This is the second post in my series on the Sad Puppies controversy that rocked the Hugo awards in 2015. In the first, I took a look at the short stories on the campaign slate and compared them with the 2014 Hugo nominations in the same category. Now it is time to step up to the next bracket…
Old Friends: Who’s Your Favourite Comic Book Character?
What do we love? Comics! Why do we love them? For various reasons! But among those reasons, of course, lies this one: a lot of comics let us form emotional bonds with made-up people. Characters! We all have favourite characters, right? Here are some of ours.
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…
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…
Five Trick Questions: Twin Peaks or Claremont’s X-Men?
With a variety of artist collaborators, Chris Claremont wrote the X-Men for sixteen straight years, and then came back later for more. Frost & Lynch’s Twin Peaks had a much shorter run, but is currently readying itself for a return. Both are definitive examples of whatever they are—imperfect, but unputdownable—and there is more than one place in which…
Review: Heart in a Box
Heart in a Box Kelly Thompson (words), Meredith McClaren (art) Dark Horse Books September 16, 2015 Disclaimer: This review may contain spoilers and is based on an advanced review copy from Dark Horse Books. Heart in a Box is a brand new graphic novel written by Kelly Thompson (Jem & the Holograms, Captain Marvel &…
Top 10 Fantastic Female Characters of IDW’s TMNT
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) has always been a bit of a boys’ club. The franchise originated in 1984 as a comic made by men, for men (or you know, mostly for themselves, since it was essentially just Daredevil fanfic). It then became a cartoon targeted at little boys in 1987—and the trend has gone on strong…
Dogears: The Roots of Desire
The Roots of Desire: The Myth, Meaning, and Sexual Power of Red Hair Marion Roach Bloomsbury July 11, 2006 Considering the love that red headed literary figures get on our site (see here, here, and here), I was pretty stoked when I found this book. However, it certainly did not live up to its promises….
Loving Parody: Jason’s Twist on Genre Films
B-movie monsters, private detectives, vampire hunters and damsels in distress—Jason loves them all, and he loves to make fun of them all. From High Noon to The Big Sleep, he has re-written old genre stories with the twist of dark, deadpan humor that has become his signature. While it’s obvious that he genuinely loves spaghetti…