Small Press Review: Tess Fowler-Gutierrez’s TAKE THE FALL is unflinchingly, viscerally human

Take the Fall

Cartoonist: Tess Fowler-Gutierrez
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: January 2026

The title of Tess Fowler-Guitterrez’s new book, Take the Fall, has a double meaning: taking the fall of fault and of harm, and taking the fall as the risk of living openly, clearly and vulnerably with others. It is also the way to encapsulate the narrative arc of this memoir.

To talk about Tess Fowler-Gutierrez is also talk about the industry around Fowler-Gutierrez as well. Or really, the harassment campaigns that have mutated into something grotesque over the past decade and change. Many articles have been written about Gamergate and Comicsgate and how these grown ass men (and their tokens) made it their life’s mission to make sure nerd culture stays catering to white cishet men. I’m not going to recap it here.

In fact, I hate the fact that the words men who are old enough to be my father have said about her continue to eclipse her life’s work. It cedes power and agency to a group of people who — put simply — are creatively bankrupt, deeply unwell weirdos who expect the world to continue to lie to them about both of those things. They have already taken so much from the culture, and I refuse to let them control anymore of it.

Take the Fall is a memoir about a woman dealing with cancer and what that means in her life. If you’re expecting a salacious tell-all about how she dealt with the harassment and violence she faced from a small group of assholes and their followers, this is not that book.

Take The Fall is human more than anything else. I emphasize that because Tess Fowler-Gutierrez was unpersoned by the public for a number of years. She became a symbol of a harassment campaign and also an object of sympathy for the greater comics community. Neither of these labels keep her personhood as the focus.

She writes about cancer, but it’s not just cancer, because nothing in our lives happens in a vacuum. There are the parts of us that were yelled at and traumatized and let down that we carry with us. There are parts of us that are ashamed at the lengths we went to in order to be loved and supported. These truths are depicted in a dreamy watercolor and pen work that fits the almost stream-of-consciousness structure of the book.

The way we talk to ourselves is non-linear and dips in and out of chronological order, and Take The Fall illustrates that perfect. A conversation about medical procedures is never just about medical procedures, a conversation about a comic convention is never just about a comic convention. Little memories and traumas sneak in and pop their heads up. Parts of ourselves—like Fowler-Gutierrez depiction of her adolescent self—are prone to lashing out and hating ourselves for letting ourselves be harmed instead of the people who have harmed us.

Not be too personal, but even love itself is comprised of the ghosts of those we loved in the past, whether we are willing to admit that or not. Many don’t. The thing about skeletons in the closet is that they were once flesh and blood until time ate the flesh and left nothing but rot. Sometimes—for what are initially good reasons—the pain of knowing someone who gave you good advice while deeply damaging you is a cognitive dissonance that can be better handled with age, but is practically nuclear in youth.

Each topic in Take The Fall is handled with the care and language you’d expect from how a conversation with yourself would go. It’s uncensored and scattered, yet somehow makes sense.

Take The Fall is incisive in the way that a good memoir tends to be. It’s the sort of thing that can only come from raw, real, emotion. There were several quotes that stuck out to me, but the passages about Fowler’s feelings and memories of being desired by men and what that does to her psyche were the ones that made me close the book and reflect. I needed to take a breath as I began to recall my own memories of being an unfortunately attractive girl in a den of wolves that is interacting with adult men. My relationship with people touching my body, loud noises, my late-in-lesbian awakening, and being in the same vicinity as men alone were radically changed during my teenage years.

This is a memoir to look out for this year. Though, I’d be remiss if I didn’t suggest a content warning of depictions of sexual violence, medical gore and domestic abuse.

Tess Fowler-Gutierrez’s Take the Fall is available now direct from the author

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