Hair is a source of joy—and drama, frustration, jealousy, anger, sadness, and a whole host of other complicated feelings. People with curly or kinky hair face ridicule and discrimination, while people who lose their hair might deal with body dysmorphia. Others dye, style, grow, or cut their hair to express themselves or signal a life change. There’s deep power and symbolism in hair.
Now, a group of comics creators has come together to celebrate hair in all its forms in the first volume of an anthology called Hairology. Edited by Kat Calamia, Phil Falco, and Jamila Rowser, Hairology will featured stories by creators like Sterling Gates (Supergirl, The Flash), Sarah Leuver (Teen Titans Go!), and Salomée Luce-Antoinette (Nubia). The anthology will also featured a forward by Gail Simone (Batgirl). According to the creators, “Everybody has their own unique and deeply personal relationship with their hair, so we wanted to create a platform for creators to tell their diverse stories.”
Hairology is currently being funded through a Kickstarter campaign, which ends on Thursday, March 9. Backers can get digital and physical copies of the anthology, along with variant covers and the anthology Bi Visibility, also edited by Calamia and Falco.
According to the Kickstarter page, Hairology will feature a wide variety of stories. In “Hair Wars” by Kiara Halls, a woman battles her own hair on the morning of her first day at her new job. In the autobiographical “The Other Side” by Tilly and Susan Bridges, a trans woman grows her hair out for the first time and discovers that it’s curly. And in Kylie Drouin’s “Silent Suffering,” a woman starts chemotherapy after getting a cancer diagnosis.
As of this writing, Hairology has received about $6,000 of its goal of $18,000. If the project reaches its goal, its creators estimate a publication date of August 2023.
(featured image: Kat Calamia)
