As teenagers today navigate increasingly fluid identities and choices, there is a demand for an accessible, interactive tool to help share knowledge about sex and sexual health; one that demystifies the facts and speaks frankly about experiences whose lessons often fall into the grey areas.

Since 2008, Miller and Bley have held an open call for young people to create comics that address a variety of topics involved with sex education. We have since produced several issues of a sex-ed comic called Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf. The work is chosen from a vastly varied group of submissions and attempts to challenge hetero and gender normative practices in sex education. The comics address topics like body image, safer sex, consent, and relationships, from positions that have historically been left out of sex education.

These graphically illustrated personal narratives address different themes, such as “Firsts,” “Bodies,” “Health,” “Age,” and “Endings.” The book will bring together the best of the material from the Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf comics, along with new graphic stories and writing by the editors providing personal and sociological background.