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Six years after the initial publication of Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir, Gender Queer, it’s become one of the most banned books in America and a lightning rod for discourse. However, it has also established itself as one of the most hopeful and necessary additions to the LGBTQIA+ literary canon in recent memory, and in 2026, publisher Oni Press will honor that legacy with a special hardcover edition.
The Beat can exclusively reveal Gender Queer: The Annotated Edition for publication next year. The book will feature commentary from Kobabe alongside annotations from multiple industry professionals, including:
- cartoonist Jadzia Axelrod (Galaxy: The Prettiest Star)
- cartoonist Ashley R. Guillory (Queers At The Table
- cartoonist and editor Justin Hall (No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics)
- cartoonist and educator Kori Michele Handwerker (Tiny Book Science)
- designer and animator Phoebe Kobabe (Gender Queer: A Memoir)
- author Hal Schrieve (Fawn’s Blood)
- cartoonist and comics professor at California College of the Arts Rani Som (Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir)
- co-creator of Lumberjanes and editor Shannon Watters
- original Gender Queer acquiring editor Andrea Colvin
The hardcover will also feature academic commentary from people at the top of their fields: Dr. Sandra Cox (professor of English at Southwest Missouri State University), Ajuan Mance (professor of illustration, California College of Arts), Matthew Noe (Lead Collection & Knowledge Management Librarian at Harvard Medical School), and more.
The marriage of comics and academia in The Annotated Edition furthers one of Kobabe’s goals with the creation of the first version of Gender Queer.
“Something I insisted on for the very first edition of Gender Queer was page numbers. This was inspired by my (at the time) recent experience in the Comics MFA program at California College of the Arts, where we discussed many different comics, often struggling to locate specific pages or scenes in long books without page numbers,” Kobabe said in a statement for The Beat. “It made me especially aware of how including page numbers facilitated class discussions or book club conversations about a text.
“I’m extremely happy that Gender Queer has been included on so many college syllabi in the years since its publication. I’ve seen it taught in English classes, Women and Gender Studies, Comics, Memoir Writing, Graphic Medicine, and more. One of my hopes for this annotated edition is that it will offer an even richer resource for students and teachers studying the text in class, as well as anyone else interested in a close reading of the book,” e said.
See an exclusive excerpt from Gender Queer: The Annotated Edition below.
“For fans, educators, and anyone else who wants to know more, I am so excited to share the Gender Queer: The Annotated Edition. Queer and trans cartoonists, comics scholars, and multiple people who appear in the book as characters contributed their thoughts, reactions, and notes to this new edition,” Kobabe said in a statement.
“There are comments on the color design process, on comics craft, on family, on friendship, on the touchstone queer media that inspired me and countless other people searching for meaningful representation, and on the complicated process of self-discovery,” e continued. “It’s been almost seven years since I wrote the final words of this memoir; revisiting these pages today, in a radically different and less accepting political climate, sparked a lot of new thoughts for me as well. I hope readers enjoy this even richer text full of community voices.”
Gender Queer: The Annotated Edition will be available everywhere books are sold on May 5, 2026. The 280-page, full color hardcover retails for $49.99 USD.
English (US)