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Crime and Punishment in Mo Dao Zu Shi
First of all, a big ol’ disclaimer: I am working from a translated text where I do not have access to the original language. That generates a gap where potentially a great deal can be lost or altered in translation; hence, I’m going to avoid as much as possible attempting to do a close reading…
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“Because We’re Heroes”: A Natasha Romanoff Manifesto
People love to tell Black Widow fans that their fave is boring. This is, of course, not unique to Black Widow – almost inevitably, name a female character in a group of (male) comics fans and you’ll get someone saying she’s boring, or useless, or in some other way unworthy. (But wait, you’ll be quick…
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Captain America, Actual Social Justice Warrior
In a note of hideous irony, I started this article immediately before the news dropped about Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 (Steve Rogers Is HYDRA!). I rather lost heart in writing this blog post at that point. However, in light of recent events and the fact that Marvel is still beating this terrible idea of…
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The Problem With Watchmen
The first time I expressed interest in comics, having read Sandman and not sure where to go next, there was a chorus of recommendations that amounted to “read Watchmen.” I read it, and found myself decidedly unimpressed and uninspired. Fearful of expressing such an opinion, however, given that this seemed to be a universally lauded work and part…
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“History Is Happening”: Creating and Recreating History in Hamilton
And now it’s time for me to write something about the musical Hamilton. In case you missed it, Hamilton is the musical sensation currently sweeping the nation – it just won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and has been nominated for 16 Tony Awards (more than there are categories). The story is centered around lesser known founding father…
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A Few Thoughts on Trigger Warnings
Trigger warnings were one of last year’s hot topics, with a piece on the issue appearing in almost every major news outlet. It remains to be seen whether they will occupy the same amount of column space this year, but I doubt the conversation is over – and I expect the debate will continue on college…
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Currently Reading: May 2016
For various reasons my reading pace has somewhat slowed since last year (alas), which means I may have to reduce my Currently Reading list from five top books to three. (For comparison, in December 2015 I read fourteen books; this month I read…okay, twelve. So maybe I just haven’t been reading as many good books…
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Living With Depression
Last fall was a hard one for me. I’d just moved across the country and felt isolated and friendless, but struggled with finding the energy to make or keep social commitments. I woke up almost every morning as tired as when I’d gone to sleep, even when I’d slept for eight hours or more. I’d…
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The Dark Phoenix Saga and Powerful Women in Comics
To distract myself from criticism of modern comics and the recent debacle with Steve Rogers, I’m going to go back to criticism of older comics! Namely the Dark Phoenix Saga and the question of what to do with Jean Grey. I picked up the Dark Phoenix Saga mostly because of the X-Plain the X-Men podcast,…
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Currently Reading: State of the Pull List
It is May 13th and I keep putting off writing my April Currently Reading post, because April was a seriously disappointing book month. So I’ve decided to shake things up a little bit and talk a little about my current comics pull list. I read a lot of comics, and people frequently ask me what’s good,…