UPDATE: UM Volume One’s successful pre-order campaign is over, you can now Order UM Vol.1 by buttercup!
We’ve launched our pre-order campaign for our seventh publishing project: UM Vol.1 by buttercup! We are running the campaign through Crowdfundr through April 1st!
Visit https://crowdfundr.com/umvolume1 to pre-order UM Vol.1 today!
When you pre-order UM Vol.1, you will be the first to receive a copy of the book when it’s published. You can also select exclusive bonus items, including a behind-the-scenes zine, specialized digital illustrations and 2-second animations by buttercup! We also have a retailer tier for stores and libraries to order copies at a higher discount than our normal wholesale rate.
Most importantly, when you pre-order through our Crowdfundr you join the team that is making this book possible!
UM is a magical girl comic about Eugenée, a Black, nonbinary, aspiring birth-worker who finds themself mixed up in a millennia-old conflict between the powers that be and a faction of cosmic, shamanic midwives.
UM is an ongoing webcomic, updated most Saturdays at https://um.the-comic.org. buttercup mixes mysticism, superhero tropes, and slice-of-life drama into a compelling narrative. With UM, buttercup seeks to craft a text with the essence of the storied history of resistance within the African Diaspora against global imperialism using imaginative play and science-fantasy as a liberation praxis, and a foundation for realizing Black continuity into the distant future.
UM Vol.1 collects the first six chapters of the webcomic, along with minicomics that support Eugenée’s story. This first volume is edited by Jamila Rowser (Washday Diaries, Ode to Keisha) and Steenz (Heart of the City, Archival Quality).
buttercup (b. 1988) is an Afroindigenous animator, illustrator, and sequential artist whose previous works include Dawn Richard’s Voodoo (Interlude) video clip, various bumpers for Adult Swim, and illustrations for Real Realm, a minicomic written by Jamila Rowser. Their illustration series ARTHROPOD explores the eponymous phylum of animals through the playful imagination of a Black, gender-nonconforming child. buttercup views their work, including and especially UM, as an exploration of the Black Imaginary and Prophetic Tradition as well as a visual excavation of the esoteric through a materialist lens.
You can continue to support buttercup through their Patreon.