The Antifa Comic Book (Revised & Expanded) by Gord Hill

The Antifa Comic Book is relevant today, yesterday and tomorrow.

On September 2, 2025, Gord Hill’s new revised and expanded graphic history, The Antifa Comic Book, was released in Canada. Days later U.S. President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. To be clear, Antifa is not an organized movement, nor is it merely an idea — it is a loose affiliation of activists across the world. The term “Antifa” is short for anti-fascist. People who identify as Antifa are known for what they oppose: fascism, ultranationalism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, racism, homophobia and xenophobia.

When the original edition of The Antifa Comic Book was published in 2018 it was heralded for its searing imagery documenting the history of fascist and anti-fascist movements over the last century. In the years since its publication, the term “Antifa” has been co-opted by the right to falsely describe far-left political extremism. But the role played by Antifa movements in fighting fascism and racism around the world remains as relevant and urgently important as ever. This expanded version of Hill’s original comic book includes a must-read new foreword by historian Mark Bray, as well as new graphic material depicting recent flashpoints of fascist activities.

This is a comic book like no other. There are no laughs, no exaggerations, no satire. But the medium suits the message for, as Bray says in his powerful six-page foreword, “Comic books were made for Nazi punching.” Bray goes on to describe how no other art form surpasses the comic’s capacity, beginning with Superman in the 1930s (and later Captain America), to conjure the black and white struggle of good versus evil.

Bray sets the context and explores why, despite the anti-democratic actions of the Trump administration, the Democratic party and mainstream society are not ringing the alarm bells. His theory is—

“… we have been taught that fascism is dead and gone, that Nazism was an aberration from European “civilization”, that rational discourse will always stop fascist ideas, that the police will never hesitate in thwarting fascist violence.”

In the text author Hill argues that fascism was “shaped by centuries of war, patriarchy, and white supremacy” and Bray amplifies Hill’s argument by saying—

“If we are to destroy fascism, we must destroy its roots in heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, anti-Semitism, capitalism, imperialism—hierarchy and domination in all its forms. So while early superheroes opposed Nazism, they did so in the interest of preserving the status quo that gave birth to it in the first place. Moreover, as early as the 1950s, commentators started observing that the very notion of a strongman who was entitled to brutally suppress “degenerate” street crime outside of the legal system by virtue of his superhuman prowess had deeply fascist impulses.”

By linking historical and contemporary resistance to white supremacy and fascism, The Antifa Comic Book powerfully disrupts the liberal narrative that treats fascism and the Holocaust as exceptional detours in an otherwise steady liberal progress.

This book situates anti-fascism in relation to settler colonialism and racialized violence in ways most mainstream treatments do not.

Hill’s positionality as an Indigenous writer and long-time activist matters. This book situates anti-fascism in relation to settler colonialism and racialized violence in ways most mainstream treatments do not. This makes it especially resonant in a Canadian context where those histories are politically central. The new edition includes specific stories of fascist activity across the country, including the Klu Klux Klan of Kanada, and the so-called “Freedom” Convoy of 2022.

Image pulled from *The Antifa Comic Book* (Revised & Expanded), pg 117. Arsenal Pulp Press.

In this fact-based visual history, Hill paints a sweeping portrait of resistance that highlights very few names of individuals. The focus is on systems, movements and patterns of human behaviour.

The focus is on systems, movements and patterns of human behaviour.

Opening with a brief primer of the meaning of fascism and Antifa, Hill works his way chronologically through 36 separate stories, beginning in WWI Italy and ending with the return of Trump in 2024. With few exceptions, the full-colour panels contain no dialogue. Each frame has one to two sentences of boxed text providing essential detail for the specific event. Hill’s sentences are packed and punchy, and impressively rich in historical detail and analytical observations. He is a master storyteller.

Hill doesn’t attempt false neutrality; this book is a persuasive act. The art amplifies urgency in ways prose sometimes can’t. Hill writes and illustrates with aesthetic force. His chillingly realistic and disturbing illustrations are a powerful tactic for creating a visceral understanding of fascism.

The Antifa Comic Book is relevant today, yesterday and tomorrow. (But maybe don’t tuck it in your backpack if crossing the U.S. border anytime soon.)

Ultimately this is a cautiously optimistic book. Hill’s message is three-fold: opposition to fascism is growing, organizing is the best defense, and all is not lost. The final words of the book (that paraphrase the late punk rocker, Joe Strummer) ring true; “…the future is unwritten.”

Gord Hill is an artist, author, political activist, and member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation. He is the author of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book and The Anti-Capitalism Resistance Comic Book. His art and writings have been published in numerous periodicals, including Briarpatch, Canadian Dimension, Redwire, Red Rising Magazine, The Dominion, Intotemak, Seattle Weekly, and Broken Pencil. Hill has worked as an advocate for Indigenous people since 1988, participating in numerous protests, blockades, rallies, and other movements. He lives in British Columbia.

Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press (September 2, 2025)
Paperback: 32.5 x 20.3 cm | 168 pages
ISBN: 9781834050041

Catherine Walker

Catherine Walkeris a writer/editor living on the South Shore of Miꞌkmaꞌki (Nova Scotia). A founding member of the Little Books Collective, a community-building micropress in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Catherine is the author of two chapbooks: Short Takes: My seven-week career in the film biz (2024) and the call of many sorrows: fourteen poems (2023).

Catherine Walker

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