Writer of the Patricia Highsmash column. Former editor of Along the Chaparral, Future Earth Magazine & Platte Valley Review. Author of Us Living in Fictional Cosmogonies & There is Nothing Left to Say (On The Invisibles). Guest Presenter at Naropa University, University of California Riverside, and Harbin Institute. Former faculty, Shandong University. Director of short films, including low fruit.
With the help of artist, Anzu, let’s examine an X-Men comic aimed at teenaged girls, Misfits, tackled expectations of violence, gender roles, romance, and being the new student at Xavier’s school for mutants who might one day be superheroes.
DetailsThe Rise and Fall of Empires, a short comic by Rian Hughes and Grant Morrison recently published in Heavy Metal, is an exercise in trusting the audience. No definitive characters, figure work, plot or causality. Letting the audience work as they will. As they can.
DetailsYu Watase’s Fushigi Yugi is a fantasy adventure romance in which everyone is smiling through their pain to make life easier for all of us.
DetailsAn interview with writer, artist, and comics genius, Jennie Gyllblad.
DetailsWritten by Warren Ellis, drawn by Martin Chaplin, Sugarvirus is an early 1990s comic about addict behavior, survival drives, and the scariness of being alive.
DetailsRiyoko Okeda’s Claudine is evergreen in the way few trans comics remain after decades. Its author’s genuineness and that its primary goal is not to laud, to warm, to laugh, or to amuse, but to make you angry.
DetailsWhen you are deep enough in comics, there are things that rankle you, that sit wrong, but you learn – not to give them a pass, but – to tolerate them as they go by.
DetailsWarren Ellis’ and Jason Howard’s Scatterlands does not culminate, it has no denouement, no arc and settlement. Scatterlands both goes and it goes entirely within the scope of its panel, each time.
DetailsCongresswoman Ocasio-Cortez quoted correctly, using it as smack talk in the appropriate context, properly citing the author, and laying down a challenge. What nobody needs, is armchair geek-cred checkers trying to verify her bonafides. Or, turning Rorschach into a hero.
DetailsFor more than forty years, Brian Braddock has been saving the day, fighting evil, and being a decent guy in the Marvel Universe. Captain Britain has been drawn by some of the greats, like Herb Trimpe, Carlos Pacheco, and Alan Davis. Here are ten pages from ten different comics, giving a ten-sided perspective on the man, the myth, the superhero.
DetailsThe Defenders is the Clifford, the Big Red Dog of superhero comics. Every outing is an exercise in how do we make this work? Too powerful for most threats. Too territorial for one comic. Too touchy to team up. So, how did Al Ewing and the gang pull it off?
DetailsThe best horror host, in any form, anywhere, any time, is British phantasm, Misty. In her self-titled anthology comic, she lures us in, and though the comic has not run in decades (though it has been resurrected as a shared irregular comic, along with Scream), those Misty issues retain both allure and power.
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