New Comics @ Shenandoah (Spring 2026)

First and foremost, a massive thank you and congratulations to Robert James Russell for guest editing Shenandoah 75.2’s comics section. I sometimes tell my classes, the ultimate goal of any course is to make the teacher irrelevant. A version of that aphorism is proving more true of my eight-year role as Shenandoah‘s comics editor. Which is to say, this is not the first time I’ve handed over complete control and then been happily wowed by the results. Robert also teaches comics making, so his introduction is more instructive than most. He includes an illustration from his own courses: I like his explanation even more: “Comics thrive on this kind of omission: We never see the moment in between. By choosing what to show and what to leave out, I control the pace and how much you, the reader, must infer. Did the cat push the glass over, now inspecting its work? Did something else topple it, leaving the cat confused? Both possibilities exist within the comic’s diegetic space and that…