Underground and Indie Comics Prevail in Philly
While the great underground comics anthologies of the late 1960s through the early 1990s — Zap, Weirdo, Raw — are gone, the world of underground comic books remains vibrant through the work of publishers like Last Gasp, Fantagraphics, and Drawn and Quarterly. The bleeding edge of underground and independent comics, however, can often be found at a local comic convention or zine fest, such as last weekend’s Philly Comics Expo.
Headlined by renowned writer/illustrator Charles Burns, the one day event included creators telling multifarious stories through comics and graphics novels. Many are deeply personal tales, from Kelly Phillips‘ charming and funny Weird Me: Growing Up Online with “Weird Al” Yankovic to Juliette Collet‘s startlingly candid autobiographical vignettes in her series Blah, Blah, Blah.
Also in evidence were neo-noir works, psychedelic visions, and tales of horror. Jaz Malone showed a booklet with a beautiful series of color sketches of recent movies she has viewed.
Joining this eclectic crowd was University of Pennsylvania faculty member Julia Alekseyeva, who was available to discuss Soviet Daughter, a graphic novel about her early life and the story of her great-grandmother, and her academic publication, Antifascism and the Avant-Garde: Radical Documentary in the 1960s.
Throughout the day were scheduled book signings by Charles Burns, Ben Passmore, Tom Toro, Diane DiMassa, and Matt Madden. Filling out program was a series of panel sessions held throughout the afternoon.
For a gallery of photos from the event, see the Flickr photo album Philly Comics Expo 2025:
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