Arrival Denis Villeneuve (dir), Bradford Young (cin), Eric Heisserer (wri) Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma (cast) Based on “Story of Your Life”by Ted Chiang September 1, 2016 (Venice Film Festival), November 11, 2016 (United States) This review contains spoilers for the film.
Politically Cartoonish: Judging February
Welcome to WWAC’s newest monthly column “Politically Cartoonish” where we’ll be analyzing the art and message of five political cartoons every month. It’s been a little over a month since the new U.S. administration came into power, so it’s no surprise that many political cartoons focused on this. Considering the harmful myth of American exceptionalism,…
Political Issues: The Self Fulfilling Misogyny of “Seminal” Comics
Content Warning: Femicide, rape, and the violence of misogyny All art is political. This seems to be a controversial statement, but to me it has always seemed objectively correct. Making art is an inherently political act; you bring your own feelings, lived experiences, and subjective beliefs to anything you create. Even the choice of what…
100 Days 100 Women: A Feminist Portrait Series
If you’ve been paying attention to Wikipedia lately, you might have noticed some new portraits of lesser-known feminist figures on the online encyclopedia. They’re all a part of the “100 Days 100 Women” series created by Rori, a St. Louis graphic designer and freelance illustrator. Although originally a personal project started with no press or…
White Helmets Cinematographer Barred from U.S.
Not even the Oscars are immune from American politics and some celebrities and other members of the film industry won’t be attending — and not all by choice: twenty-one-year-old cinematographer and White Helmets press officer Khaled Khatib has been banned from entering the United States and attending the awards ceremony as part of the White…
What is Journalism? A Review of Rolling Blackouts
Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq Sarah Glidden Drawn + Quarterly October 2016 A review copy was provided by the publisher. What is journalism? This is the primary question cartoonist Sarah Glidden pursued while traveling through Turkey, Iraq and Syria in 2010. Glidden’s friends and co-founders of The Seattle Globalist, Sarah Stuteville and…
Cover Girl: Island #15 by Dilraj Mann
This month, the Cover Girl team has convened to discuss the cover of Island #15, by Dilraj Mann, from Image Comics. It hits stores on February 8, 2017.
8 New Political Comics From PEN’s “State of Emergency”
PEN Illustrated guest editors, MariNaomi, Robert Kirby, and Meg Lemke, dropped seven new political comics today on the literary freedom organization’s blog, a new feature called State of Emergency. The comics, from cartoonists Tyler Cohen, Iasmin Omar Ata, Thi Bui, Dylan Edwards, Rachel Masilamani, Whit Taylor, Robert Kirby, and Cristy C. Road all LGBTQ+ or WoC, respond to the recent election of US President Donald Trump,…
Rogue One Aims High (Spoiler-Free Review)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Directed by Gareth Edwards Starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn Disney December 16, 2016 It’s hard for me to be critical about the new generation of Star Wars films because they fill a hole in my fangirl heart. It’s Star Wars, but…
The Worst Possible Game: Maki Naro and Matthew Francis’ “Are We Living In A Computer Simulation?”
Artist Maki Naro teams up with writer (and physicist) Matthew R. Francis for his latest comic for The Nib, which explores the the age-old question: Is reality real? Elon Musk–CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, leader of various interesting projects, and full time public futurist–recently made the case for philosopher Nick Bostrom’s simulation argument. Bostrom…
A Right to Be Hostile: The Boondocks in 2016
It’s been twenty years since Aaron McGruder’s daily comic strip, The Boondocks, first appeared on Hitline.com in 1996. It’s been ten years since it ended, after being syndicated in over 300 U.S. newspapers and transformed into a successful animated TV show. Twenty years since it started, ten years since it ended and–not much has changed….
Shoeless When the World Ends: In Seoul Station the Homeless Are Blamed First
Seoul Station Director: Yeon Sang-ho Cast: Ryu Seung-ryong, Shim Eun-kyung, Lee Joon August 18, 2016 It starts in Seoul Station, where dozens of homeless people are bunked down for the night. A man neglected and discarded by society is the first to turn but others follow quickly. These are fast zombies, chasing down their victims…