The original edition of The Antifa Comic Book by Gord Hill, with an introduction by Mark Bray, was originally published in 2018. Now a new edition, The Antifa Comic Book: Revised and Expanded, is heading to your local bookstore and/or public library on August 26th, 2025 from Arsenal Pulp Press.
In the expanded edition, Hill has added more recent events to The Antifa Comic Book, including the insurrection on January 6th, 2021 and 2022 Canadian convoy protests. Comics Beat caught up with Hill over email and asked about the process of revising and expanding The Antifa Comic Book, about the reactions he’s received in response to his work and about his favorite protest sign to date.
AVERY KAPLAN: Can you tell us about the origins of the original Antifa Comic Book? Can you tell us about the process behind the original edition?
GORD HILL: I was approached by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2016 or so, during Trump’s first presidential campaign, and they asked if I was interested in doing an Antifa comic because of the growing far right mobilizing we were seeing during that time, with large confrontations occurring in Berkeley, Portland, etc.
The process for the original edition was basically researching the history of fascist movements and the rise of anti-fascist resistance. So I read a lot of books and magazines and watched a lot of documentaries, always taking notes on the history but also gathering reference images. The notes were used to write the script which was then broken down into page panels. Along with gathering images of uniforms worn by fascist groups, or banners, etc, I also had to get images of cars, clothing, and weapons for particular time periods, as well as towns and cities that are mentioned in the script.
KAPLAN: What was the process of revising and expanding The Antifa Comic Book like? Can you give us an idea of what went into this undertaking?
HILL: I believe a publisher had approached Arsenal about translating the Antifa Comic Book but wanted to have an updated version, so Arsenal asked if I’d be interested in doing that. I believed it was an appropriate time to update it as there had been several significant developments since the original edition had been published, including several massacres at mosques carried out by far right wing-nuts as well as the election of the far-right wing-nut Donald J. Trump to a second presidency. I had also neglected to include the massacre of youth carried out in Norway by a neo-Nazi in 2011, so this was a good opportunity to get that chapter in. The new edition ends with the second Trump regime but it was difficult to write it as there were so many developments rapidly occurring, some of which hadn’t played out during the time I was finishing the pages. For example, the “bromance” between Trump and Elon Musk eventually fell apart by late May 2025, and then the LA protests against ICE raids occurred in June and were probably the most significant response to the anti-immigration campaign launched by Trump but unfortunately the book was already off to the printers at this point.
KAPLAN: As addressed by Mark Bray in the foreword, it seems like comics are an ideal tool for fighting fascism. Why do you think this is, and do you think there’s a reason that so many comics have an Antifa bent, from nonfiction books like this one to Nazi-punching superheroes?
HILL: I think comics are a great medium for introducing people to anti-fascist resistance because they’re more accessible than text books, they tell a story in more of a graphic format. And it’s easier for younger people or anyone who either doesn’t have strong literacy skills or doesn’t have the energy to wade through history books etc. As for the Nazi-punching I think that mostly comes from the WW2 era, with Captain America and all that, because the “Allies” were then fighting against Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. I think Nazis remained something of an easy bad guy to portray, an evil villain that few would have any sympathy for.
KAPLAN: Obviously there are many atrocities that are chronicled in The Antifa Comic Book. Were there any details that seemed too gruesome to include?
HILL: Yes there were definitely a lot of atrocities carried out by far right movements throughout history, but I think generally I included all of them, from massacres to the treatment of concentration camp prisoners, to show the warped inhumanity of the far right world view.
KAPLAN: What kind of responses have you received from people regarding The Antifa Comic Book and The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book?
HILL: The response has been pretty positive, I’ve done a lot of presentations to high school and university classes and occasionally get letters from people expressing gratitude for the work, that it had a significant impact on their lives so that’s pretty good.
KAPLAN: In mid-2024 I had a conversation with a Trump supporter who decried Antifa and sullenly lamented, “They call us fascists.” How do you think one should interact with supporters in denial (if you think we should interact with them at all)?
HILL: There’s a fairly wide range of people who support Trump, from right-wing Republicans to far right MAGAts as well as fascists, and certainly within this there are people who aren’t as committed to Trump as some, so there’s always the potential for dialogue to draw some of those people away from supporting Trump. In the first few months of Trump’s second presidency you could see a large number of Republicans were becoming angry with the regime and especially the dismantling of the federal government under DOGE, as well as the tariffs Trump was imposing on basically every country in the world and the impact this is having on business owners and consumers. So there’s a lot of potential undermining of the right-wing support for Trump. But with the hardcore MAGAts and fascists there’s less potential as it’s basically like talking to cult members, but anything that erodes Trump’s base is good.
KAPLAN: I think readers will be impressed with how up-to-date the final chapter of the revised and expanded Antifa Comic Book proves to be. How did you go about distilling the first few months of Trump’s second presidency into panels? How recently were you working on these panels?
HILL: As I mentioned previously it was a challenge because of how fast things were developing, and the scale of these new policies, then trying to figure out the impacts they were having. And one thing with Trump is that he’s such a liar and opportunist that you can’t take what he says at face value. He makes ludicrous statements or threats and then doesn’t follow through, or reverses course the next day. I finished the final pages sometime in March I believe, but I could still be working on them now because there’s constantly new updates, new outrageous policies, etc.
KAPLAN: How hopeful are you that widespread Antifa resistance will reach a “boiling over point” before Trump consolidates his power?
HILL: It’s hard to say, because up until now, with this second presidency, we haven’t really seen a substantial Antifa mobilizing like we did in Trump’s first campaign. There’s been generally less of a street presence from the far right, like the Proud Boys have been pretty quiet after the January 6 riot and subsequent legal process, which Trump overturned with his pardons. Right now we’re seeing more of a broad anti-Trump movement, which I’d include the anti-Tesla campaign as a part of, and now a growing immigrant/Latino mobilizing against the ICE raids. And also it’s harder to put the fascist label on Trump because he’s too stupid to actually articulate a coherent ideology, like Mussolini or the Nazis did. His worldview is basically that of a narcissistic, authoritarian, businessman. So I think I’d look at a broader movement than just Antifa at this point.
KAPLAN: Do you have a personal favorite protest sign?
HILL: I like the banner that some black bloc kids had, which I ended the final chapter with on Trump’s second presidency, which reads “Fuck this shit.”
The Antifa Comic Book: Revised and Expanded will be available beginning August 26th, 2025 at your local bookstore and/or public library.
