Welcome to Don’t Be a Dick, The Ladydrawers’ in-depth look at the comics community and gender diversity, presented in partnership with Bitch Media. Over the next six months, we’ll publish a series of six Don’t Be a Dick comics about the comics industry, all written by Janelle Asselin, edited by Anne Elizabeth Moore, and drawn by six great artists.

The Ladydrawers Comics Collective (AKA “The Ladydrawers”) is an unofficially affiliated group of women, men, transgender, and non-binary gender folk who research, perform, and publish comics and texts about how economics, race, sexuality, and gender impact the comics industry, other media, and our culture at large.

We’re in the middle of a year-long a series at Truthout called “Our Fashion Year” that looks at the international garment and sex trades, and we’ve toured the UK and Southeast Asia—with plans for heading to Northern Europe next month—talking about our work. You can keep up with us, find out how to get involved, our look over the upcoming Don’t Be a Dick artist’s roster here.

Artist Katie Cook is best known for her work on IDW’s “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” series. She’s also done licensed work for DC, Marvel, and Lord of the Rings, and is behind the popular webcomic Gronk. And she has a new baby!

From little houses on the prairies of Nebraska and Iowa to the posh Chicago suburbs to the mean (gentrified) streets of Brooklyn to sunny Glendale, California, Janelle Asselin has carried her nerdity everywhere with her. Janelle has been a video gamer for at least 26 years, a comics fan for 20 years, and an editor of comic-type things for seven years. She’s worked at comic shops, comics news sites, and comics publishers like Fangoria Comics, DC Comics, and Disney. She’s written a book about selling comics to women and has a weekly column at ComicsAlliance.com featuring female creators on the rise. Born in Winner, South Dakota, cultural critic Anne Elizabeth Moore founded the Best American Comics series for Houghton Mifflin and edited The Comics Journal before fostering the insanity that is The Ladydrawers. She’s also a prolific writer of word-books including Unmarketable (The New Press), Cambodian Grrrl, and New Girl Law (Cantankerous Titles). Her work has appeared in The Baffler, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, and Salon, and she is the comics editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

And now! Here is the first comic in the Don’t Be a Dick series:

Read and buy Bitch magazine’s current print issue!