Bill Amend’s FoxTrot was one of the great successes of late-twentieth-century newspaper comics. At the end of its run as a daily feature in 2006, the strip was running in over 1000 papers, had published over 30 book collections, and Amend was a runner-up for the National Cartoonist’s Society’s title of Cartoonist of the Year1….
ESSAY: Dead at 55: Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988)
Continuing a series that celebrates the fifty-fifth anniversary of Night of the Living Dead with a look at the classic zombie film and its many follow-ups. How appropriate that The Return of the Living Dead, itself an alternative to Dawn of the Dead, would beget an alternate Zombi 2 – namely, the awkward quasi-sequel that is…
ESSAY: Dead at 55: The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Continuing a series that celebrates the fifty-fifth anniversary of Night of the Living Dead with a look at the classic zombie film and its many follow-ups. While George Romero was building his trilogy, his former collaborator John Russo was following a tangled route towards the production of his alternative sequel, the details of which are covered…
ESSAY: Dead at 55: Day of the Dead (1985)
Continuing a series that celebrates the fifty-fifth anniversary of Night of the Living Dead with a look at the classic zombie film and its many follow-ups. Nine years passed between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, after which another seven years went by until Day of the Dead was released in 1985….
ESSAY: The Evolution of Oracle and Disability Representation
Barbara Gordon is a woman of many names, faces, and identities. Batgirl, Oracle, crime fighter, hacker, able-bodied, wheelchair user, and most importantly: hero. She is one of, if not THE most famous disabled caped crusader to date. In addition to her tenure as Batgirl, she’s had a long and storied (pun intended) history in the…
ESSAY: Dead at 55: Zombi 2 (1979)
Continuing a series that celebrates the fifty-fifth anniversary of Night of the Living Dead with a look at the classic zombie film and its many follow-ups. Back in the seventies and eighties, if a genre of action or horror film left its mark, then there was one sure testament to its success: a slew of Italian…
ESSAY: Dead at 55: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Continuing a series that celebrates the fifty-fifth anniversary of Night of the Living Dead with a look at the classic zombie film and its many follow-ups. The 1978 film Dawn of the Dead is, in certain quarters, regarded as belonging to that hallowed category of sequels better than their originals. There is little point in debating…
ESSAY: Dead at 55: Return of the Living Dead (1978)
Continuing a series that celebrates the fifty-fifth anniversary of Night of the Living Dead with a look at the classic zombie film and its many follow-ups. What was the first sequel to Night of the Living Dead? Most horror fans would reply Dawn of the Dead. Yet there is another contender for this honour: Return of…
ESSAY: Dead at 55: Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Beginning a series that celebrates the fifty-fifth anniversary of Night of the Living Dead with a look at the classic zombie film and its many follow-ups. Back in 1968, the zombie apocalypse was only beginning. We can see this in just how fresh-faced and clean-cut the living dead were at the time. Today, if you…
ESSAY: Disability and the Joy of Community in My Beijing by Nie Jun
Disability has long had a presence in visual culture, but all too often it has been represented as something monstrous and non-normative. Scars and other disfigurements have been used as an easy way to signal a character’s moral depravity, how they deal with painful trauma, or how they’ve been deified into inspirational figures (as Stella…
REVIEW: Ray Nadine’s Light Carries On Is A Low Key, Punk Rock Love Story That’ll Save Your Life
Light Carries On is a haunting love story that surreptitiously defies your tired expectations to surprise you with genuine empathy, healing and joy. Light Carries On Ray Nadine Dark Horse Books May 16, 2023 Light Carries On opens with Leon, our romantic lead, simmering with dissatisfaction. He’s a guy who knows what he wants, and…
ESSAY: Big Ethel Energy is the Comfort Read That Grows With You
When I was a teenager, I first got hooked on comics due to the 2015 “New Riverdale” relaunch over at Archie Comics. Back then I wanted to be desirable and wealthy like Veronica Lodge and cool and capable like Betty Cooper. Ethel Muggs was a non-entity in these rebranded stories–a creative decision which now retroactively…
