Comics Chronicles
Wonder Woman’s Secrets in Context
Jill Lepore’s The Secret History of Wonder Woman is a major event in comics scholarship. But no scholarly work stands alone; all are always part of a wider conversation. Continue reading
The Plugged-Up Parodist: Nick Maandag’s Constipated Comedy
Visually, there are very few gifted cartoonists who are as remorselessly ungiving as Nick Maandag. There is no succulent texture in his universe, no oasis of exfoliating leafy beauty to offer relief from the aridity of the art. Continue reading
Harold Gray and the Limits of Conservative Anti-Racism
Race, Harold Gray and Little Orphan Annie. Continue reading
Kim Thompson as Critic
There were many Kim Thompsons: translator, anthologist, editor, publisher. The first Kim Thompson I encountered was Kim the critic, who tended to get lost in the busy shuffle. Continue reading
Fact and Fancy in Seth’s G.N.B. Double C
Everybody misunderstands Seth. Popular mythology has pegged the cartoonist as a nostalgist hankering over the lost past. In fact, Seth is a fantastist obsessed not with the world-that-was but rather the world-as-it-might-have-been. Continue reading
Crumb in the Beginning
In 1987, the proposal to bring all of Crumb back into print in a uniform set of books was a radical publishing act which re-contextualized and re-vitalized an already momentous body of work. Continue reading
Iowa Comics Conference Notebook
A visit to Iowa with a crowd of cartoonists, publishers and academics. Continue reading
