Episodes

  • Scott Henderson, "Comics and Pop Culture: Adaptation from Panel to Frame" (U Texas Press, 2019)

    Scott Henderson, "Comics and Pop Culture: Adaptation from Panel to Frame" (U Texas Press, 2019)
    Oct 8 2024
    It is hard to discuss the current film industry without acknowledging the impact of comic book adaptations, especially considering the blockbuster success of recent superhero movies. Yet transmedial adaptations are part of an evolution that can be traced to the turn of the last century, when comic strips such as “Little Nemo in Slumberland” and “Felix the Cat” were animated for the silver screen. Along with Barry Keith Grant, Scott Henderson (Dean and Head, Trent University Durham GTA) compiled a rich group of essays that represent diverse academic fields, including technoculture, film studies, theater, feminist studies, popular culture, and queer studies. Comics and Pop Culture: Adaptation from Panel to Frame (University of Texas Press, 2019) presents more than a dozen perspectives on this rich history and the effects of such adaptations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Jamie Michaels and Doug Fedrau, "Christie Pits" (Dirty Water Comics, 2019)

    Jamie Michaels and Doug Fedrau, "Christie Pits" (Dirty Water Comics, 2019)
    Oct 7 2024
    A gritty ride through Toronto's immigrant neighbourhoods, Christie Pits (Dirty Water Comics, 2019) tells the incredible true story of when young Jewish and Italian immigrants squared off against Nazi-inspired thugs on the streets of Toronto. This is the history of a gruff and unrecognizable Canada - one of 'swastika clubs' and public bigotry.A homemade swastika flag flown at a public baseball game was the spark that found tinder in these untenable and hateful conditions. What followed was the worst race riot in Canadian history. Archival research and first-hand interviews lend historical depth to an unknown story of resistance against hatred in uncertain times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    48 mins
  • Paul Peart-Smith, "Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States: A Graphic Interpretation" (Beacon Press, 2024)

    Paul Peart-Smith, "Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States: A Graphic Interpretation" (Beacon Press, 2024)
    Sep 15 2024
    As the author of a graphic history, I loved chatting with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Paul Peart-Smith about the graphic interpretation of An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2024). An Indigenous Peoples' History of The United States originally came out in 2014 with Beacon Press. In 2019 it was adapted into a Young Peoples version by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese. In 2021 it was one of the three foundational texts for the amazing HBO docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, written and directed by Raoul Peck. The other featured books were two of my all-time favorites Sven Lindqvist’ Exterminate All the Brutes: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide and Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Paul Peart-Smith has adapted what many regard as the first history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples into a stunningly powerful graphic history. Through evocative full color artwork, renowned cartoonist Paul Peart-Smith brings this watershed book to life, centering the perspective of the peoples displaced by Europeans and their white descendants to trace Indigenous perseverance over four centuries against policies intended to obliterate them. Dr. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a New York Times best-selling author, grew up in rural Oklahoma in a tenant farming family. She has been active in the international feminist and Indigenous movements for more than four decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. Dunbar-Ortiz is the winner of the 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize, and is the author or editor of many books, including An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, a recipient of the 2015 American Book Award. She lives in San Francisco and is a professor emeritus in Ethnic Studies at California State University, East Bay. Paul Peart-Smith is a celebrated cartoonist of over 35 years, with experience in concept art, graphic design, and animation. Having studied to be an illustrator in Cambridge, England, he has worked on comics for 2000 AD, such as Slaughter Bowl . He is the illustrator and adapter of W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk: A Graphic Interpretation. He lives in Tasmania, Australia and puts out the bi-weekly newsletter InkSkull . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • Chris Richardson, "Batman and the Joker: Contested Sexuality in Popular Culture" (Routledge, 2020)

    Chris Richardson, "Batman and the Joker: Contested Sexuality in Popular Culture" (Routledge, 2020)
    Sep 3 2024
    In Batman and The Joker: Contested Sexuality in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2020), Chris Richardson presents a cultural analysis of the ways gender, identity, and sexuality are negotiated in the rivalry of Batman and The Joker. Richardson's queer reading of the text provides new understandings of Batman and The Joker and the transformations of the Gotham Universe throughout its 80-year existence. In particular, Richardson investigates how artists, writers, and fans engage with, challenge, and interpret gendered and sexual representations of this influential and popular rivalry. Fans of Batman and The Joker will find this work engaging and applicable across a range of scholarly fields and popular interests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins
  • Laura Moretti and Satō Yukiko, "Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan: The World of Kusazōshi" (Brill, 2024)

    Laura Moretti and Satō Yukiko, "Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan: The World of Kusazōshi" (Brill, 2024)
    Jul 19 2024
    Part of a formidable publishing industry, cheap yet eye-catching graphic narratives consistently charmed early modern Japanese readers for around two hundred years. These booklets were called kusazōshi (“grass books”). Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan: The World of Kusazōshi (Brill, 2024) is the first English-language publication of its kind. It enables anyone new to kusazōshi to gain comprehensive knowledge of the field. For the specialist, our edited volume marks a turning point in scholarship, uncovering fresh research avenues. While exploring the powerful effects of the visual-verbal imagination, this collection opens up bold new vistas on the act of reading and advances provocations around comics and manga. Contributors are: Jaqueline Berndt, Joseph Bills, Michael Emmerich, Adam L. Kern, Fumiko Kobayashi, Frederick Feilden, Laura Moretti, Matsubara Noriko, Satō Satoru, Satō Yukiko, Satoko Shimazaki, Takagi Gen, Tanahashi Masahiro, Ellis Tinios, Tsuda Mayumi and, Glynne Walley. Discount code 72435 for 35%. Valid till 31 Dec, 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Sultan vs Dracula

    Sultan vs Dracula
    Jul 17 2024
    An interview with renowned calligrapher and author Razwan ul-Haq talking about his graphic novel Sultan vs. Dracula (al-Oblong Books, 2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    20 mins
  • Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo, "Growing Up in the Gutter: Diaspora and Comics" (U Arizona Press, 2024)

    Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo, "Growing Up in the Gutter: Diaspora and Comics" (U Arizona Press, 2024)
    Jun 25 2024
    Growing Up in the Gutter: Diaspora and Comics (U Arizona Press, 2024) by Dr. Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo offers new understandings of contemporary graphic coming-of-age narratives by looking at the genre’s growth in stories by and for young BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and diasporic readers. Through a careful examination of the genre, Dr. Quintana-Vallejo analyses the complex identity formation of first- and subsequent-generation migrant protagonists in globalised rural and urban environments and dissects the implications that these diasporic formative processes have for a growing and popular genre. While the most traditional iteration of the bildungsroman—the coming-of-age story—follows middle-class male heroes who forge their identities in a process of complex introspection, contemporary graphic coming-of-age narratives represent formative processes that fit into, resist, or even disregard narratives of socialisation under capitalism, of citizenship, and of nationhood. Dr. Quintana-Vallejo delves into several important themes: how the coming-of-age genre can be used to study adulthood, how displacement and international or global heritage are fundamental experiences, how multi-diasporic approaches foreground lived experiences, and how queerness opens narratives of development to the study of adulthood as fundamentally diverse and nonconforming to social norms. Dr. Quintana-Vallejo shows how openness enables belonging among chosen families and, perhaps most importantly, freedom to disidentify. And, finally, how contemporary authors writing for the instruction of BIPOC children (and children otherwise affected by diaspora and displacement) use the didactic power of the coming-of-age genre, combined with the hybrid language of graphic narratives, to teach difficult topics in accessible ways. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    53 mins
  • Alan Jenkins and Gan Golan, "1/6, The Graphic Novel: What if the Attack on the U.S. Capitol had Succeeded?" (Sun Print Solutions, 2023)

    Alan Jenkins and Gan Golan, "1/6, The Graphic Novel: What if the Attack on the U.S. Capitol had Succeeded?" (Sun Print Solutions, 2023)
    May 26 2024
    What if the January 6, 2021 Insurrection had been successful? A tale of what was, what could have been, and what still could be? 1/6: The Graphic Novel (Sun Print Solutions, 2023) chillingly illustrates how close we came to authoritarian rule in America and the threats to our democracy that we still face. In the tradition of speculative fiction from George Orwell’s 1984 to Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale to the Twilight Zone, it explores themes of autocracy, scapegoating, strategic disinformation, and more, all told through a compelling, character-driven story. Drawing on real-life events, 1/6 travels the road that led from back-room meetings, white supremacist rallies, and the Four Seasons Landscaping parking lot to a violent attack on the Capitol that left several Americans dead and shook our nation to its core. It then imagines a world in which the events of that day turned out very differently. 1/6 is for lovers of graphic novels, lovers of speculative fiction, lovers of politics, and lovers of our democracy. It’s a story that demands our attention and calls on us to take action…while we still can. Issue #1 of the 4-Issue Series is available on Amazon, Issuu, and in a print edition. Kishauna Soljour is an Assistant Professor of Public Humanities at San Diego State University. Her most recent writing appears in the edited collection: From Rights to Lives: The Evolution of the Black Freedom Struggle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    56 mins