Sociology

Over the weekend, Drawn & Quarterly got some much deserved attention in the New York Times for their 25th Anniversary and the astonishing accompanying book. First in a round-up of creators and books, and...

After attending an afternoon showing of Mad Max Fury Road, I stood outside the theater in a daze. I was almost literally speechless, and my PTSD continued as I hopped in a cab to go to a dinner engagement. Fury Road's insane, relentless, vivid and non-stop car chase was so senses shattering that it felt weird to actually BE in a car in the real world. I kept expecting the taxi to rear end a war rig or see an Interceptor career towards us at a 45 degree angle or have a Polecat suddenly dip towards our cab, lobbing a grenade. The real world suddenly seemed like a distant echo of the thunderous one that had seared itself on my eyeballs for the last 120 minutes. My visceral reaction was so different from how I felt after any number of recent CGI extravaganzas. I'd forgotten about Age of Ultron by the time I crossed the street. I left Guardians of the Galaxy humming "Ain't no Mountain High Enough" and loving raccoons, but the plot quickly receded into the rearview mirror. Perhaps this is because of my own subconscious processing of real images as opposed to animated ones — the practical effects of Fury Road are so much more memorable and powerful—and expensive.

I kind of missed the tidal ebb and flow over Jill Lepore's analysis of A-Force in the New Yorker while I was at TCAF. I saw it in my feed and figured it would ignite some debate but I was misled by the title on the piece

The Onion reports that with the rapid melting of the Arctic ice cap and permafrost, many secret lairs once hidden have been exposed. "Last week a giant ice sheet broke off and split my prized...

There's no question but that in American culture the predominant view is one that is rich, white, male, straight and Christian. And while "The male gaze" is pretty well known, we're getting to learn about the "white gaze" as well. Have you ever wondered what it looks like? Now we know. Except it’s from peace loving New Zealand AND America.

Every time you respond to a troll, his dick grows. It's true.

About six months ago, I took a victory lap. And I'm gonna take another one. Because I was right, all along. Last's week's twin announcements of the revamped DC line-up and Marvel's all-woman A-Force showed that even the big two have embraced the idea of a diverse readership as a sound business model. It was only four years ago, when the New 52 launched, that there was an outcry about only 1% of the creators being female, and DC co-publisher Dan DiDio got put on the spot and reacted with a less than conciliatory tone.

Yesterday's announcement of Milestone 2.0 was broken in the Washington Post, but principles Reggie Hudlin and Denys Cowan did more extensive interviews talking about what they have planned in a few places. Talking with Albert Ching at CBR they noted "We're Not in the Nostalgia Business", which is a pretty good platform to build from. While the details are still sketchy, they confirmed that they have some projects in the works with DC, among other publishers, although there was a long legal tangle to unravel.

The comics news website Broken Frontier has announced the winners of its annual awards, as chosen by readers and industry professionals. Image Comics was a winner, as you might expect, but female creators won in 5 of the 13 categories, suggesting that the arrival of talented and noteworthy women in comics is a thing that is here and now and not some hoped for future event. The winners are as follows:

On Friday New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio met with protestors to discuss their demands for police reform after the shocking death of Eric Garner and the controversial grand jury decision that followed. The...

Yeah yeah, Walt Disney was a genius and a trailblazer and a visionary...but he was also a racist and a horrible sexist. The letter informing a woman applying for a job at the studio informing her that "Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men. For this reason girls are not considered for the training school." has been floating around for years, but recently a newspaper story by Disney biographer Bob Thomas laying out his ideas of women's capabilities has been unearthed and it's even worse.

A graphic novel has become Exhibit A in the latest Obamacare controversy. Clear, simple, understandable, useful - those are just a few of the words that recurred in reviews of Health Care Reform: What It...