September was a big month for DC. We had Tom King and Brian Michael Bendis start their runs on the Walmart Giants books. We got announcements of a Martian Manhunter series by Steve Orlando and Riley Rossmo, and a new Freedom Fighters series by Rob Venditti and Eddy Barrows. DC launched their digital service on…
My Ideal Librarian: A Review of Bug Boys
Bug Boys: Volume 1 Laura Knetzger Czap Books 2015 Critics often ask ourselves how we can approach a review with as little bias as possible. Can you truly be unbiased about a piece that hits on themes related to your own identity? Regardless of how your views fall, I’ll warn you now: this is an…
Con Diaries: Small Press Expo 2018
As corny as it sounds, SPX feels more like a community than a convention. Held on September 15 to 16 in Bethesda, Maryland, Small Press Expo is, as the name implies, dedicated to independent and self-published comic books and zines. SPX feels like a unique con experience as soon as you enter the exhibit hall,…
The Wedding Issue: Starfire and Nightwing
Aside from “Who would win in a fight?” no debate gets comic fans more heated than the question of whether or not superheroes should marry. In this mini-feature, former Bride Rebecca Henely-Weiss and Bride-to-Be Kayleigh Hearn take a trip down memory lane to the most significant times comic companies took the plunge and got their…
Jenn St-Onge on Updating Classic Female Characters for New Readers
Canadian comic artist Jenn St-Onge has made a name for herself bringing beloved classic characters into the modern age. With Jem and the Holograms and The Misfits and Nancy Drew now under her belt, St-Onge is poised to take over the world. We caught up with St-Onge at the Fan Expo Canada to find out about…
Previously in Comics: Convention Interventions
The casual observer could be forgiven for mistaking comics fans for car accident victims given the whiplash generated by this week’s comics news. One moment up with the announcement of this year’s Ignatz winners, the next down with the unexpected postponement of another con. All in all, this week has been a frenetic one.
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…
The Future is Female! An Interview with Lisa Yaszek
Lisa Yaszek, a professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech, has been studying the role of women in science fiction history for years. This month, the Library of America will publish her most recent project, The Future is Female!, an edited collection of science fiction stories by American women published from the year 1928…
You Yourself Are an Obsolete Computer: Reading Carta Monir
“Virtual intimacies were failures before the fact. If you had to get online to get it, it couldn’t be the real thing. But what is the real thing, what is real intimacy?” —Shaka McGlotten Before it spirals out into freaky chatroom horror, Carta Monir’s Secure Connect takes the familiar and comforting form of a memoir…
Kim Reaper: Vampire Island #1 Review
Kim Reaper: Vampire Island #1 Sarah Graley (writer, artist, colorist), Crank! (letterer) Oni Press September 5, 2018 Kim Reaper: Vampire Island follows up last year’s original volume with more of Sarah Graley’s distinctive cuteness and drama. (I interviewed Graley about the first volume here.) After getting herself in trouble with her grim reaper bosses in…
Girls Touch Girls: Small Favors: The Definitive Girly Porno Collection
Small Favors: The Definitive Girly Porno Collection Colleen Coover Oni/Limerence Press April 2017 Colleen Coover’s Small Favors was a growing experience for me. When I was younger, my only sources for wlw stories were the erotica section of my local bookstore (cue a traumatizing first encounter with bondage thanks to Anne Rice’s Claiming of Sleeping…
PUBWATCH: How Now Top Cow! September
Welcome to Top Cow Pubwatch volume 2. I’ve been busy reading up on all of Top Cow’s offerings since my last Pubwatch and I can’t express enough how much I am loving the variety of stories they have to offer, from super heroes to romance and so much more. At WWAC, we’ve been busy with…