Shrub: The Collected Edition
GLAAD Media Award-winning and Eisner and Harvey Awards-nominated publisher and media outlet Fanbase Press is thrilled to launch its latest Kickstarter campaign to fund the collected edition of Shrub, a Graphic Medicine series exploring grief and connection, featuring all-new contributions from some of the biggest...
In this middle grade adventure, readers will join Shrub who is, well… a shrub… for a cross-country road trip to Hollywood! Join Shrub and a grieving brother and sister as they head out in search of connection. On their journey, pit stops, wacky plant enthusiasts, uprooting, and re-routing abound.
Shrub: The Collected Edition will feature contributions from Eisner Award-winning writer David F. Walker (Big Jim and the White Boy, Bitter Roots), voice-over actor, writer, and producer Yuri Lowenthal (Peter Parker / Spider-Man – Marvel Rivals, Marvel's Spider-Man), Emmy and Eisner Awards-winning writer Amalia Levari (Over the Garden Wall), and Dr. David J. Schonfeld (Director, National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles).
The series was created and written by Emmy Award nominee Shane Portman (Tumble Leaf, Shape Island), illustrated by Andy Alves (Cosmic Cadets), colored by Sophia Du (Story Bots: Answer Time) and Celia FitzGerald, lettered by Oceano Ransford (Eisner Award-nominated Rikki), and with consultation from comics librarian Moni Barrette.
“In the footsteps of ET or Wall-E, Shrub and their insatiable awe for everything they come in contact with – people, birds, cows, even vending machines – are the open-hearted catalyst of this story,” said Shane Portman. “Their tender connection to each character is a living example of the empathy that we all need and deserve.”
Shrub explores the various ways that we allow grief to take root, inspired by writer Shane Portman’s experience with the loss of his father. The series features “Letting Grief Take Root” essays written by individuals with a personal and/or professional connection to grief who relate Shrub’s story to their own lived experience. Essayists include Shane Portman and his family, as well as grief doula Kat Primeau and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Ariel Landrum (Geek Therapy).
Additionally, every issue of the series will include a fold-out page within the story’s narrative.
“Given that Shrub explores the various ways that we allow grief to take root, we wanted to offer readers an exciting and tactile way to dig deeper into the story during their reading experience,” said Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief. “By including a fold-out page within every issue, readers will learn more about the characters and the ways that their collective journeys with grief connect them.”
About Shane Portman (he/him)
Raised in Virginia and Ohio (with a dash of Connecticut), Shane Portman is an LA-based, award-winning writer/developmental producer who cut his teeth on the windy streets of Chicago’s sketch and improv comedy scene.
He’s written for TV shows like Tumble Leaf, Shape Island, Duck & Goose, and Kinderwood, as well as audio series like Hobo Code and Hollowhead Pete and the Wicked Wish. He received an Emmy nomination for writing on Tumble Leaf, won two Signal Awards for writing and producing Hobo Code, and penned an episode of Kinderwood and an interstitial short for HMH Publishing that were official selections of the Annecy International Film Festival.
Since 2018, he’s served as head of development for Bix Pix Entertainment, the Emmy/Annie/BAFTA/Annecy Award-winning stop-motion animation studio, and has developed material for Disney, Warner Brothers, Apple TV+, Nick Jr, Scholastic, the UK’s Spider Eye studio, and the National Wildlife Federation.
About Barbra Dillon (she/her)
Barbra Dillon is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Fanbase Press, a GLAAD Media Award-winning and Eisner and Harvey Awards-nominated publishing company and media outlet that seeks to produce new and distinctive works that give voice to the themes, ideals, and people that make “geekdom” so exceptional. She also serves as a Board Member for the Graphic Medicine International Collective, Comics Library Commons, and The Latinx Comic Arts Festival, as well as an Advisory Board Member of the Santa Monica Comics Company.
This episode is sponsored by Deadly Grounds Coffee "It’s good to get a little Deadly".
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