In this guest post, Monica Gerrafo examines the designing of Mary Jane Watson’s dress for her 1987 wedding to Spider-Man and the implications of both is live-action and on-the-page presence.
Dr. Vincent Haddad examines both an issue of the brilliant new The Other History of the DC Universe series and O’Neil and Cowyn’s classic 1980s run on The Question, considering both the limits and promise of revision.
Film / Guest Post / Music
In a guest essay, Ty Matejowsky examines the once ubiquitous and now mostly forgotten movie tie-in music video format through the example of one for a movie that never existed.
Part one in an exploration of how the trajectory of Tyroc’s character provides a blueprint for thinking about the arc of other black superheroes.
Young Avengers provides a fun and thoughtful exploration of the contradictions inherent to the transformation from adolescence to adulthood.
In this essay, guest writer, Tiffany Babb uses the changeable figure of Loki in 2011’s Journey into Mystery to consider the liminality of identity and how it is shaped by expectations
Drs. Brian Cremins and Brannon Costello sit down to discuss their recent edited comics studies collection, The Other 80s: Reframing Comics’ Crucial Decade
Nicholas Miller returns with an essay on whiteness, country music nostalgia, and charting a new course to re-imagine the past and the future.
Dr. Anna Peppard re-examines a favorite scene from Excalibur #4 a decade after first reading it to consider how its meanings may have changed for her.
Guest writer, Vincent Haddad examines three different comics exploring conspiracies to consider how they represent the hybridity of truth and fiction.
The first in our new “Critical Nostalgia” series, revisiting single issue faves from younger days, considers Richie Rich’s desire for his own future ghost self.
Considering how 1990’s The Flash on CBS was a pivotal development to the television superhero genre through fashion.
Cleaning up loose ends from the last year and making some announcements about the next.
Discussing the intersection of collecting and desire, superhero sex, and avoiding spoiler aversion with Dr. Anna Peppard.
Looking beyond representation in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and towards the contexts that inform it to consider the narrative structures used to build queer storyworlds.
Part Two of using DC’s Tyroc to consider the arc of the Black superhero.
In the final (for now) installment of the Howard the Duck reading series, we examine the duck’s shift from social satire to Marvel Comics parody.
Exploring how NYC grafitti and Gilbert Hernandez seek to DESTROY ALL LINES.
The third and final part of our round table on comics paratexts, looking at digital comics and representations of the digital in comics.
Part two of our round table on comics paratexts looks at ads, peritexts, and disruptive backmatter.
Part One in our three part roundtable on comics paratexts focuses on letter columns.
Steve Gerber’s final work on the first volume of Howard the Duck (for real this time!) feels like a losing gamble.
Guest writer Anna Peppard’s meditation on presence and absence of the Vision’s penis – and if it even matters.
BOOM! Studio’s Abbott and its illumination of whitestream culture in academia and journalism.
Batman: White Knight demonstrates the limitation of the white imaginary regarding a post-police society by simply not being be able to envision one.
In the 12th installment of our series of talks with comics scholars and teachers, we talk with Dr. Rebecca Wanzo, about her new book, the difference between caricature and stereotype, and not remembering a beginning of a political consciousness.
The Middle Spaces 