It’s here at last! Volume 4 of Bonnie Jo Campbell Comics is now available from Michigan State University Press.

What’s that you say? This doesn’t look like an indie comic? Indeed, Michigan Salvage, edited by Lisa DuRose, Ross K Tangedal, and Andy Older is a academic collection, the first part of which contains scholarly writing about Campbell’s work, the second part of which includes pedagogical essays, and in between the 2, obviously, is a new BJC comic by yours truly, which, of course, straddles the scholarly/pedagogical divide.

In addition to the 15-page comparison of Q Road and Once upon a River, this volume also contains my 5-page comic lesson plan for teaching literary criticism to young people (every chapter has a corresponding lesson plan), as well as a chapter in the teaching section (“Fiction Friction: Teaching Bonnie Jo Campbell to Second Language Writing Students” by Doug Sheldon) that discusses using my previous comics to teach Campbell’s work.

Due to the…professional…nature of the book, I wasn’t able to share this work before publication (I actually did the bulk of it in 2020, during the first 2 months of lockdown) and I gather I still may not share too much of it here, but true fans will certainly want to purchase this lovely volume for their home collections. (It’s academic publishing, so I receive no compensation other than a contributor’s copy, but this was the most labor intensive comic yet; it took 250 hours.)

I made a lot of different decisions with this comic, which isn’t like the others; it’s more of a compare and contrast essay between the 2 novels rather than a simple retelling of short stories. It’s really text-heavy. But I’m pretty happy with it. There was a minor mix-up in the printing process that made the pages…less effective, but I’ve already received an apology and a promise that it will be rectified in the next printing.

And now…well, I really can’t say much about it, but I guess I can reveal that I have the final text for Bonnie Jo Campbell’s new novel, forthcoming from WW Norton in 2024, right here on my very own computer. Like I really may not say much about it, but I think I can say this: it is going to blow people away. It’s going to be included on reading lists and win prizes and inspire articles and discussions. It’s going to make a huge splash. It’s going to have legs. It’s so good. And when it’s released in January of next year, Bonnie Jo Campbell Comics volume 5 will be there, scurrying after it.

Fans of Bonnie Jo Campbell and Bonnie Jo Campbell Comics will definitely want to buy this book. And if you don’t own the first 3 volumes of the comic, they can be purchased ($6 for 1, $10 for 2, $12 for all 3) from monica.ilene.friedman AT gmail DOT com.