This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Ah, Lumberjanes. Coming out of Boom! Studios’ Boom! Box imprint, the premise was simple enough. Five girls bunking in a cabin at summer camp. Friendship and hijinks ensue. Except Lumberjanes was so much more than that. From its stellar creative team to the dynamic characters to the ever-present importance of friendship, Lumberjanes earned our hearts and plenty of awards along the way.
Okay, so it’s really been 11 years since Lumberjanes issue #1 first dropped. It has been 10 years since the first collected edition hit bookstores, launching the series into libraries and so many more hands. Looking back, what made Lumberjanes so successful?
The Lumberjanes Beginning
The original creative team for Lumberjanes consisted of Grace Ellis (Harley Quinn, Flung Out of Space), Shannon Waters (founder and head of Boom! Box), Gus Allen, and the inimitable ND Stevenson (Nimona, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power). There’s a lot of firepower there, and they came out of the gates swinging.
The series starts innocuously enough. We’re introduced to the members of Roanoke cabin: five girls and their counselor. It’s a fun summer camp for “Hardcore Lady Types.” Soon enough, though, we discover there’s more to the forest than just trees and squirrels. Wolves with antlers that talk in spooky voices. Portals to other dimensions. Dinosaurs.
Basically, if it comes from myth or legend, it probably lives in the forest that surrounds Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady-Types. Yes, that’s the full name of the camp. And our group of girls, they’re not the type to run away or sit back and let things happen. No, they’re the type to charge in, sometimes with a plan, but always watching out for each other.
Roanoke Cabin
Who are these hardcore lady types? I’m glad you asked.
The Stack
Sign up to The Stack to receive Book Riot Comic’s best posts, picked for you.
April is short and red-headed. She’s supernaturally strong and overly enthusiastic, often getting so caught up in her excitement that she bulldozes right past her friends’ needs and feelings. Think Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation but as a super-strong little girl. Jo is April’s best friend, even outside of camp, and is the brainiac of the group. She’s super smart, particularly when it comes to science. While she’s always game for her friends’ wild adventures, she relies on logic and her brain to help.
Mal is the punk, the side of her head shaven, who plays in a band back home. While she seems to embrace rebellion as a way of finding her place in the world, her mother is actually quite accepting of her and her music. Molly is the quietest of the Roanokes and truly finds herself at camp, away from her overbearing mother and silent father. Very soon into the series, Molly and Mal begin a darling romance. Oh, and Molly has Bubbles, a raccoon who likes to hang out on Molly’s head like a hat.
Ripley is the youngest and most energetic of the bunch, often getting the best one-liners. She’s seemingly fearless and easily distracted, but loves fiercely. Hey, somebody has to be the one to get the rest of them in trouble. Last up is Jen, the counselor for the Roanokes. She’s older, constantly fretting over her cabin, and rightly worried over their hijinks.
Friendship to the Max!
What really made Lumberjanes sing and made the series a success was the ever-present focus on friendship. The Roanokes didn’t go chasing down trouble. Well, not most of the time. They ran aground of trouble in the pursuit of helping others. When a group of selkies and a werewolf sailor woman are at odds? The Roanokes jump in to help both groups. A mermaid is on the outs with her former band? Surely, April can get them back together.
Lumberjanes is rarely about women being rivals. It’s about them helping each other. It’s about acceptance of everyone, no matter the color of their skin, their socioeconomic background, who they love, what creature they turn into, or even their gender. Yes, there is Barney (they/them), who comes over from the boys’ side of the lake to join the Lumberjanes in their adventures.
Over the course of 75+ issues, Lumberjanes won two Eisner Awards for Best New Series and Best Publication for Teens. It was also nominated three times for GLAAD’s Outstanding Comic Book award. It’s been optioned a couple of times for adaptation, though it still hasn’t gone to production yet. One can only hope.
As I reread the entire series from start to finish in preparation for this retrospective, I was amazed at how well these characters and their stories still resonate. I was also thrilled to realize that my local library carried every single volume of Lumberjanes, ensuring that generations of young people will still have April, Jo, Mal, Molly, Ripley, (Diane, Hes, Barney, Rosie, Abigail, Nellie, etc.) and Jen. They, too, will get to understand that Friendship to the Max is always the best solution.
The following comes to you from the Editorial Desk.
This week, we’re highlighting the best new poetry collections of 2025 (so far)! From the from deeply personal to powerfully political, many of these collections reflect the zeitgeist and introduce some fresh voices in poetry. Read on for an excerpt and become an All Access member to unlock the full post.
How is it that we’re already more than a quarter of the way through 2025? I’m ahead of my reading goals and still feel so far behind at the same time. I’ve packed in plenty of poetry, though, finding lots of wonderful and surprising voices emerging. It’s early, but totally time to check in with some of the best new poetry collections of 2025 so far.
It’s funny how timely these collections are. Keep in mind that publishing moves VERY SLOWLY, so books that have been released in the first quarter of 2025 were probably completed in late 2023 or early 2024, only seeing the light of day recently. So, these collections were written in the run-up to last year’s presidential election. Nevertheless, many of these collections feel like guttural reactions to the world right now. Amazing how prescient art and artists can be, huh?
These poetry collections run the gamut from deeply personal to powerfully political. Let’s face it, those two are often the same anyway, particularly when it comes to poetry. Most exciting to me are how many of these best new poetry collections of 2025 so far are fresh voices to the poetic scene. Let’s dig into those collections, shall we?
Sign up to become an All Access member for only $6/month and then click here to read the full, unlocked article. Level up your reading life with All Access membership and explore a full library of exclusive bonus content, including must-reads, deep dives, and reading challenge recommendations.