Robert James Russell

I’m honored that my comic “Soft Eyes”—all about our history with pets and the wisdom we can learn from them—was nominated for Best of the Net by the fine editors at The Florida Review.

This is a wonderful collection of nominees and I’m thrilled to be among them—a huge thanks to the editors.

You can read “Soft Eyes” here.

I have a graphic review of Russell Brakefield’s excellent poetry collection Irregular Heartbeats at the Park West over at RHINO Poetry. Curated by Kelcey Parker Ervick, this new RHINO issue is just graphic reviews, and I’m honored to be a part of it—it’s an incredible roster of talented artists. Here’s a couple of snippets from my review.

Read the full review here.

Delighted to have my story “Get Loose”–my first fiction piece in a bit–in the new issue of Action, Spectacle. Huge shout-out to Adam Day and guest editor Caitlin Horrocks for taking this one, all about mothers and horses and frayed filial relationships and learning to move forward.

Note: There is some gruesome language in this piece, but no gruesome acts are shown.

My graphic essay “How to Make a Full English”—about a bad breakup in grad school + the resulting wellspring of sadness and isolation and existential dread—is in the newest issue of Shenandoah.

This is a dream publication; a huge thanks to the editors for taking this. Read it here. ♡

Absolutely delighted that two of my comics have been nominated for Best of the Net:

Vessel (published at The Offing)

“Horses” (published at Solstice Lit)

These are two of my favorite graphic pieces, and I’m honored that they were selected to be nominated (a huge thanks, editors). Click the links to give them a read.

Thrilled to have my comic “Soft Eyes” over at The Florida Review. This one’s all about the wisdom we can learn from animals and the special kind of love our pets give us.

Check out a page below. Click here to read the whole thing.

I have a comic “A Box of Space and Time” in the beautiful new issue of Quarter Press’ journal The Quater(ly) all about my love of movies as escapism from family trauma—featuring Hook, Goonies, Batteries Not Included, The Sandlot, and others.

Check out a preview of the comic below. You can pick up a copy of the issue here.

I have a new comic in Issue 14 of The New Territory. This is the first of my work on their series “Weird News” where I discuss interesting happenings in the lower Midwest. For my first installment, I told the story of the invention of sliced bread in the town of Chillicothe, Missouri.

Check out the comic below, and pick up a copy of Issue 14 here.

I’m thrilled to have my new comic “A Splendid Failure” featured in Collected Rejections‘ “On Rejection” series. This series features writers discussing painful rejections and what they learned from them; given the direction of my work these days, I opted to turn my interview into a comic where I discuss two failed novels and how this pushed me toward graphic memoir.

I have a snippet below, and you can read the full thing here. A big thanks to Valorie Clark for asking me to take part!

I am honored that my comic “Searching”—which first appeared in The Rumpus—was included in the fifth edition of From the Heartland, a textbook used by first-year writing students at the University of Nebraska – Omaha. It’s exciting to be a part of a curriculum and have my very own discussion questions!

If you missed it, check out the comic here.