Ultimately, every story is very human, focusing on the impact of the future on people’s bodies, relationships, work lives, faiths, lifestyles, and philosophies. JG: The stories in MAÑANA span many different visions of the future, some wholly utopian and some… rather bleak! The darker futures always contain a seed of hope, though, if not a way forward out of potential catastrophe. How do you think these voices can bring something different and important to sci-fi? In MAÑANA, we have connections to the past that feel way more enriching from the past and looking at it in whole different ways. That’s what P&M Press is interested in: the freedom of marginalized creators to invent and reinvent freely.ĬW: Most visions of sci-fi hegemonic narratives (white, rich, European, men) focus either on a future completely detached from the past (a “progress”) or a future that repeats the past failures, specifically. But beyond adding ourselves to the narratives we already know, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people have wholly original experiences and perspectives that haven’t been told to a massive audience yet, at all. The most well-known and trite story can become instantly fascinating by simply inserting a BIPOC or a queer person, because that’s how rare it stil is to see us centered in any media. JG: They’re the beating heart of our press! Adequate representation by/for/of marginalized people has never existed in the Americas. What do these diverse perspectives – sometimes in multiple ways – bring to the books? P&M Press is my way of giving other BIPOC and queer creators the chance to work on projects that center their experiences, treat them with respect, and pay them fairly.ĬW: I’ve noticed the focus on LGBT+ creators and creators at other intersections in both MAÑANA and the other anthologies of the press. In a nutshell, I wasn’t satisfied with my experience working in comics up until that point, particularly the low pay. JG: P &M Press started in early 2016 with the call for submissions for POWER & MAGIC: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology. I wanted this anthology to reflect as many different Latin American cultures as possible, and as many versions of the future as possible, so we changed up our usual submission process to allow writers who can’t draw into the mix! We did the work of pairing writers with artist applicants, and the result was the biggest creative team we’ve ever worked with at P&M Press.ĬW: You’re the main editor and publisher at Power & Magic Press, the press behind publishing MAÑANA.
Our imaginings are about the stars and the future, but our realities are complicated by violence and trauma, causing many of us to doubt we have a future.
Joamette Gil: MAÑANA, as a concept, was born from two disparate places: the excitement I witnessed in my fellow Latines when Star Wars started casting more Latine actors, and the hopelessness I felt over the child separation crisis at the border. Here’s the result.Ĭomic Watch: Thank you so much for talking with us, Joamette! Well, first of all, can you tell us where the idea for MAÑANA came from, and what are the things that helped it flourish into the 50+ creators anthology we’re getting? Our own journalist Duna had the luck of talking with Joamette about MAÑANA, its inception, editorial process, range of diverse visions for the future, and more. Joamette is also a creator, illustrator and letterer in multiple other projects. With 270+ pages of comics featuring 27 young-adult sci-fi stories by Latinx creators throughout the US and Latin America, Joamette Gil is the editor behind such a massive project, as well as head of Power & Magic Press, the publisher of MAÑANA. Set throughout Latin America in the 2490s, MAÑANA: Latinx Comics From The 25th Century (available now in English & Spanish) presents readers with a radical array of futures, ranging from post-apocalypse, to liberationist utopia, to slice-of-life magical realism.
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