Back in April, or March, or some time long past, Marvel announced a new series. Marvel Rising is a new “multi-platform franchise,” aimed at young girls, a long-neglected audience, especially in the wake of DC’s smash success with DC Superhero Girls. The project includes a comic series that is focused on two of Marvel’s biggest…
Of Window Washers and Walkovers: Bella at the Bar
Bella at the Bar Jenny McDade & Primrose Cumming (Writers), John Armstrong (Artist) Rebellion July 2018 In 1971, Fleetway began publishing Tammy, a weekly comic for girls. One of its long-running stars was the newly-collected Bella at the Bar. However, what new readers might not realize (and what no one mentions in the collection’s introduction)…
My First Comic: Snikt, Bub
Honestly, comics have been a part of my life for so long that the details on where and when they first came in are fuzzy. They were one of the tools my cousin used to help encourage me to read, so I’m sure that I have a different, literal first, but the first one I…
We Attract Our Mirror Image – An Exploration of the Law of Attraction in Anya’s Ghost
Ghosted Friendships soured. Familial ties broken. Lovers lost. Over and over, people would either slowly fade away or they’d ghost completely. People have walked into my life, stayed for a short while, then vanish just as quickly as they had arrived. He or she ghosted. Why? This was something I always used to ask myself…
Marvel’s Witches: A Charmless Comic That Is Criminally Vulgar
I built the foundations of an ongoing essay feature on my belief in the viability of knockoffs as a creative beginning. It’s not a conviction I’ve lost, but I never said that all knockoffs are good to have around or that they must be more interesting than not. The knockoff, like the fanfiction, is a…
Tips for Reading Comics Aloud
My home is filled with comics, graphic novels, and books about comics and graphic novels. My kid has thus been surrounded by comics her whole life, though it was only last year, when she was three, that I started reading them aloud to her. Though comics are often referred to as “kids’ stuff,” they can…
Praise Carol and Pass the Apocrypha!
The Gospel of Carol: Radical Teen Study Edition John S. Troutman Troutcave Comics The Gospel of Carol traces the life of Carol, the daughter of God, her brothers Thomas and Jesus, and her sister Miriam. She, not Jesus, is the Messiah, but people aren’t as willing to receive the Word of God from a woman…
My Boyfriend Is a Bear: The Consequences of Fat-Shaming in Comics
We tend to avoid mirrors after we see that the number on the scale has ticked upward. Even if your body hasn’t visibly changed in shape, numbers seem like an immutable fact. There is a certain pressure surrounding the scale, which breeds an obsession with everyone else’s numbers. Then come the diets, the reluctant exercise,…
Compact Magazine: A Look at Women in New Zealand’s War-Time Comics
It’s widely accepted that World War Two offered women temporary opportunities to step into male-dominated roles. In the case of New Zealand, they may have joined the newly established auxiliary forces, or taken on civilian roles made vacant when men enlisted. When I found that the war-time New Zealand Air Force magazine Contact – a…
Dangerous Curves Ahead: Backways #5
Backways #5 Justin Jordan (co-creator, writer), Eleonora Carlini (co-creator, artist), Silvia Tildei (colorist), Marshall Dillon (letterer) Aftershock comics May 2018 In the final installment of its “All the Forgotten Things” arc, Backways answers the question of whether newly-discovered whisperer (someone who can talk to the dead) Anna will rescue her girlfriend Sylvia from the grasp…
From Tender to Heartbreaking: Yuri Manga That Deals With Relatable LGBT Issues
The earliest instance of yuri as a genre was found in women’s magazines, where women would anonymously publish poetry and short fiction about Sapphic relationships. These stories, much like in the west, would often end with heartbreak or sadness in order to appease Japan’s ideals on homosexuality. The 90’s and onward saw a rapid increase…
A Rebirth Retrospective: Batgirl and the Birds of Prey
This month saw Batgirl and the Birds of Prey become the latest DC Universe Rebirth launch title to end its run. Running for 22 issues, plus a special “Rebirth” issue published as a lead-in to #1, the comic was written by Julie and Shawna Benson who were tasked with tailoring the Birds of Prey— a…
