Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland Hometown Honors Cartoonist with Park Dedication, Celebration Known for changing culture’s perception of graphic novels and auto-bio comics, Harvey Pekar was sometimes called “Cleveland’s poet laureate” as his works frequently revolved around the city and his day-to-day life there. Now his hometown has honored the late cartoonist, who passed away in 2010,…
When Boy’s Love Goes Bad: CLAMP’s Legal Drug
(Disclaimer: Review copies of Legal Drug and Drug & Drop vol. 1 and vol. 2 were supplied by Dark Horse. This essay also contains some light spoilers.) First, a primer! If you’re familiar with boy’s love, girl’s love, yaoi, yuri, shonen-ai, or shojo-ai just go ahead and skip this paragraph. For those of you who…
The YA Urban Fantasy the World Needs: Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older
Sierra Santiago is an artist. Her current project? Beautifying the development that was abandoned by scurrilous developers and would-be gentrifiers in Brooklyn. Sierra thinks a big, badass dragon would send a good message: don’t try to take our neighborhood from us. When her ailing grandfather and other family friends keep mysteriously encouraging her to finish…
Surface Tensions: Character vs. Creator Diversity
Diversity—it’s a heavy discussion that’s happening all across the world of comics, whether being decried as “change for change’s sake” or being touted as a fundamental aspect of storytelling by creators like Al Ewing. Even Dan Didio has acknowledged that comics haven’t been great for representation and that the audience for more diverse characters is…
The Science of Orphan Black: Fanciful, Fearsome, Educational
Sometimes, little-known cult television shows are secret, sparkly gems that blow minds. For me, that show is Orphan Black. Although I wasn’t expecting much from yet another science fiction series, I was pleasantly surprised at how it delved into a thought-provoking story of relatable characters and real emotions from genetically engineered humans in previously unexplored…
