In 1991, like many, I discovered the X-Men — Marvel Comics’ merry band of mutants. People born with fantastic and imaginative powers who live in a world of humans who hate and fear them. First through the beloved animated series, and soon after via the X-Men comics I fell in love with the characters. At the time…
PATREON EXCLUSIVE: Infinite Crisis: Fifteen Years Later
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. This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of DC’s Infinite Crisis event, which itself was published to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of Crisis on Infinite Earths. That notorious series, published between…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: The Myth of Falling
Published in 2014 by Sinister Grin Press, The Myth of Falling is both Charlee Jacob’s final collection of short stories and the single most personal work in her bibliography. In most of her collections, save for Up, Out of Cities that Blow Hot and Cold with its brief introductions for each story, Jacob allowed her…
Welcome to the Church of DC’s FanDome
On August 22 and September 12 we experienced the majesty of DC FanDome, an event billed as a ‘first-of-its-kind virtual experience for DC superfans’. Sorry, no regular fans allowed! This is for the true believers. This is all about the power of the fan, or is it just a way to invoke a false sense…
Vampires on the Margins: Forbidden Desires
One reason for the enduring appeal of the vampire as a concept is its erotic element, and this is something that manifests in both heterosexual and homosexual terms. From the lesbian vampire exploitation films of the seventies to the queer undead of Anne Rice’s bestsellers, modern audiences have come to expect vampires to exist outside…
The Twisted Ones: T. Kingfisher, Arthur Machen, and Weird Perspectives
Melissa (Mouse to her friends) is tasked with clearing out the North Carolina cottage that once belonged to her grandmother, a woman known for her cruelty to all those around her – including her husband Cotgrave, Mouse’s “step-grandfather”. Once Mouse temporarily moves into the woodland cottage, her main companions are her dog Bongo and her…
[PATREON EXCLUSIVE] Magik and Shadows: How Kate Pryde and Ilyana Rasputin Made Me a Better, Gayer, Comics Fan
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. Hi. My name is Zoe Tunnell, and I was an awful comics fan. To be clear, I don’t mean I liked awful comics. (I still do! They’re trash, but they’re my…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Still
Still, published in 2007, is perhaps Charlee Jacob’s most accessible novel. This is not to say that it is more conventional than her other books: the dreamlike surrealism, loose narrative structure and graphic portrayals of depravity that characterise much of her oeuvre are all present and correct. Rather, Still is comparatively accessible because of its…
Vampires on the Margins: Women’s Perspectives
Modern vampire fiction has been shaped in large part by female authors: Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris, Nancy Collins, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephenie Meyer and others each played a part in establishing vampire literature as the thriving commercial genre that it is today. In terms of both authorship and readership, it is safe to say that…
Vampires on the Margins: The Black Vampyre
The development of vampire fiction throughout the nineteenth century is often boiled down to four key authors. Dr. John Polidori established the genre in 1819 with his short story “The Vampyre”. James Malcolm Rymer demonstrated that vampires could find popular success through longer-form storytelling with his penny dreadful saga Varney the Vampire, completed in 1847….
[PATREON EXCLUSIVE] Fumetti Nightmares: Belzeba, Italy’s Intersex Imp
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. The erotic-horror fumetti published in Italy through the seventies and eighties may seem arcane to outsiders. The plots of these comics are built around sex, violence and combinations of the two,…