While your intrepid WWAC correspondents were too tired to make it to the 9pm award show, we can still let you know which books won the prestigious brick Saturday night. The Ignatz Awards moved to online voting when the pandemic hit and continued it for this year’s awards, meaning that the pool of voters is…
REVIEW: The Lover of Everyone in the World is a Brilliant Meditation on Empathy
The Lover of Everyone in the World feels like a thought experiment – what would it be like to feel real, romantic love for every person on earth? What would it mean to be in that many relationships, and to feel that much real love for such a wide variety of people? How would it…
REVIEW: Closing the Gaps in Queer Storytelling in Stone Fruit by Lee Lai
Lee Lai’s debut graphic novel Stone Fruit follows an overworked thirty-something named Ray as she ends her relationship with her girlfriend Bron and rekindles her friendship with her sister Amanda. Ray and Bron were at their most loving and creative while babysitting Amanda’s energetic six-year-old daughter Nessie, but they’ve drifted apart as their differences become…
Previously on Comics: IDW Partners With Penguin; Ignatz Winners Shine Light on Indie Comics
Hello again and welcome to another Kate edition of Previously on Comics! Can you believe it’s been a month since Tim Drake became canonically queer?? I have no new DC news to report, other than yesterday it was Batman Day so it’s time to revisit the eternal question of whether Batman fucks (spoiler: oh yeah…
REVIEW: Black Hole Heart Explores Friendship through Horror
I am the kind of person who wants everything to make sense, and for everything to have a reason. Perhaps paradoxically, I also LOVE horror, a genre where questions often go unanswered, or the source of the horror is never fully explained. Horror stories examine relationships in ways that don’t follow normal logic, and I…
REVIEW: Princesses Meet Mecha in Cosmoknights
Cosmoknights by Hannah Templer is a webcomic and graphic novel nominated for this year’s Outstanding Comic Ignatz Award. As per the comic’s about page, it follows the adventures of “a ragtag band of space gays… beating the patriarchy at its own game.” And it’s awesome.
Con Diaries: Small Press Expo 2018
As corny as it sounds, SPX feels more like a community than a convention. Held on September 15 to 16 in Bethesda, Maryland, Small Press Expo is, as the name implies, dedicated to independent and self-published comic books and zines. SPX feels like a unique con experience as soon as you enter the exhibit hall,…
Previously in Comics: Convention Interventions
The casual observer could be forgiven for mistaking comics fans for car accident victims given the whiplash generated by this week’s comics news. One moment up with the announcement of this year’s Ignatz winners, the next down with the unexpected postponement of another con. All in all, this week has been a frenetic one.
2017 Ignatz Awards Celebrate Diversity and Community
This year’s Ignatz Awards felt more charged than recent years, and the current political climate felt immediate and present even in the ballroom of the Bethesda Marriott where the ceremony is traditionally held. This wider perspective led to an evening of intensely personal speeches about the power of community, comics, and becoming an active participant…
Surreal Classrooms: The Academic Hour
The Academic Hour Keren Katz Secret Acres The Academic Hour, according to the book jacket, is a series of vignettes about the romance between Pothel, an architecture professor now banned from teaching architecture, and his student Liana. I am not convinced of this. The first hint that this comic is not actually a romance appears…
Previously On Comics: Whedon, Boy Bye
In with a bang: Joss Whedon, whose widely read Astonishing X-Men run featured the small, supernaturally lethal Kitty Pryde inexplicably reuniting with the giant, super-strong ex who broke her heart twice–first by infidelity and then by entitled violence against her new lover–turns out to be a gaslighting cheater who engaged in inappropriate relationships with “needy”…
Radishes is a Tasty Bite of Friendship and Fantasy [Review]
Radishes Carolyn Nowak 2015 Radishes takes place in a world I’ve never been to, and yet, I feel right at home in it. The 2016 Ignatz Award winner for Outstanding Minicomic, Radishes is about two teenage girls, Kelly and Beth, who skip school to visit a mysterious seaside market full of shops and wonders. The…