I can’t remember exactly where I read the announcement. But what I do remember is the excitement and happiness I felt as I rapidly posted about the introduction of Kamala Khan on Facebook. As I trawled through articles about the new Ms. Marvel and interviews with co-creators G. Willow Wilson and Sana Amanat, any fears…
Letting Yourself Harass Zamii For Love of Steven Universe: Life Lessons From Going Too Far
Content warning: we’re going to talk about harassment and self-harm. Do you get a shiver down your spine and a catch in your heartbeat when you tell somebody they’ve done something hurtful? That’s really entirely okay. Physical responses to internal stress and the feedback of bravery aren’t rotten. It’s alright to enjoy the roller coaster…
Why I Game: Traits to Aspire To
For a long time, I didn’t play many games. I didn’t grow up with enough expendable income to afford a large game library, and spent much of my childhood playing and replaying the few NES and Super Nintendo games I had—Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Country, and movie tie-ins of Toy Story and The Lion…
Understanding the Da Vinci Code: Why Quest Thrillers Work
The first six or so pages of my paperback copy of The Da Vinci Code are taken up with a collection of praise and excerpts from favourable reviews, from publications of all types. People loved this book. And you know what? They were right. The Da Vinci Code is what they call an airport novel….
Don’t Destroy the Brain: Corpse Talk Lets History Be Gross
Running in British weekly comics magazine The Phoenix, now seeing its second collected volume released by David Fickling Books, the conceit of Corpse Talk is that the reader is viewing a talk show. The host—the cartoonist—is visited by the dead bodies of big movers of the past, now deceased, and together they discuss important moments…
5 Things From the Manga Prison School That Made It into the Anime
When I first heard that Prison School was getting an anime adaptation, my reaction was one of skepticism. It’s a raunchy sex comedy, after all. One of the regular characters is a buxom young woman who wears stiletto boots and a school uniform that leaves little to the imagination. Subway advertisements promoting the anime placed…
Stop Telling Women How to Feel
This is not a piece of hard-hitting journalism. I didn’t bury myself under a mountain of research before sitting in front of my computer to write, and that is on purpose. I’m here to talk feelings, because I am sick of women being policed for expressing their real and legitimate emotions.
Guilty Gear’s Guilt-Free Wicked Woman: I-No
Guilty Gear is a fighting game series that began in 1998. Guilty Gear: Xrd SIGN came out in 2014; with a pachinko game and a free-roaming melee-action title also in the bag, the franchise is going strong. In the two-dimensional, Street Fighter mould, the main games star two serious men with a rivalry—one blonde, one…
Hover Boards Don’t Work on Water
Predicted in 1985. Created in 2015. #LexusHover. https://t.co/ZCAGKVkA6L pic.twitter.com/pYLQU31R4w — Lexus (@Lexus) October 21, 2015 I clicked the link feeling silly and remembering the feeling just after I told my parents, confusedly, about the amazing way that rabbits could now be grown from pellets. Live and Kicking, a Saturday morning magazine show for young people back in…
Get On With Ron: Ronald Wimberly, Cartoonist in Profile
You may have heard of Ronald Wimberly. Perhaps you discovered him through The Nib when they published “Lighten Up,” in which he discusses being told by an X-Men editor to lighten a character’s skin, and then elaborates on the complexity of skin tone, race, ethnicity, and mainstream comics’ narrow view on the subject. Maybe you’re a…
Always the Side Character Never the Main: Invader Zim’s Gaz
If you grew up in 1990s America, likely you’re familiar with Jhonen Vasquez’s work. His comic series Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is fundamentally part of end-of-20th century United States culture, with its darkness, extreme violence, and bizarre humorous interjections. Greatly popular, his humor seeped into mainstream zeitgeist, joining many of the “totally x-treme” pieces of…
Manga, Meet Comics. Comics, Meet Manga.
Last week, Claire and I discussed the divide between comics and manga, the basic thrust of which is: manga are comics; comics are manga. But you know, sometimes words fail us all. Let’s dive into this debate using—what else?—a comic!
