Houston Writer Debuts Teenage Time-Traveling Comic
One of the biggest hits at Houston Zine Fest was about a constantly tardy teenager (whose dealing with a lot!)
The 2025 Houston Zine Fest was the biggest I had ever seen, with at least 50 vendors packed into the Orange Show on a balmy November Saturday. Amid all the brightly colored comics, buttons, stickers, and zines was a flustered-looking writer scribbling down email addresses and looking apologetic. Alysia Anderson, author of Cosmyx the Time Witch, had not anticipated demand for the first issue, and was desperately trying to file all the requests for her next printing after selling out halfway through the event.
“I was shocked that a lot of kids were stopping asking questions about it,” said Anderson in a phone interview. “I was surprised that I sold out mostly because it was so new. A lot of stuff at Zine Fest is built upon already existing stories or issues or a fan base, and I didn’t even have an Instagram while I was there.”
Cosmyx the Time Witch is certainly striking visually. The art by Asiah Fulmore resembles a cross between the western anime style of Avatar: The Last Airbender with the powerful pastels and pinks of a modern Amythest: Princess of Gemworld. Every part of it screams “this is the next big indie comic,” which is no small feat to accomplish at an event that has people like Isaiah Broussard as the keynote speaker.
The book follows an orphaned girl named Dorothy. All her life, she’s heard a ticking in her head, a sign of her time-warping abilities to come. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been much help for her growing up. She is habitually late for everything. In the first issue, her tardiness leads to her having to fight a bully and stopping a bodega robbery.
Dorothy is an action-packed mess of a protagonist, much like Anderson’s heroes as a girl. One of her favorite memories is standing in Bedrock City Comics in Houston, staring entranced at the 3D motion cover of Teen Titans #23, an incredible piece of pop art by Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira and Alex Sinclair featuring the demonic Trigon looming impossibly tall. It was the start of a lifelong love affair with comics, manga, and anime like Sailor Moon.
“I feel like all of the cartoons on Saturday were a combination of coming of age and action,” she said. “You have these characters who have to go and fight a battle or solve a crime, but they have homework, and they have crushes and they are eating pizza, and they’re late.”
Anderson’s love for comics remained purely that of an appreciator as she matriculated through upper education. She graduated from Episcopal High School in 2012, then was part of the New York University graduating class of 2016. These days, she works as a lawyer in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles.
Then, in 2023, the idea for Cosmyx formed. She found Fulmore and began writing. The process came fast, and she was well into the first issue by 2024. However, the entire thing was slightly overwhelming. Rather than debut the book in L.A., she came home where her love of comics started.
“I kind of was like, look, I’m taking a risk,” she said. “I’ve never self-published anything. I’ve never even tabled anywhere. I’ve never done anything. It’s going to be helpful to have my parents and brother there, but also it’s just going to be helpful for me as the creator, stress-wise to kind of be in the place that the love started. It just made everything much calmer. It felt like I was home. promoting a thing that home had helped me cultivate.
In many ways, Cosmyx is a standard teen hero comic. Dorothy is mouthy, clumsy, and prone to a lot of emotional highs and lows. At first glance, she swaps out easily with Peter Parker or Kamala Khan.
But Cosmyx goes some interesting places. The scene where Dorothy recalls the death of her father is framed exquisitely, just three almost identical panels that show his slow decline from disease as this timeless, terrible moment.
Anderson also does something I’ve never seen in a comic before. Dorothy spends a lot of the first issue dealing with an unexpected period. In fact, that’s why she’s in the bodega in the first place when she performs her super heroics. Menstruation is still a subject that gets fans of comics and animation in an uproar. The backlash to the period talk in Pixar’s Turning Red is a good indication of how far we have not come.
It’s also just funny. The time witch has trouble marking one of the oldest measurements of duration in human history and ends up having to do kung fu with blood running down her leg. That sort of droll commentary on time passage is one of the things that makes Cosmyx stand out. It’s very clever while also being a good superhero book.
“She is so bad at keeping track of time, of calendars and et cetera,” said Anderson. “I feel like every young woman has been in that situation, but also I just thought this would be so funny. You’re already late for school, and you’re getting into fights, and then you miscounted the days, and you don’t have anything on, so you got to go to a bodega. That’s such a very hilarious way to get her to where I need her to go.”
Back in L.A., Anderson is hard at work on the next several issues of the comic. She plans for 100 chapters to complete the story, and the next issue should ship in first quarter of 2026. At the moment, she’s still answering all the emails and filling rain check orders from Houston. If Zine Fest is any indication, she’s going to be filling a lot more soon.
