Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
“You know what, fuck it time to trend #ComicsBrokeMe.”
Following the death of 38-year-old cartoonist Ian McGinty (Adventure Time, Bee and Puppycat) on June 8, graphic novelist and designer Shivana Sookdeo took to Twitter to join the chorus of comics industry professionals eulogizing their beloved colleague. As indicated by her tweet, however, the conversation soon took on a life of its own as industry novices and veterans alike began commiserating over the labor conditions that colleagues have speculated contributed to McGinty’s passing. Their stories of long hours, frequent burnout, and chronic illness were filed under the hashtag #ComicsBrokeMe, illuminating for the wider public how dangerous the comics industry has become.
Indeed, when I asked Sookdeo why she created the hashtag, she told me she did so in an effort to reveal the personal stories of labor exploitation from people in the industry. This isn’t a new conversation, though. For those not privy to the inside baseball of the comics industry, every few years a hashtag or major story of exploitation will emerge from the various whisper networks and backchannels among creators. In 2020, for instance, writer L.L. McKinney created the tag #PublishingPaidMe to expose racial disparities in pay in the publishing industry. Sookdeo knew that the next conversation had to be about the people themselves.