating that workload will enable booksellers to add more cool, independent publishers. But it was shocking to learn that we were the first independent publisher in the U.S. to sign up!”

Batch is free for booksellers to join; stores interested in Batch services may sign up here. For bookstores interested in setting up accounts with Microcosm Publishing (which can be serviced by Batch’s invoicing system), please feel free to contact us here.

Microcosm launches Yard Dragon Books imprint

September 03, 2024

Microcosm Publishing is founding a new imprint, Yard Dragon Books, focused on titles about plants and herbalism. Acquisitions for the imprint will be led by editor, herbalist, and artist Alexis Orgera.

Orgera (she/they) is the author of the lyric memoir Head Case: My Father, Alzheimer’s & Other Brainstorms (Kore Press, 2021), as well as poetry books How Like Foreign Objects and Dust Jacket, and Agatha (forthcoming) from Jackleg Press. She holds degrees in British & American literature from New College of Florida (before New College was taken over by DeSantis and his goons) and poetry from Emerson College. Orgera is an editor, has taught college writing, co-founded and edited Penny Candy Books, and is was recently executive director of Greensboro Bound literary festival. A student and practitioner of herbal medicine and permaculture in North Carolina’s piedmont, Orgera is currently apprentice to the land on a quarter-acre plot in an urban flood zone and uses ecology, permaculture design principles, regenerative practices, eco-philosophy, ethnobotany, the history of medicine and healing, and herbal studies in both her writing and gardening life.

Of the new imprint, Orgera writes, “I’m a better person because of plants. Herbalism and permaculture have taught me how better to listen to the world around me and to deeply respect balance—in myself, in nature, and in the relationship between people and our landscape. To be able to share the green life with readers, combining my passion for plants with my vocation of book-making and editing, is really a dream come true, and doing so with Microcosm—a publisher that really cares about its readers—is even better.”

More information on submitting work to the imprint can be found here.

Chickasaw Press to be distributed by Microcosm

September 03, 2024

Microcosm Publishing is thrilled to announce that we will serve as the first-ever distributor for Chickasaw Press, the only publishing house in the U.S. owned by an Indigenous Nation. Based in Ada, Oklahoma, Chickasaw Press’s goal is to preserve, perpetuate, and provide an awareness of Chickasaw history and culture. The press offers a literary, scholarly, and accessible outlet for the work of Chickasaw authors, academics, and culture bearers, exercising intellectual sovereignty through ethical and culturally appropriate research and publication practices.

The agreement with Microcosm encompasses the Chickasaw Nation’s three publishing imprints: Chickasaw Press, focused on nonfiction titles about tribal history, culture, self-governance, and sovereignty; White Dog Press, a fiction imprint devoted to sharing Chickasaw culture, experiences, and history through creative works; and Leaning Pole Press, a scholarly outlet for Chickasaw writers and academics to explore subjects beyond the Chickasaw historical and cultural experience.

Picture book *Mission to Space* by Chickasaw astronaut John Herrington

Microcosm founder Joe Biel writes, “The broad array of rad books that Chickasaw creates along with their incredible mission fits like a puzzle piece into ours, where we can help them reach more readers with their history, culture, nation, and culinary delights. When they approached us, I was humbled and honored, and the more I learn about their press, the more those sentiments deepen.”

Chickasaw Press titles will be available to order via Microcosm in November 2024.

Microcosm launches custom shipping boxes

September 02, 2024

Microcosm has created its own custom shipping boxes, featuring a spoof of a certain Seattle-based company’s logo and images of several employees’ cats, produced by International Paper based in Memphis, Tennessee. Microcosm regularly receives feedback from its bookstore customers praising its warehouse shippers’ packing skills, so it only seemed right to get boxes to match their acumen—and to express Microcosm’s cheeky and fiercely independent ethos anywhere its books are sent.

Cleveland warehouse manager Drew shares the new boxes

Microcosm boxes and Dr. Faith titles seen at Fabulosa Books on CBS News.

Maybe you even glimpsed our new boxes (and a few of our titles!) in the recent CBS Weekend News piece on fighting book bans, featuring the amazing Fabulosa Books.

Says Microcosm founder Joe Biel, “We created custom boxes, and the paper plant we’d been working with in Oregon refused to print our anti-Amazon artwork. Our number one customer complaint was our use of boxes from ULINE—a company that doesn’t align with our values anyway—so we switched to custom boxes that are of a superior quality in celebration of how many booksellers praise our warehouse employees’ box-packing superpowers.”

Biel and Microcosm vice president Elly Blue discuss the decision making, design, and Oregon vs. Ohio politics behind the new boxes in this recent episode of Microcosm’s People’s Guide to Publishing podcast.

How Can Every Book You Publish Be Evergreen? | A People’s Guide to Publishing

August 29, 2024

The publishing industry invests heavily in the logic that a new book hits hard out of the gate, has a third of its total sales before it’s published, a third of its sales in the following year, and the final third gradually across the lifetime of the book, until it gradually saturates and dead stalls. So this week on the pod, we look at how to make books sell forever.

Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

All New Henry & Glenn Comics & Stories #1: True Tales of Henry & Glenn Forever

August 26, 2024

Hot dog, they’re back! Don’t say love’s so heavy that it can’t return to make you laugh, cry, and sigh with blood and tears and gleeful reverence. Everyone’s favorite aging punk odd couple lights up the page once more in the first all-new Henry & Glenn floppy comic in a decade. Inside you’ll find “I Don’t Want to be Buried,” the first chapter of a brand new story written and drawn by Tom Neely. In this chapter, our squabbling, loving heroes have adopted a new cat they named Iggy. Iggy and Henry become best friends, but Glenn has A LOT of trouble connecting with the new kitty. Also, Henry gets cast in a new movie directed by Jon Twaters; so Glenn gets left home alone with Iggy… and it does not go well! You’ll also find a retrospective of Henry & Glenn lore and collectibles, and an all-true comic short, “True Tale of Henry & Glenn,” featuring the time Tom sat on a plane next to the drummer for Samhain. Plus a cameo from Henry and Glenn’s neighbors Daryl and John and some spicy new pin-ups, including a back cover pin-up by Justin Hall! Feel it move you! In full-color for the first time!

Microcosm’s Election Survival Guide

August 26, 2024

It’s a jungle out there, folks! The cosmic weather has been uniquely disruptive these past few months and it looks like the universe isn’t taking its foot off the gas til after the votes are cast and tallied. So now’s as good a time as any: take a deep breath, unclench your jaw, lie on the floor if you need to—then dig into this selection of stuff we’ve picked out to help you support your nervous system, feel your feelings, and get through yet another election cycle together. Shop the full list (with more stickers and pins and decks) or read on for a sampling below!

How to Be Wrong by Nicole Gulatz and Jason Ludtke

Being wrong—and realizing it, admitting it, making amends, and learning and moving on—is one of the most difficult life skills out there. Childhood friends Nicole and Jason reunited as adults and teamed up to produce this neatly illustrated, interactive zine that walks you through what it means to be wrong, what to do when you are wrong, and how to help others be wrong too. Got a group of friends, a book club, or a few local politicians you think could use the zine? We have bundles now!

Unfuck Your Anxiety Workbook: Using Science to Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Dr. Faith G. Harper

Anxiety can control your life with a tight grip. Get yourself free with these exercises and worksheets designed to help you identify, manage, and ultimately calm your anxiety, be it stress that ebbs and flows or constant, chronic panic. Work through this book either by itself or as a companion to Dr. Faith G. Harper’s bestselling Unfuck Your Anxiety to learn basic tools for surviving moments of panic as well as longer-term problem solving.

Sometimes anxiety gets us in the zone of reading about it when we could be being about it, you know? So check out the book-book, but the workbook might be an extra good fit for our needs these days. —DF

Next-Level Ally: How to Support Your Queer and Transgender Friends by Eli Sachse

If you’ve ever felt like you’re not doing enough to support the queer and trans communities, this zine is a great way to learn how to do more. Be a supportive advocate and speak up, even when it’s hard, learn how not to overstep, and de-gender your day-to-day language.

Get Your Laws Off My Uterus — Superpack featuring various authors

Ever since reproductive choice was legalized in the US in 1973, factions have been trying to strip the right to safe, legal abortions by any means necessary. Fuck that noise. Read up with these zines and books both about organizing and finding abortion access, and learning the medical procedures so we can make informed choices about what to do with our own bodies. And, of course, taking care of ourselves and each other. This wraparound sleeve holds two books and five zines.

Unfuck Your Anger Workbook: Using Science to Manage Frustration, Rage, and Forgiveness by Dr. Faith G. Harper

If you feel irritable all the time, or if your rage is getting the best of you, take a deep breath and open this book. A standalone companion to Unfuck Your Anger by the inimitable Dr. Faith, this workbook is packed with helpful exercises, worksheets, and opportunities for reflection. In these pages, you’ll learn practical skills like meditation, communication, and breathing, and you’ll find a special model for understanding and embracing forgiveness in order to heal old wounds. Let your pent-up frustration go and turn your righteous anger into healthy, helpful fuel for treating yourself and others well, seeking justice, and living the life you want.

Monthly Manifestation Manual: A 31-Day Guided Journal to Create Your Best Life by Kelly Cree and Jessica Mullen (School of Life Design)

Spend a month manifesting your greatest desires and potential. This planner and workbook gives you 31 days’ worth of exercises for rewiring your brain to create new patterns of thoughts and actualizing your intentions and dreams. Perfect for when you’re stuck at work or in love, out of touch with your emotions, angry, anxious, afraid, or depressed, or feel like you’re hurtling down the wrong path in life too fast. Jessica Mullen and Kelly Cree’s dreamy designs and potent exercises are tested and true methods for getting yourself back on the path to living the life you want.

How Not To Get Arrested At a Demonstration by Bill DiPaola, illustrated by fly

Remember that ‘Oh shit’ moment you had at your first protest? Or maybe you’ve been avoiding the news and your social feed; you want to get out there and be involved but you don’t even know where to start with the shit-show of our current state of affairs. How Not to Get Arrested is a zine full of illustrations, checklists, and thoroughly researched survival tips for the beginner demonstrator and the seasoned activist.

Unfuck Your Stress: Using Science to Cope with Distress and Embrace Excitement by Dr. Faith G. Harper

Stressed? Hell yeah, you are. Dr. Faith is here to help. This book offers strategies for coping with intense feelings and overwhelm in the moment and for shifting distress into helpful motivation, excitement, and action. Dr. Faith also walks us through understanding our physiological stress response (not inherently a bad thing!) and what happens when it turns into chronic stress and adrenal fatigue. Full of practical advice for understanding and managing your own stress response so that you can find solid ground and feel excited and engaged with your life again.