A Cold, Dark Universe: Available For Everyone

In October of the hell year that was 2020, I interviewed Toren Chenault, Co-Founder of Black Hole Comics & Entertainment and Co-Editor of the publisher’s first anthology A Cold, Dark Universe. At the time, that interview served as a way to help get some traction for the book, which was on Kickstarter, but now it’s available for anyone who missed out on the campaign. If you’ve never heard of this book, or you want to know more about it before you buy it, here are three things to hopefully persuade you. Diversity A Cold, Dark Universe is a book dedicated to science fiction, filled cover to cover with writers and artists telling the stories that they’ve been left out of for so long. Sci-Fi is such a dope genre, but so much is often left out or not considered in favor of white male protagonists. Traditionally, the white male has served as an everyman, a recognizable figure that we could all project ourselves onto. But the problem is we are not all straight white males. So we can’t so easily imagine ourselves in these spaces. Giving everyone a voice and providing everyone a space in these stories is A Cold, Dark Universe and Black Hole Comics & Entertainment’s mission statement. And when it comes to this book specifically, it does a really good job at showing us just how powerful stories can be when they are led by people from different walks of life, not just on the page, but behind the scenes. 

For example, the book’s first story, “Interloper” by Jared Lujàn and Kasey…