Charlee Jacob’s vampire novel Vestal was published in 2005, the same year that Stephenie Meyer gave vampires a newfound popularity with Twilight. Jacob had tackled vampires before, of course: her debut novel This Symbiotic Fascination was in part a vampire tale, and she also wrote enough vampire short stories to fill an entire anthology, The…
[Patreon Exclusive] The Marvel Girl Next Door by Kayleigh Hearn
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. There are remarkable green dresses that linger in our pop culture memory. Scarlett O’Hara draped in mountains of velvet. Jennifer Lopez wearing Versace, her neckline plunging perilously low. Kiera Knightly in…
Community Spaces, Alternative Marketplaces: Indie Comics and Culture
Over the last decade, the growth of independent, “indie,” or creator-owned comics has broadened the comic book landscape and birthed a new wave of creators who aren’t adhering to conventional standards. The demand for non-superhero material from publishers outside of the Big Two (Marvel and DC) has empowered creators to carve out their own space…
Comics Culture: Visiting a Comic Book Store in Russia
Back in the Before Times when people could still go outside and interact with each other in close proximity, I went to Russia to visit my relatives, whom I haven’t seen in several years. From December 2018 to early January 2019, I stayed at my aunt and cousin’s apartment in the southwest end of Moscow,…
[Patreon Exclusive] Happily Ever After? A Fables Retrospective
In 2002, a comic that I would come to love deeply started coming out. It was a story of fairy-tale characters trying to live in the ‘real world’, and built on how deeply flawed all of these characters tended to be. I was still years away from moving past superhero comics, I had yet to…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Cities and Guises
Charlee Jacob’s novella “Up, Out of Cities that Blow Hot and Cold” – which debuted in the 2000 collection of the same name before being reissued as a standalone book – is a story that takes the concept of urban decay literally. All around the world, cities are being hit by disasters: the Eiffel Tower…
DC Comics Just Made a Statement that Could Significantly Change the Comics Industry
Since the coronavirus crisis began, the comics industry has been in a scary place. With publishers doing their best to keep operations running smoothly using remote and telecommuting processes, the often reclusive work of comic book creators seems like it should be one of the few safe and stable jobs to have during this time….
Patreon Exclusive: Subterranean Mutant Semiotics: Morlocks, X-Factor, and the Privilege of Passing
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. Content Warning: This essay includes discussions of transphobia, anti-trans violence, trans-medicalism and passing.
Depictions of Fascism and Missteps of the Metaphor in X-Men: Red
This essay includes discussions of fascism, the alt-right, Charlottesville, the death of Heather Heyer, The Third Reich, Nazi ideology, and xenophobia.
My Sex-Positive, Feminist Graphic Novel, Tracy Queen, is Being Shadow Banned
You may have heard whispers about shadow banning—that thing social media platform do where they block or partly block users and/or their content in a sneaky way so that, as Wikipedia puts it, “it will not be readily apparent to the user that they have been banned.” The practice seems to have started as a…
The Magik of New Mutants’ Illyana Rasputin
When an image of a horned demonic girl in armor crossed my Twitter timeline in 2018, I felt drawn to her. Illyana Rasputin looks like an untamed demon and a battle hardened human. In the recent trailer for the New Mutants film, I feel like we see a glimpse of both demon and human in…
Pretty Deadly, Pretty Cautious
I have loved Pretty Deadly since I first heard about it. The title, the creators, and the ideas fit everything I wanted from a new creator-owned series in 2014. And it has delivered. The Shrike, The Bear, and The Rat are awesome tales, combining the best parts of comics as a storytelling media. A wonderful…
