The Unsound #1 Cullen Bunn (Writer), Jack T. Cole (Artist) BOOM! Studios June 7, 2017 In the maiden voyage of writer Cullen Bunn and illustrator Jack T. Cole’s The Unsound, a young nurse named Ashli weathers her first day at Saint Cascia, a baroque insane asylum tucked away in an obscure corner of what I assume…
Review: La Borinqueña Short Story for CTRL+ALT Pop-Up Exhibition
La Borinqueña Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez (Writer), Matthew Barbot (Editor), Sabrina Cintron (Penciler), Eric Jimnez (Inks), Juan Fernandez (Colorist), William Rosado and Gustavo Vazquez (Breakdowns), Emilo Lopez (Cover Artist), Sabrina Cintron (Pin-up Artist) Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center November 12, 2016 Previously I spoke with Miranda-Rodriguez about his upcoming comic La Borinqueña set for release December 22nd of…
The Racial Medical Commentary in Alvin Hollingsworth’s DDT
Alvin Hollingsworth (1928-2000) was a comic strip illustrator and painter who grew up in New York City. His focus was primarily on contemporary social issues such as the Civil Rights Movement, women’s issues, and various other controversial themes at the time [We’ve a full profile on Hollingsworth coming — Ed.]. One of his most famous…
Milestone Media’s Jason Jones Scott Shares a Story of Racial Profiling
It’s February: Black History Month, Martin Luther King Day, #BlackComicsMonth, and Dwayne McDuffie’s birthday all rolled into one month. An entire month meant to be a showcase of black pride in the US, celebrating and uplifting the voices, and creations of black people, highlighting the history that is whitewashed away in an attempt to minimize it. In…
Kurama: The Foxy Demon of My Dreams
There are movies, television shows, cartoons, and characters that appealed to you greatly as a child that lose their shine as an adult. Nostalgia can do a lot for making up for poor quality content, but it can’t make Cat and Dog as appealing to me as it was when I was eight. Yet there…
Some Folks Think Midnighter Should Be Biphobic, Yes Really
There’s been a lot of talk about bisexual characters in comic books, namely the erasure of various bisexual characters, and overall lack of bisexual representation in mainstream comic books. Another conversation on bisexual representation cropped up today on Gail Simone’s (Secret Six, Birds of Prey) twitter feed this morning. Namely that Midnighter, the popular gay…
Bloody and Beautiful: Review of Tredici: Hannibal Season Three Art Book
Tredici: Hannibal Season Three Art Book Pangaea (artist) Orenda Studio Hannibal (c) Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and Delaurentis Co. (Disclaimer: This book was provided as a review copy in exchange for an honest review)
InuYasha’s Kagome Higurashi Deserved a Better Feudal Fairy Tale
Recently Netflix has added InuYasha, a popular anime that aired in the early 2000’s, to their anime roster. For many people–especially if you were a ’90s kid–InuYasha was a part of your anime experience growing up. It was hugely popular, and still is today. Rumiko Takahashi’s influence on the anime industry is well documented and respected…
Manga to Movies: Why Eastern Comic Film Adaptations Thrive and Western Don’t
Marvel and DC have always been large moving forces for comics, and their recent forays into expanding movie universes has helped put comics in the popular culture limelight in a huge way. While Hollywood filmmakers have been “loosely basing” movies from comics on the sly for years, the open appreciation of comics and comic film…
Books That Shaped Me: A Wrinkle in Time
Funny thing, it was the Babysitters Club that got me reading A Wrinkle in Time. I was a voracious reader, and when my mom bought a milk crate full of old Babysitters Club books for me at a garage sale, I dove right in. One of the Babysitter Club books featured Claudia Kishi picking out…
Noragami, a Tale of a Stray God and a Cat-Tailed Girl
Noragami: Stray God volumes 1-4 Adachitoka (mangaka); Alethea Nibley & Athena Nibley (translation); Lys Blakeslee (lettering) Kodansha, September 2014-April 2015 Note: this essay contains mild spoilers; review copies provided by Kodansha. You’ve got a sassy small god who wants to be a big god. You’ve got a girl who sometimes has a catlike tail. You’ve…
They Make Us Like Them: On Identity and Gentrification [SPOILERS]
I am a foreigner and an ethnic minority. I spent my entire childhood in the predominantly Asian-ethnic environment of Hawaii. My adulthood has played out so far in predominantly white regions and, within that, extremely white-dominated academic and professional fields; that’s what happens when you get into the humanities. Living among the white people of…