An Autobiographix Year in Review - 2024

What a year it's been!

How quickly the year flies by! It seems like we were just recently writing our 2023 wrap-up. Suddenly it’s the end of the year and we’re thinking how much fun it would be write a Hallmark movie spoof script (seriously, those niche jobs people have in Hallmark movies! Christmas tree hunter! Owner of a Christmas lights factory! Gingerbread competition judge! Santa Fe interior designer!).

Here’s a quick snapshot of what we were up to in 2024:

• We started the year with presenting: “Crafting Connections: The Handmade Comics Revival,” at the Southwest Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference, in Albuquerque, NM. 

• Amaris was busy making comics when she could: creating the Cancer Center Top 40 comics with and for patients, finishing an issue of “Mind Yer Head” in time for the Albuquerque Zine Fest, and finishing up the year wrestling with collage comics for the Kolaj residency on castles as systems of power.

• Nora got to visit, and then write about, the amazing Billy Ireland Cartoon and Museum for Hyperallergic.

• In Springfield, OH, Nora taught middle and high schoolers about the joys of making comics at writing workshop held by Wittenberg University.

• We actually followed up on some of our January resolutions! Amaris tried Inktober for the first time, but made it into “Scots-tober” and illustrated different Scots words each day.

Year in numbers:

• We wrote 23 newsletters this year, including a big round-up of Substack newsletters about comics with Cara Gormally (parts 1 and 2), and we interviewed 11 new artists!

• Last year, you asked for more reviews and more book club posts, and we delivered with Feeding Ghosts, Portrait of a Body, and All Our Ordinary Stories.

• In case you missed it: Our top post from this year was an interview with Stan Mack with 1,100+ views.

• Just before the new year, we hit 534 subscribers! Thanks to you all who follow and read! 

Some of the comics we loved most this year are works we have already shared with you, but this has also been a great year for sitting down with some zines. Here are some highlights.

The penultimate zine from Kate Bingaman-Burt’s mail club (not pictured—this is from a show she did at the University of New Mexico Honors College). I have so enjoyed getting her zines in the mail over the years.

This zine from Sarah Shaw that beautifully combines found objects, photos, drawings, and diaristic notes printed on a risograph.

Trying to learn a bit about lettering by diving into Kevin Huizenga’s pen tests and reading notes.

Nora has continued her work as a librarian at a preK-8th school where she has witnessed an explosion of love for graphic novels; here are some books students have enjoyed:

Mexikid by Pedro Martín went around the older grades after winning a Newberry Honor award.

For the younger grades, the manga Cat Massage Parlor v. 1 by Haru Hisakawa was an oft-requested book. In fact, I think some patron is holding onto it because they don’t want to give it up!

For those students who like more intensive graphic nonfiction, Muhammed Najem, War Reporter was right up their alley. Najem worked with reporter Nora Neus on the award-winning graphic novel.

What we’re looking forward to in 2025:

• Amaris will be back at the Southwest Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference, this time talking about “Comics and Topophilia” in Albuquerque, NM.

• Amaris is once again teaching creative writing in Glasgow, Scotland this summer! She hopes to have some free time to explore the Stirling Maxwell Centre for the Study of Text/Image Cultures at the University of Glasgow.

• Nora plans to use some comic work in her job as a therapist.

• More reviews of comics, interviews with creators, dives into history, comics prompts, and more right here!

Thank you for being part of our 2024. Whether you’re a longtime subscriber or new to Autobiographix, your support means the world to us. Here’s to a new year full of comics, zines, and creative adventures!

Let us know in the comments: What comics or zines inspired you this year? What are you hoping to create in 2025?

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We almost forgot to brag! Autobiographix was a featured Substack publication this year!

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Thanks for reading Autobiographix! This newsletter is a labor of love, where we get to share a mix of the nonfiction comics that we’ve found captivating, interviews with comics creators, and some of our own work. Nora is a licensed counselor who teaches comics on the side. Amaris teaches at the University of New Mexico and is an artist-in-medicine at the cancer center there. Her recent graphic memoir is Unfiltered: A Cancer Year Diary, a collection of diary comics about kidney cancer.

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