UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State University Press will launch Graphic Mundi, a new trade imprint of comics for adults and young adults, in Spring 2021. With the mission of “drawing our worlds together,” the imprint will feature both fiction and nonfiction narratives on subjects such as health and human rights, politics, the environment, science, and technology. Kendra Boileau, assistant director and editor-in-chief of Penn State University Press, is the publisher.

About her vision for the imprint, Boileau said, “Graphic Mundi will represent a broad range of voices and experiences, including those of marginalized individuals and groups, or those whose works have not been previously accessible to anglophone readers. These graphic novels will address serious topics, but they’ll do so in engaging, provocative, and sometimes humorous ways. They’ll have the potential to transform how we see ourselves, others, and the world. The imprint is thus an excellent fit for our mission as a university press.”

Graphic Mundi expands on the current list of critically acclaimed graphic novels published by Penn State University Press, in particular its Graphic Medicine series, which launched in 2015 with the Eisner Award–nominated "Graphic Medicine Manifesto." The Graphic Medicine series currently includes 22 active and forthcoming titles that speak to the power of visual narrative to tell complex stories about personal and public health.

The Spring 2021 titles for Graphic Mundi are:

• "COVID Chronicles: A Comics Anthology," a collection edited by Boileau and Rich Johnson of more than forty short works about the pandemic from mainstream and indie creators, including Ignatz Award and Eisner Award winners.
• Three graphic narratives of personal trauma: a sudden diagnosis of quadriplegia in "Twister," by Roland Burkart; an overwhelming eating disorder in "Fat," by Regina Hofer; and a child’s account of living with a mother with bipolar disorder in "The Parakeet," by Espé.
• "Crude: A Memoir," by Pablo Fajardo, Sophie Tardy-Joubert, and Damian Roudeau, recounts the fight for social and environmental justice in the Amazonian oil fields.
• "Dirty Biology: The X-Rated Story of the Science of Sex," by Léo and Colas Grasset, and "The Body Factory: From the First Prosthetics to the Augmented Human," by Héloïse Chochois, humorously explore the biology of sex and the history of human amputation and augmentation.

Award-winning cartoonist and graphic novelist Ted Rall notes that “the graphic novel revolution has brought comics out of the humor ghetto to the front of the store. The greatest potential for the format is in serious, intelligent takes on nonfiction, fiction, politics, and memoir that treat comics as literature, which is why I believe in the mission of Graphic Mundi. Not only will these books be an excellent addition to readers’ bookshelves; they’ll also make our world a better place, one book at a time.”

Founded in 1956, Penn State University Press publishes high-quality books, journals, and graphic novels of interest to scholars and general readers, with a focus on the humanities and social sciences. Learn more at psupress.org.