Status | Active |
---|---|
Founded | 2007 |
Founder | Avi Ehrlich |
Country of origin | United States |
Headquarters location | San Francisco |
Key people | Avi Ehrlich Mitch Clem Contents |
Publication types | Comics |
Official website | silversprocket.net |
Silver Sprocket is a San Francisco-based indie comics publisher and independent record label, founded in 2007 by Avi Ehrlich of Springman Records. [1] In addition to publishing records and comics, Silver Sprocket also supports a range of independent musicians and other community-based initiatives. [2]
Silver Sprocket is an anti-professional art crew, comic and zine publisher, record label, and "all-around raging dumpster fire." [3] Ehrlich told The Comics Journal that the community-based model of the company is founded in anarchist politics: "It’s very shaped by anarchist world views and specifically the Bay Area punk rock scene which was a very hippieish community of mutual aid and helping each other out and not waiting for permission from some corporation to exist." [1] Comics critics have noted the publisher's high production values differentiates Silver Sprocket from other zine publishers. "Its political values may be DIY and anti-establishment, but its attention to production values and design sets it apart from traditional, home-made zines." [4] Silver Sprocket is known for publishing comics about punk culture, mental illness, queer lives, and people of color. [4]
Silver Sprocket opened their first retail location in December 2017 at 1685 Haight St, San Francisco. [5] In 2021, Ari Yarwood was hired as Silver Sprocket's first managing editor. [6]
The following musicians have released albums under the Silver Sprocket label:
Additionally, the label has released the following compilation albums:
Queercore is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifically society's disapproval of the LGBT community. Queercore expresses itself in a DIY style through magazines, music, writing and film.
CrimethInc., also known as CWC, which stands for either "CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective" or "CrimethInc Ex-Workers Ex-Collective", is a decentralized anarchist collective of autonomous cells. CrimethInc. emerged in the mid-1990s, initially as the hardcore zine Inside Front, and began operating as a collective in 1996. It has since published widely read articles and zines for the anarchist movement and distributed posters and books of its own publication.
Real Life is an American webcomic drawn and authored by Maelyn Dean. It began on November 15, 1999, and is still updated, after breaks from December 10, 2015, to September 10, 2018, and again from July 16, 2019, to June 15, 2020, from December 6, 2022 to February 26, 2024, and most recently, from April 9, 2024, to present. The comic is loosely based around the lives of fictionalized versions of Dean and her friends, including verbatim conversations, as well as fictional aspects including time travel and mecha combat. Characters regularly break the fourth wall. Real Life focuses on humor related to video games and science fiction, and references internet memes.
Thomas Daniel Jennings is a Los Angeles-based artist and computer programmer, known for his work that led to FidoNet, and for his work at Phoenix Software on MS-DOS integration and interoperability.
Mitch Andrew Clem is an American cartoonist best known for his web comics Nothing Nice to Say, San Antonio Rock City, and My Stupid Life.
Springman Records is an independent record label founded in 1998 by Avi Ehrlich that was run out of his parents' garage in Cupertino, California, until late 2005, when Ehrlich moved the label to Sacramento. The label's official slogan is "Friendly Punks" though many other styles of music appear on the label, such as indie rock, rockabilly, ska, folk music, pop punk, and hardcore.
Rachel Nabors is an American cartoonist, artist, and graphic novelist, best known for their serialized comic, Rachel the Great, as well as their two graphic novels, 18 Revolutions and Crow Princess.
Liz Prince is an American comics creator, noted for her sketchbook-style autobiographical comics. Prince initially started publishing on her own on the internet and later became a published author with Top Shelf Comics. She currently lives in Maine.
Homocore was an American anarcho-punk zine created by Tom Jennings and Deke Nihilson, and published in San Francisco from 1988 to 1991. One of the first queer zines, Homocore was directed toward the hardcore punk youth of the gay underground. The publication has been noted for popularizing the queercore movement on the United States west coast.
Queer anarchism, or anarcha-queer, is an anarchist school of thought that advocates anarchism and social revolution as a means of queer liberation and abolition of hierarchies such as homophobia, lesbophobia, transmisogyny, biphobia, transphobia, aphobia, heteronormativity, patriarchy, and the gender binary.
Koren Shadmi is an American-Israeli illustrator and cartoonist.
Sarah Shay Mirk (she/they) is an author, zinester, and journalist based in Portland, Oregon, in the United States.
Katherine Fajardo is an American cartoonist and author. She is known for her book cover illustrations and comics that focus on Latino culture and self-acceptance. Her debut middle grade graphic novel Miss Quinces, which is a National Indie Bestseller, was the first Graphix title to be simultaneously published in English and Spanish.
No Straight Lines is an anthology of queer comics covering a 40-year period from the late 1960s to the late 2000s. It was edited by Justin Hall and published by Fantagraphics Books on August 1, 2012.
MariNaomi is an American graphic artist and cartoonist who often publishes autobiographical comics and is also well-known for creating three online databases of underrepresented cartoonists.
Lawrence Lindell is an American cartoonist, speaker, and musician. He has written autobiographical comics including From Truth With Truth and Couldn’t Afford Therapy, So I Made This. His work covers mental health issues, blackness, and queerness. He lives in the Bay Area, California. Lindell is open about living with bipolar depression and PTSD; two of the main themes of his work. He has a forthcoming middle-grade graphic novel called Buckle Up due out in August 2024 with Random House Graphic. His 2023 graphic novel Blackward, with Drawn and Quarterly, was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Graphic Novel and nominated for the 2024 Eisner Awards for Best Publication for Teens.
Mattie Lubchansky is a cartoonist and illustrator from the United States, who specializes in satirical comics about American politics. Lubchansky is trans and uses she/they pronouns.
Hazel Newlevant is an American cartoonist and editor known for creating and editing comics about queer history, bisexuality, polyamory, and reproductive rights. Raised in Portland, Oregon, Newlevant lives in Queens, New York.
Michelle Rau is an American cartoonist, writer, and artist known for publishing her cartoon zine, Lana's World. She was an active contributor in the alternative publishing, queer zine, and comics landscape of the 1980s and 1990s.
Pinky & Pepper Forever is a graphic novel created by Eddy Atoms. It debuted at the 2018 Toronto Comic Arts Festival before being widely released on May 30, 2018. Pinky & Pepper Forever follows anthropomorphic dog girlfriends Pinky Cooper and Pepper Parson after the former commits suicide in a performance art piece, after which both of them go to hell. The graphic novel is based on the discontinued Pinkie Cooper and the Jet Set Pets toyline that ran in the early-mid 2010s. Pinky & Pepper Forever was widely praised for its writing, art, and themes.