It’s publishing announcement season, and San Francisco-based indie Silver Sprocket has just released its lineup for the first half of 2021. Known for its political (Your Black Friend) and punk (Pinky and Pepper Forever) comics, Silver Sprocket has been putting out a lineup of striking books for a while; this slate looks quite timely as well. It includes familiar names — Matt Lubchansky (The Nib) and Robyn Chapman (Paper Rocket)  — and newer voices — Ashley Robin Franklin and Abby Jame.  Topics include romance, gender and dating, as well as an Antifa satire and the Chapman-edited American Cult, a graphic history of one of America’s favorite pastimes.

The lineup:

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That Full Moon Feeling by Ashley Robin Franklin

A witch and a werewolf go on three disastrous dates in this magical queer romcom.

Follow along with Suzy & Jada as they navigate online dating awkwardness, hungry monsters, jealous exes, rude skeletons, boring movies, feelings (!!!) & more!

Feb 2021; $14.99; Paperback; 64 full-color pages; 6″ x 8″;  ISBN: 978-1-945509-56-8; Diamond: DEC201668

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The Antifa Super Soldier Cookbook by Matt Lubchansky

What if everything the right thought about the left was real? Accomplished ANTIFA operative Max Marx is about to get THE big promotion: body augmentation to become a fully-fledged super-soldier in the shadowy organization’s never-ending battle to destroy the police, the American way of life, gender, capitalism, and anything else they decide to deem “fascist.”

March 2021; $14.99; Paperback; 64 full-color pages; 6″ x 9″; ISBN: 978-1-945509-64-3; Diamond: JAN211538

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Heart Shaped Tears by Abby Jame

“In the age of the Anthropocene, girls are tired and jaded. And yet, we are the last reminders of glittering purity. Not dumb sexual purity, but light and love, laughing in beds, sneaking out like the most important thing in the entire world is on the other side of your parent’s driveway. We feel deeply, we express when we feel like it, we cry Heart Shaped Tears.”

Comics and illustrations about aliens, elves and boys who don’t text back from the sci-fi sad girl Abby Jame.

April 2021; $24.99; hard-cover; 108 full-color pages; ISBN:  978-1-945509-49-0; Diamond: DEC201667

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American Cult edited by Robyn Chapman

From its earliest days, America has been home to spiritual seekers.

In 1694, the religious tolerance of the Pennsylvania Colony enticed a Transylvanian monk and his forty followers to cross the Atlantic. Almost two hundred years later, a charismatic preacher founded a utopian community in Oneida, New York, that practiced socialism and free love. In the 1960s and ’70s, a new generation of seekers gathered in vegetarian restaurants in Los Angeles, Satanic coffee shops in New Orleans, and fortified communes in Philadelphia. And in the twenty-first century, gurus use self-help seminars and get-rich-quick schemes to evangelize to their flocks.

Across the decades, Americans in search of divine truths have turned to unconventional prophets for the answers. Some of these prophets have demanded their faith, fortunes, and even their very lives. In American Cult, over twenty cartoonists explore the history of these groups with clarity and empathy—looking beyond the scandalous headlines to find the human stories within.

Featuring the talents of cartoonists Steve Teare, Emi Gennis, Ellen Lindner, Rosa Colón, Janet Harvey, Jim Rugg, Andrew Greenstone, Lara Antal, Josh Kramer, Mike Dawson, Ryan Carey, Mike Freiheit, Jesse Lambert, Ben Passmore, Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg, Vreni Stollberger, J.T. Yost, Robyn Chapman, Robert Sergel, Lonnie Mann, and Box Brown.

May 2021; $24.99; Paperback; 208 B & W pages; ISBN: 978-1-945509-63-6


According to the Silver Sprocket website, future 2021 releases include work by Elizabeth Pitch, Caroline Cash, Whit Taylor, Alec Robbins and Lubchansky. 

Normally we’d be stopping by their always colorful booth at SPX or even SDCC to pick these up, but instead we’ll just have to check these out via mail order — or lucky locals can stop by the well-ventilated The Silver Sprocket retail shop and gallery  at 1038 Valencia St, San Francisco — masks required of course.