Queen of Cosmos Comix Interview/ZioZine Release
Hosted by
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◕‿↼Dave Cowen and Leora Tofler interview Barbara Mendes for the April 2026 Fantagraphics release of her book Queen of Comix Trilogy. Mendes was the co-artist of the first all-women alt comic in 1970 with Trina Robbins, It Ain’t Me Babe. And she has a square named after her in South Pico at the location of The Ivan Gallery that she manages!
Leora Tofler and Dave Cowen will also be releasing ZioZine. A project they started in Jerusalem in December 2025 about Zohar, a Jewish-American teenager who is reluctant to visit Israel for the first time for her Bat Mitzvah with her family, but discovers there’s a lot more to her indigenous homeland than she’s been hearing from her peers at school and on social media.
Cowen also produces SerioComics, a Substack with over 75 enthusiasms for works of graphic literature, and now with interviews with their makers such as Chester Brown, Tessa Hulls, Josh Neufeld, Melissa Chan & Badiucao, Maddie Gallegos, Ira Marcks, Sina Grace, Nidhi Chanani, Brian Fies, Jordan Morris among many. He released his debut graphic novel, Should We Buy A Gun?, in 2025, about a couple, their country, and the gun debate aimed to help heal polarized divides, illustrated by Gabriel Wexler.
Guest List
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