Among the online book community, Goodreads is a site that allows readers to review and recommend the books they read. Its simple premise is sponsored by parent company Amazon, which has obvious stakes in the book business as the internet’s go-to space for self-publishing. As a result, the site can do a lot to increase…
Books to Read Between Rewatches of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
It’s only been a few weeks since To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before premiered on Netflix, Peter Kavinsky moved the popcorn bowl, and all of our hearts were forever changed. A few weeks ago, I cared about silly things, like my friends and family, but now all I care about is whether Lara Jean…
Marguerite Bennett on Changing the Gender Landscape of Comics
Marguerite Bennett is a name many will immediately recognise. She is the writer behind DC’s Batwoman and Bombshells, Marvel’s A-Force and Angela: Queen of Hel, as well as her own series, InSeXts and Animosity. There is one general theme in Bennett’s comics, something not often seen in comics creators’ bodies of work: a plethora of…
DC PUBWATCH – September Edition
September was a big month for DC. We had Tom King and Brian Michael Bendis start their runs on the Walmart Giants books. We got announcements of a Martian Manhunter series by Steve Orlando and Riley Rossmo, and a new Freedom Fighters series by Rob Venditti and Eddy Barrows. DC launched their digital service on…
My Ideal Librarian: A Review of Bug Boys
Bug Boys: Volume 1 Laura Knetzger Czap Books 2015 Critics often ask ourselves how we can approach a review with as little bias as possible. Can you truly be unbiased about a piece that hits on themes related to your own identity? Regardless of how your views fall, I’ll warn you now: this is an…
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,…
The Wedding Issue: Starfire and Nightwing
Aside from “Who would win in a fight?” no debate gets comic fans more heated than the question of whether or not superheroes should marry. In this mini-feature, former Bride Rebecca Henely-Weiss and Bride-to-Be Kayleigh Hearn take a trip down memory lane to the most significant times comic companies took the plunge and got their…
Jenn St-Onge on Updating Classic Female Characters for New Readers
Canadian comic artist Jenn St-Onge has made a name for herself bringing beloved classic characters into the modern age. With Jem and the Holograms and The Misfits and Nancy Drew now under her belt, St-Onge is poised to take over the world. We caught up with St-Onge at the Fan Expo Canada to find out about…
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.
The Bat-Missile: A Round Robin Discourse [NSFW — sort of]
One of the perks of comics journalism is that we often get to see things early, so that we know enough to write about them accurately. That’s not really a surprise in itself, but it does lead to the occasional perk–such as when we discovered that DC Comics, through, Batman: Damned #1, the first book…
The Future is Female! An Interview with Lisa Yaszek
Lisa Yaszek, a professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech, has been studying the role of women in science fiction history for years. This month, the Library of America will publish her most recent project, The Future is Female!, an edited collection of science fiction stories by American women published from the year 1928…
You Yourself Are an Obsolete Computer: Reading Carta Monir
“Virtual intimacies were failures before the fact. If you had to get online to get it, it couldn’t be the real thing. But what is the real thing, what is real intimacy?” —Shaka McGlotten Before it spirals out into freaky chatroom horror, Carta Monir’s Secure Connect takes the familiar and comforting form of a memoir…
