Comics Youth

29/08/2026

16/08/2026

We wanted to share these words because silence did not feel right.

Our deepest love and solidarity are with Professor Jason Arday’s family, friends, colleagues, students and everyone who knew and loved him. We are also thinking of the Black and autistic communities, and particularly young people, for whom his death and the events surrounding it may have landed painfully.

We unequivocally condemn the racism that has surrounded the treatment of Professor Arday. Racism does not need to be explicit to be real. It exists in patterns of suspicion, disproportionality and unequal scrutiny, and we cannot meaningfully challenge it if we are only prepared to name its most obvious forms.

There will and should be deeper conversations about what has happened. For now, we want to centre something much simpler: a human being has died, a family is grieving, and people are hurting.

Please hold them with care.

To everyone affected by this loss, and to anyone seeing something painfully familiar in what has unfolded: we see you, we stand with you, and we are thinking of you.

With love and solidarity from all of us at Comics Youth.

Rest in power, Professor Jason Arday.

27/07/2026

We need to say this: please stop using AI art.
Every time we see another AI poster, another “creative” campaign, another organisation celebrating imagination while bypassing actual artists, something feels deeply wrong.

The blue glow. The lifeless faces. The strange hands. The awful colours. The spelling mistakes. The complete absence of heart. And that’s the thing..it’s not just about the image. It’s about the choice behind it.

If you work with art, creativity, communities or young people, take a cold, hard look at yourself. What are we telling young artists when we say their voices matter, but then choose a machine over a human?
Art is not a shortcut. It is lived experience, craft, mistakes, stories and soul. Pay artists. Commission creatives. Protect imagination.

Because a world full of images but empty of humanity is not progress.

25/07/2026

We have rewritten this post more times than we can count. Because how do you write about Pride when so many people are carrying so much? How do you celebrate a community’s joy while acknowledging the hurt that sits alongside it?

This year, we’ve felt the weight of the world pressing in. The anger. The fear. The conversations that have forgotten there are real people listening. And our hearts keep returning to the young people we work alongside. The ones who are growing up watching their existence become something adults argue about. The ones who are learning that being themselves can feel like an act of courage. The ones who deserve a world that feels safer, kinder and gentler than this one.

We are sorry. We are sorry the world has asked so much of you. We are sorry you have had to find strength where you should have found support.

We are sorry that belonging has sometimes felt like something you have to fight for. We wish we could make it easier. We wish we could take away the hurt.
But we can promise this:
We see you.
Not as a debate.
Not as a headline.
Not as an argument to be won.
As a whole person.

With your stories, your dreams, your weirdness, your creativity, your joy. And we will keep making spaces where you can be all of those things. Because the world needs you exactly as you are. Happy Pride you chaos gremlins. We love you the mostest❤️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️