Join The Fight Against Gun Violence: Every Day, A Comic Anthology

Every day, 96 people in the United States are killed by gun violence. Another 246 are injured in shootings and survive. Every day.

These are the statistics that open the Kickstarter page for Every Day, a new comic anthology being published by Comicker Press where all book proceeds, after the initial campaign (which will pay for printing and shipping), will go towards the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Community Justice Reform Coalition.

On calling the anthology Every Day, editor Brendan Wright told us:

The title is very important to me, and emphasizing the daily nature of the gun problem in the US and how varied it is (domestic violence and suicide are leading causes of gun death but receive much less attention than mass shootings) have been the guiding principles of the campaign and organizing the book.

… Every Day is meant to plainly set out what the stakes are with this issue. Gun deaths in the US aren’t merely common or frequent, they are a part of everyday life in this country, whether it is because of domestic violence, suicide, accidents, interactions with police, or mass shootings. Nearly 100 people being killed by guns every day is a reality unknown to most countries that aren’t in the midst of a war on home soil.

Currently the banner for the campaign is a conglomeration of art from different stories. Originally, though, it was an image by artist, Richard Pace, depicting a calendar riddled with bullet holes. Viewed in conjunction with the title, it laid a powerful punch and you can still see it in the campaign video and eventually inside the finalized book.

When asked why it was important to him to focus on the prevalence of gun violence, versus a specific kind of gun violence for Every Day, Wright replied:

Mass shootings are the most visible part of the gun problem in the US, but to look at how guns affect us all on a daily basis, you have to have conversations about domestic violence and suicide, about preventable accidents, and about all the times that someone might otherwise be injured but, because of the ubiquity of dangerous weapons, are just dead. I don’t know if most people know that guns are what allow so many domestic abusers to become murderers and allow so many people contemplating killing themselves to do so easily and quickly. It’s the same principle as in the mass shootings where someone who wants to kill people can kill 50 instead of one or two. The reason this happens every day is that, at every level, we’ve made it easy.

Some of the contributors announced so far include Scott Snyder, Kelly Thompson, Ariela Kristiantina, Joe Keatinge, Marguerite Sauvage, Jamal Igle, and Alex de Campi. The campaign will run for two weeks and hopes to raise $19,395 by April 16th. For more information, and to become a backer, Everyday is accepting pledges now on Kickstarter.