Happy Monday you guys — WAIT, SQUIRREL GIRL.
Merch Fail: Training to be Batman’s Wife
DC licensing team? You’re stupid and I hate you. Yes, I am calling names. So juvenile. But so are they by proxy (by neglect), and they’re doing it in crueller, quieter ways.
Katherine Tanski’s Teaching Comics Part 2: The Amazing Spider-Man
This is part two of my retrospective/nostalgia journey through my time as a graduate student teaching comics in the “early days.” Part one, my love letter to Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics can be found here.
Write About Comics? Do I Have the Survey for You!
So you write about comics in a professional or semi-professional (even quasi-maybe-sort-of-professional) capacity. So you’re interested in what other comics journalists and critics really think about the industry and its future. Well, you should definitely fill out this survey! The first of (at least) two, this survey aims to get some basic data about the…
Roundtable: Growing Up Pop Culture
Recently, Janet Mock, a writer, cultural commentator, and transwoman, opened up on her blog about claiming a feminist identity. What sparked Mock’s recent claim to and stake in feminism was Beyonce’s 16-minute performance at the 2014 MTV VMAs where Beyonce boldly proclaimed herself a feminist in giant, lit-up letters while she stood in the foreground. Prior…
Darrien Hunt: Shot Whilst Cosplaying?
A cosplayer with a trick sword is walking to a noodle place, he’s just been at the con. He’s shot in the back six times. Hey, says the cop — how was I to know it wasn’t a real sword? A kid with a trick sword is walking down the street, on the way to…
From Scouts to Superheroes: My Manga Journey
Our middle school years are ones we either look back on fondly, cringe away from, or hold with some combination of both. For me, the blurry memories of prepubescence are a mix of both, but they also marked my initiation into the world of manga.
“Oh Japan”: Let’s Talk About Criminalising Anime
ITS DEAD NASTY BUT ITS LEGAL, DO YOU GET IT??? When I’d read Chobits in the Upper Sixth common room, my friends would call it “your porno”. I was like “uuh, NO”, because I was committed to being more beatnik than thou and knowing that, scoff, obviously not all (or even most or even nearly most or…
West Coast Geeks vs. Nerds: An Origin Story
I first learned of Geeks vs. Nerds while waiting in line for a pub. In their words, they have “taken up the mantle of celebrating our local geek, gamer, and comic book nerd subcultures in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia.
Ghost in the Shell: The Major’s Body (5)
The Major, or Motoko Kusanagi, is the protagonist of each incarnation of the Ghost in the Shell manga-anime-merchadise franchise. If you care to google, Motoko Kusanagi is autocompletes to “a man” and “is hot,” then “in bed with a boy” and “in bed.” For a science-fiction philosophy character named for her military position, we (the audience — although I don’t…
(Before GamerGate Was Called GamerGate) My Ex Broke My Heart (and Also She’s a Vampire So Let’s Form a Mob)
Okay! Personal vs Institutional. The difference between hurting someone personally, and hurting them institutionally. This is an important aspect of interpersonal relations which is hard to begin to understand, but if you try…! It actually becomes fairly easy. It’s a matter of practice. Let’s start immediately.
The Tangled Relationship Between Religion and Comics (Part Two)
In part one of this tangle, I talked about four ways I conceive of the relationship between comics and religion: comics as religion, comics in religion, religion in comics, and religion and comics in dialogue. In this month’s installation, I’ll give you second two categories (religion in comics and religion and comics in dialogue)—but be…
