Fanbase Press is thrilled to announce that its first Graphic Medicine series, Ripple Effects, has been named as a finalist for the 25th annual Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards in the Graphic Novels & Comics category. As part of its mission to discover, review, and share the best books from university and independent publishers, Foreword Magazine, Inc. hosts an annual awards program each year. Finalists represent the best books published in 2022. After more than 2,000 individual titles spread across 55 genres were submitted for consideration, the Finalists were determined by Foreword’s editorial team. Winners will be decided by an expert team of booksellers and librarians—representing Foreword’s trade readership—from across the country.
Ripple Effects is a five-issue comic book series which explores life as a superhero with an invisible illness, specifically type 1 diabetes. The series was inspired by creator/writer/colorist Jordan Hart’s lived experience with an invisible and incurable blood-clotting disease called thrombophilia.
The series was created, written, and colored by Jordan Hart (Terminarch, Doppelgänger, Emergence), illustrated by Bruno Chiroleu (El Borde, Mara and Samu), flatted by Shane Kadlecik, lettered by Oceano Ransford (Eisner Award-nominated Rikki, The Sequels, Haphaven), and featuring cover art by Justin C. Harder (CLAUS Studios). In addition, the collected trade paperback features a foreword by Matthew Noe (Librarian, Harvard Medical School).
What sets this series apart is a positive, person-first representation about life with an invisible illness . . . which just so happens to also include superhuman abilities. But, Ripple Effects isn’t just a story about a character with an incurable disease. It’s also a thrilling and relevant superhero tale that touches on the difficulty of finding a work/life balance, the class struggles and economic inequality experienced by many in our nation, and the desire to help others during trying times.
In an effort to help readers better empathize with and understand the difficulties of navigating invisible illnesses, every issue of the series features an “Unseen Ripples” essay series written by individuals with invisible disabilities who relate Ripple Effects‘ events to their own lived experience, ranging in topic from paranoid schizophrenia to thrombophilia.
Earlier this year, Ripple Effects was included in the American Library Association’s (Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table) 2022 Best Graphic Novels for Adults Reading List.
Issues #1-5 of the comic book series have been released digitally through Hoopla Digital. In addition, the series was collected into a printed trade paperback which is available for sale through Fanbase Press and Amazon. The collected digital edition is also available through Hoopla, Comics Plus, and Kindle.
For more information on Ripple Effects, please visit www.RippleEffectsComic.com or www.fanbasepress.com. Ripple Effects may also be found on Facebook and Twitter, @RippleFXComic.
ABOUT FANBASE PRESS
Fanbase Press celebrates fandoms and creates new ones! As an award-winning comic book publisher and geek culture website, Fanbase Press produces new and distinctive works, as well as daily reviews, interviews, and podcasts, that span the pop culture spectrum and give voice to the themes, ideals, and people that make geekdom so exceptional.
Fanbase Press’ graphic novels, including the 2018 Eisner Award-nominated Quince, the 2020 Foreword INDIES Award-winning Quince: The Definitive Bilingual Edition hardcover, the 2022 International Latino Book Award-winning Nuclear Power, the 2019 IPPY Award-winning A Geek’s Guide to Cross-Stitch: Journeys in Space, and the 2014 Bram Stoker Award-nominated Fearworms: Selected Poems, are available at www.fanbasepress.com.
