A fictional and complex portrait of bestselling author Patricia Highsmith caught up in the longing that would inspire her queer classic, The Price of Salt.
FLUNG OUT OF SPACE:
The Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith
by Grace Ellis
illustrated by Hannah Templer
Abrams ComicArts, February 2022
FLUNG OUT OF SPACE is an imagined portrait of the wild and complicated figure that was infamous crime writer Patricia Highsmith. As the story opens, we meet Pat begrudgingly writing low-brow comics. A drinker, a smoker, and a hater of life, Pat knows she can do better. Her brain churns with images of the great novel she could and should be writing—what will eventually be Strangers on a Train (which would later be adapted into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951).
Pat is a chronic womanizer, but she’s ashamed of being gay, and so on the recommendation of her therapist, she enrolls in conversion therapy, where she meets many of her future sexual conquests.
This is also not just the story of a queer woman, but of a queer artist. Written and illustrated by two heavyweights in the comics world—Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer, it’s a comic about what it was like to write comics in the 1950s, but also about what it means to be a writer at any time in history, struggling to find your voice.
FLUNG OUT OF SPACE isn’t a rosy portrait of queer life, but rather an unflinching one. Ellis’s savvy writing combines with Templer’s stunning illustrations to create a work that will intrigue and fascinate comics fans. An afterword written by Highsmith’s authorized biographer, Joan Schenkar, contextualizes the writer’s life with this fictional portrayal and offers insight into Highsmith’s complex legacy. Highsmith was unapologetic but guilt-ridden, talented but self-sabotaging, magnetic but withdrawn, vicious but hilarious. In short: She was a hell of a woman and a hell of a protagonist.
Grace Ellis made a name for herself in the industry by creating unforgettable, lovable, and funny characters. She burst onto the comics scene with The Lumberjanes, which she cocreated and cowrote. It was a New York Times bestselling, Eisner and GLAAD Award–winning comics series that broke the mold of both YA and superhero comics. She is also the author and creator of the series Moonstruck, illustrated by Shea Beagle, and writer of the soon-to-be-released series Lois Lane and the Friendship Challenge for DC Comics. Ellis lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Hannah Templer is a queer cartoonist currently living in Baltimore, Maryland. They have worked as a colorist, cover artist, and interior artist on titles such as GLOW, Samurai Jack, Jem and the Holograms, Captain Marvel, and Tomb Raider. They are also the creator of Cosmoknights, an original graphic novel series published in 2019 by Top Shelf Comics. Their work as a cover artist—with clients like Dark Horse, IDW, Valiant, BOOM! Studios, Marvel, HarperCollins, and Abrams Books—is as extensive as it is dynamic and stunning.
Dean Foster knows he’s a trans guy. He’s watched enough YouTube videos and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school thinks he’s a lesbian—including his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director, who just cast him as a “nontraditional” Romeo. He wonders if maybe it would be easier to wait until college to come out. But as he plays Romeo every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to see him as he really is now––not just on the stage, but everywhere in his life. Dean knows what he needs to do. Can playing a role help Dean be his true self? 
There’s always been a hole in Gio’s life. Not because he’s into both guys and girls. Not because his father has some drinking issues. Not because his friends are always bringing him their drama. No, the hole in Gio’s life takes the shape of his birth mom, who left Gio, his brother, and his father when Gio was nine years old. For eight years, he never heard a word from her . . . and now, just as he’s started to get his life together, she’s back. It’s hard for Gio to know what to do. Can he forgive her like she wants to be forgiven? Or should he tell her she lost her chance to be in his life? Complicating things further, Gio’s started to hang out with David, a new guy on the basketball team. Are they friends? More than friends? At first, Gio’s not sure . . . especially because he’s not sure what he wants from anyone right now. There are no easy answers to love— whether it’s family love or friend love or romantic love. In THINGS WE COULDN’T SAY, Jay Coles, acclaimed author of 
In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, ACT UP, NY took on the AIDS crisis with an infatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington DC and started Needle Exchange in New York; they took over Grand Central terminal and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women; they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and advertising to push their agenda, and battled—and beat—the New York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry. AIDS Activism in its complex and intersectional power, transformed the lives of People With AIDS and the bigoted society that abandoned them.
Todd is playing at the beach with his six-year-old son, Anthony, when he sees a man approach them. It is Jack, the man who made his highschool years a living hell. Radiant, repentant, and overjoyed to have « run into » Todd, Jack suggests a meal (to catch up!) and perhaps a night or two’s stay at Todd’s house (to reconnect!). Todd politely agrees, smile frozen on his face, as a sick feeling begins to grow within him, churning into rot and releasing a repressed darkness. What follows is a tense, fast-paced story of obsession and the grotesque, as disturbing as it is emotionally riveting. A Patricia Highsmith novel for the demented age we’re living through, HAWK MOUNTAIN is a compelling look at how love and hate are indissoluble, intertwined until the last breath.