Interviews /Podcasts

“Queer Comics Get The Attention They Deserve at The Lammys,” by Brian Andersen, — The Advocate

Apsara Engine

"Som's imagination is science-fictiony, without being particularly technological, mythic without being particularly traditional, and humanistic without cherishing any particular assumptions about where we, as a species, are headed. . . . Evading standard categories and unsettling familiar narrative patterns, the book is a testament to how trans experiences can teach us entirely new ways of imagining our humanity." — NPR.org

"In ways that should be obvious by now, queer people, trans people, need lives that look and feel unlike the lives we grew up knowing: we need lives whose geographies, whose economies, permit us to become ourselves. . . . Apsara Engine begins to envision them." — The Georgia Review

“Much like a map, Som’s novel opens up a portal and lets us imagine all the places it could take us to.” — Hyperallergic

"Provocative. . . . Som is a master of pacing, letting the emotion of her scenes churn and roil in the reader; her debut heralds the rise of new talent to watch." — Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Richly hued, gorgeously lettered, and often exquisitely detailed, Som's work, the writing as well the art, presents a brave new world of diverse women—talking, dancing, dreaming, plotting—living among friends, lovers, and chimerical creatures, in familiar cities and faraway landscapes, balancing the expectantly mundane with the utterly fantastical." — Booklist, starred review

“Som has created a collection of short stories that dance between genres and identities, moving from incisive descriptions of modern social realities to poetic ruminations on the future. This anthology by an up-and-coming comics superstar, which centers queer and trans South Asian narratives, is precisely what we need right now.” — them.

"It would be too simple to call these stories utopian or surreal or culturally critical or a triumph of imagination. They are all these things, and a challenge to established understandings of space, on page and in person, as well. Apsara Engine is a gorgeous graphic novel, but it is more than that too—it is an imagination of an expansive future recorded in expansive pages." — Rain Taxi

“Bishakh Som’s debut graphic story collection. . . . conjures up shape-shifting global cities, erupting with queer intimacies and witty banter in eight eerie and tender stories.” — The Rumpus

“One of visual literature’s most sublime scribes.” — HiLobrow

"An astonishing collection of stories that expand and pulse into galaxy-sized moments of strangeness and wonder." — Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

"Imaginative and poetic, Apsara Engine is powered by a fiercely complex heart. Bishakh Som builds a world in which queer and trans South Asians not only survive, but map the very future. Som is lighting the way forward with a stunning blend of mythology, futurity, and courageous tenderness." — Franny Choi, author of Soft Science

“A sweet mix of late nineteenth-century morals upended by early twenty-first-century juxtapositions, Apsara Engine is a set of uncanny shorts full of uniquely camouflaged and slow-moving yet effective trapdoors. Wish fulfillment is the book's true engine but—as in ancient tales—wishes are fulfilled in unhappy or muted or at least prickly fashion. Dichotomies—particularly those of gender, or of the global north and south—get less subverted than softly imploded. A welcome blueprint for a side entrance into an only recently imagined utopia.” — Eugene Lim, author of Dear Cyborgs

“Bishakh Som’s comics astonish me with beauty and invention; Apsara Engine opens up the medium to possibilities never before imagined. Luckily, Som has enough imagination for all of us.” — Jason Adam Katzenstein, illustrator of Camp Midnight

“The eight pieces here sprawl far larger than the 200-odd pages that contain them. They slip in and out of time and telling; conversation, seduction, and the fantastic are their method, their object the elusive connections between people. Apsara Engine opens a new comics universe, one painted in the blood of someone incisive and hilarious and warm and intense and brilliant: say yes to it.” — Jeanne Thornton, author of The Black Emerald

"This remarkable book does something rare and exhilarating: the stories the words tell are individual, familiar, and meaningful, but the images take the reader to situations and worlds that are alien, strange, dark, or numinous. Stories like these reveal the limits of what we consider 'realism'—and perhaps more, they remind us that the world is not always what we think it is." — Rachel Pollack, author of The Beatrix Gates

“Apsara Engine, which won the 2021 Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Comics, blew my mind, not only because seeing trans people of color loving each other and using their own blood to draw blueprints of fantastical cities and radical futures brought me to tears, but also because of Som’s masterful disruption of linear narrative and her lush, dreamlike illustrations.” - Zeyn Joukhadar, Lit Hub

Spellbound

“The layers of identity and story in this memoir . . . and Som's fluid approach to representing the self, feel impressively easy, unbelabored.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Creative nonfiction aficionados and fans of queer comics alike will flock to this literally transformative work.”— Publishers Weekly

“Spellbound is an intimate experience, highlighting some of the most powerful elements of comics for me — not only the struggle of creating the work in the first place, but of realizing so much about oneself in the process. Som’s humour and sincerity is well complemented by the expressive lines of her characters, creating elegant artwork that flows like good conversation.” — Emily Carroll, illustrator of Speak: A Graphic Novel and author of Through the Woods.

“I’ve never read anything quite like Spellbound – an exploration of how the narratives we construct can reveal deeper truths, a book about discovery whose creation was the path to the discovery. It’s sharp and clever, beautifully drawn, and trusts the reader to come along for the journey. I can’t wait to see what Bishakh Som does next!” — Molly Knox
Ostertag, author of The Witch Boy.

“Bishakh Som’s Spellbound is a searching and restless document of her creative journey, and a good fit for these restless days.” — Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics.

“I loved this radical book about care–caring for family, caring for yourself, caring for your wildest goals. This book gives space for allowing care to be messy and all-encompassing. It’s a compassionate and enjoyable graphic novel about figuring life out.” — Archie Bongionvanni, author of A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns.

“Spellbound is a sweet, sad, charming coming-of-art memoir that belongs on every comics lover’s shelves.” —
MariNaomi, author and illustrator of Turning Japanese

“Bishakh Som discovers the power and potential in creating an alter-ego who both is, and is not, the self in this gorgeously drawn almost-memoir. Using the character of Anjali, Som writes about an international childhood spent in Ethiopia, India, and New York City. She writes of the death of her parents and the gutsy decision to quit a dull, safe job to pursue an uncertain creative dream. We, the readers, are the benefactors of this leap into the unknown. How fortunate that Anjali, and Som, chose comics!” — Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer: A Memoir

“Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir flows like a beautiful conversation between two selves. Bishakh Som transcends chronicling lived experiences by breathing life into Anjali and giving her a reality of her own. In this imagined parallel reality, we are guided by honesty, longing, and curiosity to a greater understanding of Som’s trans journey. I am especially compelled by the depiction of navigating interpersonal relationships while coming to a fuller understanding of the self. Som has documented this process with the utmost sincerity and imaginative wit!” —JR Zuckerberg, author of A
Quick and Easy Guide to Queer & Trans Identities.

“Spellbound is an engrossing read, examining complicated relationships—family, friendships, and romances alike—with natural, intuitive, and carefully-observed craft. Bishakh Som’s work throughout is thoughtful, witty, and beautifully inked—a delightful read from start to finish.” — Melanie Gillman, author of As the Crow Flies and Stage Dreams.

“By turns melancholy and sensual, each beautifully-observed line in Spellbound drew me into the parallel lives of Bishakh and Anjali. An intoxicating love letter to grabbing the rudder of life and setting out for unknown waters.” —Hazel Newlevant, author of No Ivy League.

“Bishakh Som’s Spellbound is the delightful, moving, engrossing story of the child of immigrants who does her best to fulfil her parents’ ambitions for her, before realizing that she has her own very different life to live. Beautifully told through the details of everyday life, Spellbound shows how we may have to learn a little of the art of living before we will know how to make art, and that if the truth of our life is being transgender, it is never too late – or too early – to come out to oneself and the world.” — McKenzie Wark, author of Raving, Reverse Cowgirl, and A Hacker Manifesto.

“Bishakh Som Discusses the Very Personal Process of Writing Spellbound,” by Aarushi Agni, — Nerdist

“Bishakh Som’s Spellbound is an Innovative Take on the Graphic Memoir,” by Rhea Rollman, — PopMatters

“August 2020 Reads for the Rest of Us”, by Karla J. Strand, — Ms. Magazine