By Zack Quaintance — Since launching our first ever small press preview last week, there’s been a suprisingly robust reaction to the idea. Although I suppose, this shouldn’t be all that surprising. I’ve known for a while there is a veritable sea of excellent comics being made outside the direct market, primarily coming to us from crowd-sourcing platforms such as KickStarter.

All that is to say I’m glad we’ve found a way to cover and spotlight more of these projects, and I’m excited to continue diving into that world.

Today’s small press preview is The Boxer by Dominic Archer and team, and you can find it on Kickstarter here:

A Boxer by Dominic Archer

And you can also check out some preview artwork from the project following some information about the project below…enjoy!

Here’s the pitch: A young boxer on the path to title glory struggles with his identity as a gay man and the high-pressure world of combat sports.

And here’s more about the creators…

Writer - Dominic Archer: Dominic is a comic book writer and graduate of MLitt Comics and Graphic Novel s  from the University of Dundee. His work includes Love In The Time of Wertham, an analysis of the infamous Fredric Wertham ‘anti-comics’ Senate hearings, as told from the perspective of two books that fall in love; and The Architect, the tragic story of a man who designs supervillain lairs, and longs to be remembered, only to see his work inevitably destroyed by the forces of good. Dominic’s work is available at: dominicarchercomics.com

Pencils - Gary Welsh: Gary is a graduate of the MDes Comics and Graphic Novels course at Dundee University. He is currently working as a freelance comic book artist in Scotland.  He recently worked with 2000AD founder, Pat Mills on Ragtime Soldier and was an artist on Scottish superhero comic Saltire: Invasion. Gary's work is available at: gw2000.artstation.com/

Inks - Marc Casilli: Marc has two Master's degrees, one in comics and the other in film. A Brazillian artist, he works as comfortably on his semi-autobiographical comic Legit, as he does on the surrealist series Jesus Christ: Time Traveller. When not working on his own books, Marc also teaches comics classes to low-income communities in Sao Paulo. Marc’s work is available at: https://www.marccasilli.net/

Colors - Amanda Miranda: Amanda is a cartoonist, illustrator, and designer. She's the author of Infestatio (2015) and Hibernáculo (2018), which was awarded the 2019 Dente Award for Best Independent Comic. She's currently working on two new comics, "Objetos no Espelho" e "Máquina Tropical Universal", the latter in collaboration with Simone Campos, and to be released by Companhia das Letras in 2021. She has worked as an illustrator for The Intercept_ Brasil. Amanda’s work is available at: https://www.amandamiranda.net/

Letters- Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou: Hassan is the Eisner award-winning editor of Panel X Panel magazine. He is also the host of the Strip Panel Naked YouTube series. His lettering work includes Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt (Dynamite) and Killer Groove (Aftershock). Hassan’s work is available at: https://hassanoe.co.uk/

And here’s the preview artwork!

Check out more great Small Press Previews!

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.