Jane: Documents from Chicago’s Clandestine Abortion Service 1968-1973 Firestarter Press, 2004 January 22nd marked the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Perhaps it is more apt to say it sort of legalized abortion as, according to a recent article from Mother Jones, over 1,000 state laws restricting abortion…
Nerdy Nummies: Sweet Treats for the Geeky Baker
The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook: Sweet Treats for the Geek in All of Us Rosanna Pansino Atria Books November 3 2015 Disclaimer: A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review You may recognize the name Rosanna Pansino and Nerdy Nummies from her (very) popular YouTube channel. Every Tuesday…
Don’t Destroy the Brain: Corpse Talk Lets History Be Gross
Running in British weekly comics magazine The Phoenix, now seeing its second collected volume released by David Fickling Books, the conceit of Corpse Talk is that the reader is viewing a talk show. The host—the cartoonist—is visited by the dead bodies of big movers of the past, now deceased, and together they discuss important moments…
WWAC Shares Spooky Stories of Unexplainable Phenomenon
It’s October, which means I try to devote each evening to watching a horror film, ranging from classics like Nosferatu to personal favorites like Poltergeist to ones I just never got around to watching like The Omen (the original—it was okay). But what about “non-fiction?” Have you ever had an experience you just can’t explain? A…
Zine Review: Nonbinary by Melanie Gillman
Nonbinary Melanie Gillman If you’re a webcomics reader, you may be familiar with Melanie Gillman’s beautifully illustrated As The Crow Flies. Nonbinary still features Gillman’s extraordinary shading and color-sense, but jumps genres into nonfiction, autobio comics. In sixteen pages, the artist crafts a highly accessible and very personal portrait of their experience coming out as…
Short & Sweet: Small Press Expo Edition!
On September 19 and 20, the 21st annual Small Press Expo was held in Bethesda, Maryland. WWAC writers Kat Overland, Rebecca Henely, and Kayleigh Hearn attended and wrote about notable new comics from the convention. Read on!
Coming of Age: Finding Direction in Lucy Knisley’s “An Age of License”
An Age of License Lucy Knisley Fantagraphics October 2014 An Age of License is a travel journal written by Lucy Knisley that details her trip around Europe in the fall of 2011.
Feminism Gets Real: An Interview with Kelly Jensen
Call it the power of social media: every day, advocates of diversity, feminism, and intersectionality find their people on networks like Twitter. Librarian and editor Kelly Jensen is just one of the people who have not only found a community on social media, but also created a way to keep those conversations going. She is…
Review: March: Book Two – A Bigger, Longer Walk
If you have recently heard Congressman John Lewis speak, than his voice will probably play in your head while reading this: confident, with the pacing of someone trained in the clergy, weathered with experience. If you haven’t heard him speak, his intonation will still ring out as you read through his speech from the 1963 March on Washington,…
Everyone Wants to Be Touched: Diary of a Teenage Girl
At 15 I thought I was a pervert. This may be why I loved Diary of a Teenage Girl so much. My sophomore year of high school I made my grandmother, a woman uncomfortable with the word “vagina” take me to the pediatrician I was still seeing to discuss my “sex addiction.” When the middle-aged doctor,…
Only the Broad Brushstrokes: A Review of “The Comic Book History of Comics”
The Comic Book History of Comics Fred Van Lente (w), Ryan Dunlavey (a) IDW Publishing June 7, 2012 Histories need narratives. As much as we prize objectivity, in presenting the story of “events that happened” the historian needs a storyline to put those events into a context and keep the reader engaged. In The Comic…
Books that Shaped Me: The Bell Jar: Circumventing the Jar, Circling the Bell
The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath Harper Perennial Modern Classic 1971 I couldn’t tell you the year I read The Bell Jar, I couldn’t tell you how old I was, nor the season. But I could tell you what I was wearing the first time I opened the pages and fell deeply in love with Sylvia…