Debut Books at Small Press Expo 2024

Bethesda, Maryland - August 22, 2024

Media Release - Small Press Expo is thrilled to announce that over 110 books and comics will debut at SPX 2024. The festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 14-15, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center and will have over 500 creators, 280 exhibitor tables, 500 creators & publishers, 22 programming panels and 18 hands-on workshops to introduce attendees to the amazing world of independent and small press comics.

A complete list of of the over 160 books debuting at the show, including cover images and publishing information, can be found on the SPX web site.

SPX 2024 is proud to list a highlighted selection of books debuting this year:

Tender - Fantagraphics

Not only an SPX debut, but also the graphic novel debut of Beth Hetland!

Carolanne wanted a perfect wedding, a perfect husband, a perfect family. She carefully performs her own roles (gal pal, bestie, girlfriend, wife, and expectant mother) and in trying to enact agency over her life, sacrifices it completely. Her desire to control the uncontrollable ultimately becomes her undoing.

Find Tender and Beth Heltand at table 10B!

Processing: 100 Comics That Got Me Through It - D&Q

Ignatz award-winning cartoonish Tara Booth debuts her new graphic novel, Processing!

Known for her buzzing colors, delightful patterns, sharp humor, and unflinching vulnerability, Tara Booth does not miss any mark in this exquisitely woven collection of pure and nasty magic. Part advice column and exhibit, exploration of psychic pollution and tranquility, Processing is—quite simply—intrepid: in its honesty; its unapologetic grossness; its unrivaled and frank portrayal of life with a body that bleeds.

You can find Processing at Drawn & Quarterly's tables, W80-W83!

Boy Island - Silver Sprocket

Leo Fox, a 2024 Ignatz Award nominee, debuts the new graphic novel, Boy Island!

Your name is Lucille. You live on Girl Island, one of two islands created when the world was cleft in twain by an entity bigger and more powerful than you. But you have a secret. Your secret is that despite living on Girl Island, you are a boy. You fear deep down in your insides, that you may have been a boy for a very long time. And so you leave your home and your mother and begin the journey to Boy Island. Although it may be treacherous, it is the only way forward.

Find Boy Island at tables W68-W71!

The Scrapbook of Life and Death - Avery Hill Publishing

In The Scrapbook of Life and Death, J. Webster Sharp adapts some of the most bizarre stories from the archives of George Ives's newspaper clippings. Collected from 1892 through 1949, these cover topics such murder and theories of crime to cricket scores. With often shocking, visceral black and white artwork, the strangeness and eccentricity of the Edwardian era provides a backdrop for Sharp's own struggles with mental health.

Find The Scrapbook of Life and Death at the Fantagraphics table, W51-W55

Space Junk - Top Shelf

Faith has a metallic mystery bolted to her head. Hoshi keeps his rage in check with an emotional support chicken. On a dying world where most adults have already left and the remaining kids are training for their turn, these two are starting to wonder: what's the point? Gradually, a cluster of lonely souls who've spent their lives emotionally adrift are pulled into each other's orbit as they try stay in place in a universe that is moving all too quickly. With Space Junk, the startling imagination of award-winning graphic novelist Julian Hanshaw explores profound questions of past and future, trauma and recovery, staying grounded and taking flight.

Find Space Junk at Top Shelf's tables, W56-W59!

A Night Ride to the Day - Bulgilhan Press

Breeze Hu debuts their first graphic novel, A Night Ride to the Day!

A tired salesman and a grieving girl meet by chance in a desert, each of them lost and alone in their waking dreams. Fate - or something like it - brings them together to navigate the maze-like city of Lynbo and unravel the truth of the past that's haunting them.

Find A Night Ride to the Day at Bulgilhan Press's table, H1!

Punk Lab Girl: Burn it Down! - Self-Published

Shannon Spence debuts a new volume in their series, Punk Lab Girl with Punk Lab Girl: Burn It Down!

In a near-future world where bizarre diseases run rampant, desperation lands punk rocker Shelly in an unexpected spot: working as a medical technologist at Care 4 U Labs. Little does she know that this seemingly caring institution harbors secrets darker than Theranos.

Find Punk Labl Girl: Burn It Down! at table D12!

Real Tiny Fairies:

The Fairies Go To the Library

Up-and-coming creator Robert Jackson debuts his new minicomic, Real Tiny Fairies: The Fairies Go To the Library!

Rachel and Rebecca are fairies and they are 1/2 an inch tall but magic doesn't exist. Despite that, crazy stuff happens anyway.

In this adventure, the duo go to the library and find out that Sheila the shady librarian keeps breaking into the houses of fairies that borrowed books, hiding the books they borrow, and putting the books where the fairies could find the books at a later date.

Find out more at Robert's table, F6B!

Visit the SPX 2024 Website for More Info About This Years Show

Small Press Expo (SPX) is the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons. SPX is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit that brings together more than 500 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers, and distributors each year. Graphic novels, mini comics, and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators. The expo includes a series of panel discussions and interviews with this year's guests.

The Ignatz Awards are held every year at SPX recognizing outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning.

For more information on the Small Press Expo, please visit http://www.smallpressexpo.com.