1. The Antifa Comic Book (Revised & Expanded)

By Gord Hill

In mid-November, Olman and I visited the Expozine Fair. It used to be conveniently held in the Plateau inside a church basement but in recent years it's been taking place further north, like the Villeray area.  

This year's fair was really crowded - at least during that Saturday afternoon.  I was hoping to look at some D&Q publications but their tables were packed making it hard to stop and browse due to the steady motion of moving people.  There wasn't anything that stood out for me as I circumnavigated the crowded space.  

I finally found refuge at the Anarchist Bookshop section as they had arranged their tables into a C-shape, so that I could actually take my time in their little area, which was thankfully empty of people for some precious minutes.

This was how I came upon The Antifa Comic Book.  I didn't buy it right then and there though it was the only item I ended up purchasing at the fair.  The guy manning the table was friendly and handed me a flyer for a left wing book sale happening the following month near Metro Pie-IX. I didn't stay long at the Expozine fair as it was impossible to browse at your own pace without being jostled, or having to side-step someone, or wait your turn to do anything. I ended up leaving and met Olman near an Asian import shop in St-Hubert Plaza that was going out of business. We had tacos at a Mexican deli mart down the street.

The Antifa Comic Book was first published in 2018, and the copy I got was the 2025 revised and expanded edition containing new material that depicted events such as the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack, the 2022 convoy protests in Ottawa, even the 2017 mosque shooting in Quebec.  You could also tell which entries were new by how the graphics had been illustrated. The newer pages (like the one on the right) were drawn with thinner black lines and printed with less saturated colours compared to the older pages (like the one on the left). 

There was an odd entry that didn't seem to fit with the previous content in the Canadian section. It went from a brief history of fascist movements in Canada (from 1930-1990), the A.R.A Toronto (Anti-Racist Action), and then the following page portrayed the 2011 Norway Attacks -- when a far-right extremist set off a car bomb in Oslo, then traveled to a Labour Party youth camp on the island of Utøya and went on a shooting spree killing dozens of people, mostly teenagers, simply for being "privileged" progressives.  Then the pages went back to the USA.  So the Norway section was an add-on and should've followed after Sweden.  Pragmatically, it was probably simpler to append the new pages rather than insert them between older sections, even though content-wise, it didn't make sense geographically.

In any case, I'm really glad I picked up The Antifa Comic Book.  Many reviewers, like this one, agreed how timely a book like this is during these turbulent times.  It was a fascinating read and very informative, covering key historical moments, like the birth of anti-fascist movements in Nazi Germany, continuing into the Spanish Civil War, even touching on the Second World War’s British Blackshirts and Anarchy in the U.K. and ending on Trump's presidency and Elon Musk taking over Twitter. It also gave an overview of the rise of nationalist right-wing groups on a global scale and how they use propaganda and technology to spread their ideas.

Even though I was already aware of how easily democratic freedoms and rights can be taken away, how important anti-fascist movements are and how history is always repeating itself, the book really helped give me a clearer overview by portraying key historical events and how it led to our somewhat frightening world situation today. 

Back in September, a certain so-called US president issued a statement defining “Antifa” (which hardly exists as a formal organization) as a domestic terrorist organization.  Hmm, I wonder why.  So much crazy shit has gone down since then, it's been overwhelming and fatiguing.  Minneapolis had been under seige by ICE since December and barely a week had passed in 2026 when a number of American citizens got shot and killed by ICE agents, most notably a mother.  And now so-called POTUS is obsessed with buying Greenland. Greenland! It just never ends, and there are no limits to what the wrong people in power can and will do.

Other things I learned from The Antifa Comic Book:

• It was Mussolini who granted state sovereignty to Vatican City. I had always assumed this as done centuries ago, but turns out this was done as recently as the mid-20th century.
• This I already knew, but the book confirmed that it's always the privileged and wealthy (monarchists, industrialists, aristocrats, high-ranking military and police officers, church officials, nationalists) who tend to fund and/or establish fascist movements.  Today, the list includes tech oligarchs and corporate billionaires, like Ronald Lauder (CEO of cosmetics giant Estée Lauder) who gave DT the idea of acquiring Greenland as he has vested interest in Arctic expansion and access to resources.
• I did find one small factual error. The July 24 mass stabbing in England that resulted in the deaths of three little girls did not happen at a school, but at a dance studio that was having a Taylor Swift theme day.  I could see how "school" was a quicker way to summarize the incident as it involved elementary school aged girls, but it wasn't accurate.

I'm certainly now interested in checking out The Anti-Capitalist Resistance Comic Book by Gord Hill.  The question I have though is, can I be anti-capitalist and also still love shopping?