Oni Press Declares “FIGHT CENSORSHIP, READ COMICS”
with Exclusive GENDER QUEER Merchandise from Creator Maia Kobabe
Benefitting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Florida Freedom to Read Project, the Creator and Publisher Behind One of America’s Most Banned Books Promote Free Speech with New Pre-Order Initiative – Available Exclusively at OniPress.com
(June 17, 2024) In advance of this summer’s American Library Association (ALA) Conference in Philadelphia, PA, Oni Press is proud to unveil its next Pre-Order Exclusive Merch Collection celebrating the best-selling graphic novel GENDER QUEER and the work of cartoonist Maia Kobabe as part of the publisher’s ongoing FIGHT CENSORSHIP, READ COMICS initiative.
With a portion of all proceeds benefiting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) and the Florida Freedom to Read Project (FFTRP), Oni’s new collection of more than 15 items features multiple all-new, never-before-seen pieces, including a brand-new GENDER QUEER t-shirt design by Kobabe, available in three distinct colorways curated by the artist (available in sizes in XS – XXXL) – each hand silkscreened in the United States on super-soft Comfort Colors shirts. The FIGHT CENSORSHIP, READ COMICS Pre-Order Exclusive Merch Collection also features GENDER QUEER patches, enamel pins, and keychains, alongside limited-edition signed and numbered editions of the GENDER QUEER: DELUXE EDITION hardcover bearing signatures by Kobabe and high-quality, 18×24” giclee prints featuring the artist’s powerful “Fight Censorship, Read Comics” artwork (available in both signed and unsigned editions).
Available exclusively online at OniPress.com, ardent fans and readers can place pre-orders beginning today through Friday, August 20th with fulfillment to begin in September. Oni will also be making select, advance editions for some items available for early sale at San Diego Comic-Con in July.
“The freedom to read, the freedom to access information, and the freedom to learn are some of the most vital rights in this country,” said Maia Kobabe. “Removing books from schools and public libraries cuts off people’s access to knowledge about the wider world and about their own lives within it. This is especially true when the books being removed are about minority identities, or topics less commonly portrayed in popular culture. A book that might seem pointless to one reader might be life-saving to another. Removing a book because its themes offend one reader is censorship, and must be combated at every turn. Please stand up for the freedom to read and the freedom to write!”
“For nearly a century, comics as an art form have played a critical role in championing the all-American ideals of free speech, equality, and anti-authoritarianism,” said Oni Press President & Publisher Hunter Gorinson. “Although Maia’s work is one of the first and prominent examples of impactful and important work to be singled out by pro-censorship forces, we can guarantee that it will not be the last. It is the responsibility of creative institutions like Oni Press and our fellow publishers to protect the free expression of cartoonists and our medium as a whole, and we are proud to support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Florida Freedom to Read Project with our ongoing ‘Fight Censorship, Read Comics’ initiatives.”
Since its original publication in 2019, Maia Kobabe’s GENDER QUEER – the cartoonist’s earnest, heartfelt, and intensely cathartic graphic memoir chronicling eir personal journey of self-identity – has been widely heralded as one of the most important and influential graphic novels of the 21st Century, earning near-universal critical acclaim as a seminal work of LGBTQIA+ non-fiction and ALA Alex and Stonewall Book Awards in the process. Simultaneously, Kobabe’s memoir has also been caught in the conflagration of unprecedented legal challenges to graphic novels and other forms of comic art across more than a dozen states. Kobabe’s work has repeatedly placed at the epicenter of many of these challenges at the state and local level and was previously the subject of a Virginia obscenity lawsuit, which was successfully defended by the CBLDF and ruled to be unconstitutional in 2022. Since that time, the Los Angeles Times has dubbed GENDER QUEER “the most banned book in American schools,” and in 2025, it was named by the American Library Association as the #2 most challenged title in library systems nationwide.
Kobabe and Oni Press are both proud to reciprocate the CBLDF and FFTRP’s support at this critical time in the history of free speech for the comics medium. Later this month, Kobabe will be appearing as a Special Guest of Oni Press at the annual American Library Association (ALA) Conference in Philadelphia, PA from June 26–30, 2025, alongside half a dozen fellow writers and illustrators from Oni’s stable of award-winning creators.
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About the Cartoonist
Maia Kobabe is a nonbinary queer cartoonist, a kpop fan, a voracious reader, and a daydreamer. You can learn an astonishing number of intimate details about em in GENDER QUEER: A MEMOIR (America’s most challenged book 2021-2023) and in eir short comics and writing published in The Nib, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR, and Time Magazine. Maia’s second book is BREATHE: JOURNEYS TO HEALTHY BINDING with Dr Sarah Peitzmeier and eir third book will be a middle grade coming of age comic written with Lucky Srikumar, due out from Scholastic Graphix in 2026. Before setting out to work freelance full-time, worked for over ten years in libraries.
About Oni Press
Founded in 1997, Oni Press has a 25-year history as one of the industry’s most respected and acclaimed publishers of award-winning comic books and graphic novels with titles including Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim, K. O’Neill’s Tea Dragon Society, Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt’s The Sixth Gun, Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, Ezra Clayton Daniels’ Upgrade Soul, Brenna Thummler’s Sheets trilogy, and many hundreds more. In 2019, Oni Press merged with Lion Forge Comics – the Eisner Award-winning independent comic book publisher founded by Academy Award-winning producer and entrepreneur David Steward II – to create one of the largest, independent libraries of comics content anywhere in media. The Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group now exists as a publishing subsidiary of Steward’s diversified global media company, Polarity.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.