The phrase “British comics” has, over recent decades, seen a quite drastic shift in meaning. For a long time, British comics were affordable entertainment that youngsters picked up at the newsagent with their pocket money, and which covered a variety of genres from knockabout comedy to swooning romance, sporting exploits to high-flying sci-fi. Today, however,…
[PATREON EXCLUSIVE] Transforming the Narrative: An Analysis of The Transformers: The IDW Collection – Infiltration
Our monthly Patron-exclusive essay series continues. You can read all of these incredible analyses for as little as a dollar a month on our Patreon. After my dense commentary on the Megatron Origin story, it’s easy to believe that might be the majority of what comprises the first volume of the IDW Collection, but that’s far…
One Issue, Many Bodies: Dissecting Dysphoria and Passing in New Mutants #15
Content Warnings: Transphobia, Trans-Medicalism, Dysphoria, intracommunity discourse
Star Wars: The Rise of Cade Skywalker
Disney Investor Day 2020 and earlier chatter promise that Disney will be feeding us Star Wars stories for a long time to go. For newer Star Wars fans and those who have not ventured outside the films, this might seem to be overwhelming overkill, but it’s really not new for Star Wars. As Wookieepedia can…
[PATREON EXCLUSIVE] She Who Must Be Obeyed: Wonder Woman’s Secret Origin as Victorian Villainess
Our monthly Patron-exclusive essay series continues. You can read all of these incredible analyses for as little as a dollar a month on our Patreon. Somewhere in a remote corner of the world is a land known to outsiders only in legend. It is a matriarchy, ruled for thousands of years by a queen who has…
The One Who Is: Why Delenn is Important to Me
On January 21st, I was incredibly saddened to see writer J. Michael Stracynski announce on Twitter that actress Mira Furlan had passed away at the age of 65. Furlan was known to audiences for playing Danielle Rousseau on Lost, or providing her voice and likeness to Payday 2 as the Butcher. But to me, Furlan…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Containment
Reading through Charlee Jacob’s fiction, it is easy to identify the varieties of horror that she found most fertile. For one, she showed a particular fascination with relationships between predators and prey: strong characters, often men, brutalising women and children in a process that warps and damages both victim and perpetrator. Jacob’s stories incorporate this…
Slott Shaming: Thoughts on Fantastic Four #26 from a Trans Perspective
CW: Transphobia, Use of the term “trans-trender,” biphobia, homophobia
All We Ever Look For: Orphans & Adoption in Fantastic Four
CW for mentions of child abuse What is it that sets Fantastic Four apart from other team books? Though the roster rotates slightly throughout the years as characters move in and out of each other’s lives, everybody knows the Fantastic Four will always be Susan Storm, Reed Richards, Johnny Storm & Ben Grimm. This consistency…
Crystal is the Worst Person in the Inhuman Royal Family, Change My Mind (You Can’t)
This is a story about a girl named Crystal.
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Season of the Witch
Season of the Witch was nearly the last Charlee Jacob novel to be published (only one more, Containment, was to follow), yet it was the first that she wrote. She penned it in the ’80s, after which it remained a “trunk novel” until 2016. Jacob evidently revised the manuscript to some extent prior to its…
Best of WWAC 2020
In spite of it all, WWAC contributors continued to do what we do best in 2020, and that’s write passionately about comics. So why not toot our own horn about some of our best writing — the pieces that really resonated with us and/or made us proud…