Who needs Small, Medium, and Large when Jack Kirby gave us Peanut, Dumpling, and Big Daddy? … So I’m going to be talking about Jack Kirby at a conference for word nerds. In January, I’ll be taking a trip to New Orleans for the American Name Society’s annual conference and giving a presentation called “Baron…
Like Clockwork: The Importance of WATCHMEN, Part 1
Few comics embody perfection the way Watchmen does. Because of the significance it had on comics which would come after it, the simplicity/complexity of the nine-panel grid, and the genre up-ending plot, it is probably going to be impossible to say anything about Moore and Gibbon’s masterpiece that isn’t just in some other way repeating…
Learning to Love the Legion [Bonus]: LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES Is Back
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! Sorry for the delay; I’ve been busy the last month getting married. But now I’m back and ready to finally dive into the first official issue of the new Legion of Super-Heroes! This issue opens on a chase, as Ultra Boy, Star Boy, Wildfire, and Karate Kid run down members of the…
Anatomy of a Panel: Ho Che Anderson and GODHEAD
From his erotic I Want to Be Your Dog (1990) as well as the masterfully braided narratives that make up Pop Life (1998) and Young Hoods in Love (1995) to his extraordinarily kinetic, hard-hitting three volume biography of King (1993-2002; 2010), genre bending Scream Queen (2005), and sci-fi existentialist extravaganza, Godhead (2018), since the early 1990s, Toronto based comics…
Health and Inclusivity: Finding Commonality in Weaver, Lee, and Robles-Valdez’s THE UNCOMMONS
In an effort to do more to highlight the work of diverse creators, I recently sent out a message on Twitter about the column. One of the first people to interact with me was Tony Weaver, Jr., writer of The Uncommons through Weird Enough HQ, a publisher dedicated to enhancing representation and discussing the role…
Comíx Latinx: JALISCO, More than a Superhero Comic
Nearly three decades have passed since our communities — and finally the world — began to see the horrors in the Mexico/US borderlands: the epidemic spread of rape, mutilation, and murder of women in Ciudad Juárez and other Mexican bordertowns. In a post-1993 NAFTA super-exploitive economy, women are forced to work extreme hours for a…
KIRBYOLOGY!: Warren Ellis’s KARNAK and a Reminder to Not be the Worst
I have a superpower of sorts. I can look at anything — a crowded coffee shop, a walk in the park with my dog, a conversation with a neighbor, a ride down the elevator, or just the creaky process of getting up in the morning — and immediately predict, in great detail, how it’s going…
Health and Inclusivity: Connecting to Mythology with IS’NANA: THE WERE-SPIDER
One thing I love about writing for Comicosity is how things are able to evolve. Just like the site has gone through important and illuminating developments, so have things like this column, Health and Inclusivity. As such, moving forward, I’d like to focus more on stories by creators from marginalized communities, especially those who are…
Cómix Latinx: Bleeding Kansas, Wilfred Santiago, and THUNDERBOLT
He is one of the most compelling figures in American history. John Brown, the militant abolitionist who came to embody the violent counterinsurgency against the bloody institution of American slavery, is the subject of Wilfred Santiago’s latest masterwork. Rooted in the iconography of the Civil War, the symbolism of religious fervor, and the violence perpetrated…
Jonathan Hickman’s X-MEN, and the House that Metaphor Built
The X-Men’s new storyline House of X/Powers of X, which promised to introduce a new era of X-Men stories, has passed its midpoint. While reading this storyline, I’ve been thinking about what drew me to the X-Men years ago and what it means to be a fan of a meaningful story that’s been published by…