Erotica, one might hope, is intended to make people feel good. Erotica, as has been discussed at length on this site, can cause people to feel bad. All art containing bodies has the potential to push the viewer into a state of comparison. Desiring to encourage reflection upon the differences and the the reasons which span this…
Stardew Valley: The Political Hotel California of Games
Welcome to An Adventure in Small Games, a monthly series focused on games that cost less than $20, ideally less than $10. In this series, Eve Golden Woods will focus on the indie game and what it has to offer the world of gaming. There will be spoilers. This month Eve takes a look at Stardew Valley.
When Romance Comics Hated Women
When I was a teenager and first reading poetry, I inherited (basically stole) my mum’s copy of The Penguin Book of Love Poetry. It’s from the 1970s, has her name written in the front in blue pen, and the cover focuses on a detail from Bronzino’s Allegory with Venus and Cupid. Here’s a photo of…
Supermoms: Martyred, Fridged, Forgotten
Mother’s Day is a day we celebrate the woman (or women) in our lives that fulfill the role of “mother.” Mothers—the good and the bad ones—are an important part of our lives. Moms that worry about what media teaches their children, what superheroes are really super, and so much more. Mothers are important; their absence…
Iron Woman: Natasha Stark, Earth-3490, and the Case for Canon Genderswaps
One of my favorite things about the clamor of excitement surrounding any new comic-related movie is that every time a new film is released, more and more of my friends get interested in reading the comics a movie is based on. Captain America: Civil War is no exception to this, and Marvel’s first Civil War…
Burnside or Elsewhere, We Need a Bi Batgirl!
We need a bi Batgirl? I don’t mean that; it’s too specific, but that alliteration was impossible not to use. What we need is a queer heroine, and not just any sort of heroine. She needs to be different.
Carve Your Name in the Rockface: Arielle Soutar’s Art of Lettering
When I spoke to Zach Clemente about his Mountain cycle comics, he had plenty to say about his steady collaborator, Arielle Soutar. Clemente and Soutar have collaborated with a different cartoonist on each book, but she has provided the typography and logo work for all ClementeWorks scripts. And they’ve known each other since school! I wanted to…
Udon a Bad Thing: Frank Cho, Anuses, and Visual Impact
Much like many other areas of culture, monthly direct-market comic books are an industry, a scene, which is largely hostile to women even now, a place where harm is produced and reproduced, and objections are seen as shrill lies told for cheap thrills. I know it’s dull, but let’s talk about Frank Cho.
Fainted When She Saw My Body: Social Construction of Monstrousness in Saga
What is a monster? The easy answer is an “unnatural” being—your zombies, ghosts, or vampires. Stories from Frankenstein to The Walking Dead showcase the idea that humans can become monstrous through action, perhaps even more monstrous than the undead. Critics like David J. Skal and Stephen King argue that fictional monsters are metaphors, vehicles to…
Jillian Tamaki’s Sex Coven Is Back in Print: Go Buy It! [Review]
Frontier #7: Sex Coven Jillian Tamaki Youth In Decline April 2015 Late last year the Loser City crew invited me to participate in making a giant list of comics that don’t suck. I wrote several blurbs for their The 100 Best Comics of the First Half of the 2010s, including one on Jillian Tamaki’s Sex Coven….
Masamune Shirow and Brandon Graham: A Dirty, Dirty Pair
Porn comics! I wish I could say I’m a bigger fan of them than I am. Sex unbound from just about everything up to including the laws of physics and the capitalistic forces that keep real live porn mired in racism and misogyny! What a concept. I’m sure there’s plenty of material out there for…
If It Fits: Shoes, Sex, and Eroticised Withdrawal in Okazaki Mari’s “&”
Okazaki Mari’s romance comic “&” is about romance as a connection that springs from sensual experience. Its heroine, Kaoru, works in a hospital and is attempting to build her own business as a nail technician in her own time, and at the site of each job, she has a suitor.