Several things happened in comics last week, but I’m going to forego listing off the news as we normally do in this column, and instead take the opportunity to use our platform here at WWAC to address a very serious issue that continues to plague the comic book industry. In case you missed the most recent case of an industry “professional” attacking a critic for critiquing their work,…
Hire This Hero: Why Loki Could Take Over for John Constantine
Life is weird, right? Sometimes you’re just going about your business, trying to imbibe enough caffeine to drag through the last endless hour of a Friday afternoon at the widget company when out of nowhere, a demon wielding dark magic comes crashing through the cubicle occupied by Donna in accounting. This beast from Hell eats…
She-Hulk: The Hero We Need in 2019
With the Women’s Marches, the #MeToo movement, and the important conversations we’ve been seeing recently about sexual assault and consent.Women have certainly made their voices heard. And in the current political climate, not only is anger—and even rage—from women understandable, it can serve as a catalyst for real change when funneled into productive action.
Presenting the Nominees for the 2019 WWAC Awesome Awards
While everyone is putting together their best of list for 2018, we want to do something a little different with the return of our Awesome Awards. There are many, many comics we loved this year, and you’ll get to read about those, but the comic industry isn’t just about the comics we read. There have…
Analyzing The Nib’s “Vote or Else!”
Last week, The Nib ran a comic entitled Vote or Else!, which is the work of Filipino-American cartoonist and illustrator, Niccolo Pizarro. The comic, presented initially without context, paints voter registration efforts and their proponents as insensitive to the plights of marginalized peoples and ultimately as centrists who value civility over disruption. While it’s likely…
The Problem With Generation X Was Editorial
On the 12th October, a Friday, writer Chuck Wendig announced via several threaded tweets that he had been fired from the Darth Vader miniseries he had been working on thanks to editorial displeasure with his personal linguistic conduct. The editor in question was Mark Paniccia.
So, Why Don’t We Have a Robin Movie?: Teen Sidekicks and the Relegation to Relation
Underneath the butt jokes and ‘80s flashbacks (and more butt jokes), Teen Titans Go! To the Movies poses a valid and complex question: Why don’t we have a Robin movie? Robin (the Dick Grayson iteration) was introduced before Wonder Woman, Captain America, and a host of other superheroes who have been given their own films….
The Bat-Missile: A Round Robin Discourse [NSFW — sort of]
One of the perks of comics journalism is that we often get to see things early, so that we know enough to write about them accurately. That’s not really a surprise in itself, but it does lead to the occasional perk–such as when we discovered that DC Comics, through, Batman: Damned #1, the first book…
Dump DC, Move Past Marvel… Viva Valiant? Yes! A Primer
Howdy, pals, it’s your trusty ex-Ed Claire here. What have I been doing since I left the hallowed halls of authority? Well, I’ve watched a LOT of Criminal Minds. And guess what? I also went bonkers for Valiant. Yeah! Valiant! Let’s talk about that, as my powerful heiress Nola Pfau, your WWAC managing editor, has…
Queer Folks Write About Comics
At FlameCon this year, the Women Write About Comics cadre was well represented on the panel, “Queer Folks Write About Comics.” Scheduled in the final panel slot of the convention, QFWAC was like the dessert of the con. The panelists presented thoughtful and diverse commentary on the state of comics journalism as a practice and as…
About Those J. Scott Campbell X-Men Black Covers – Social Media Discourse in the “Blue Age” of Comics
A week ago, I was presenting original research at the first annual Comics Studies Society Conference. My paper, “The Blue Age of Comic Books,” was about the digitization of comic books and comic book culture (you can read an early version here). [Update: you can read the full, peer-reviewed “The Blue Age of Comic Books”…
Great Power Verbs Great Responsibility
It is common knowledge that Spider-Man’s heroism is driven by the realization that “with great power comes great responsibility,” but that tagline hasn’t always existed in that form. In the first appearance of Spider-Man in 1962’s Amazing Fantasy #15, the final panel of the story introducing the new superhero is overrun with words. It says,…