Quarantined Comics

A is for...AKIRA. For 2023 we're reading our way through the alphabet! AKIRA, the seminal Japanese cyberpunk post-apocalyptic manga series written and illustrated by Katsuhiro Otomo. This revolutionary Japanese comic ran from 1982 to 1990, serialized biweekly in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Young Magazine, with its 120 chapters collected into six tankōbon volumes. The work had an outsi...

As the year comes to a close, we reflect on more than a few new adaptations of comic book stories in the Cinematic Universes, multiplexes, and streaming services of our hearts — like the dutiful corporate citizens of the republic we are. longtime friend of the pod and frequent guest Paresh joins us for our shenanagins of hot takes and reflections of the years nerd/pop culture adaptations, includin...

Last week, we discussed how awesome FABLES is. And it's still a rip roarin' good time, but also... how does it hold up in a modern context, almost fifteen years after the first volume was published? Its debut was just a few short years after 9/11, so it has a certain political and Euro-centric sensibility that was more fashionable at the time. How does that read today?

FABLES, by Bill Willingham, is a multi-Eisner award-winning comic telling THE modern-day story of the legends of folk and fairy tales - living in our modern, mundane — or mundy — world. We're talking Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Rose Red, Prince Charming, Cinderella, Jack, Goldilocks, the 3 little Pigs, Santa Clause, Beauty & the Beast, Pinnochio, and many more. And while Fables definitel...

The cartoonist Kate Beaton is known for her incisively funny and parodic takes on everything from Aquaman to Hamlet in her series "Hark! A Vagrant!" But earlier this year, she released her memoir "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands," a harrowing account of the isolating, infuriating, and at times terrifying job that Beaton took after graduating in order to pay off the $40,000 de...

Post WWI Berlin was both a place of great creative energy and a city about to tear itself apart. In a 700 page opus 20 years in the making, the artist Jason Lutes chronicled Germany's embrace of the Nazi party through the lens of then men and women working and toiling, celebrating and politicking, throughout Berlin. It's a book both exhilarating to read and frightening, given how closely t...

Jeff Lemire's "Essex County Trilogy" is one of those rare books that's quiet, with very little happening from a narrative standpoint, but that leaves a tremendous emotional punch. At the time, Lemire was working as a line cook from 4pm to midnight, and he'd work on his comics from the morning to afternoons. "I had been struggling with my work, it was all very derivative...

This week, we read PAPER GIRLS, the multi-Eisner award winning series written by Brian K Vaughan and illustrated by Cliff Chiang, recently adapted as a streaming TV series starring Ali Wong on Amazon (and unfairly called a rip off of Stranger Things, bc as with most things, the comic came first!) Paper Girls starts way back when in 1988, in a suburb of Cleveland, where four twelve year old...you g...

Conor Stechchulte's "Ultrasound," which was made into a 2021 movie, is about memory, gaslighting, and psychological terror. It's hard for comics to convey a sense of interiority, but Stechchulte has some graphical tricks that really create the same sense of unease and discombobulaton in readers that his characters are going through. Whether that's a good thing or not. "U...

this week we're reading KRISHNA: A JOURNEY WITHIN - by Abhishek Singh. Singh is Indian graphic novelist acclaimed for his unique interpretations of myths and ancient philosophies - who first made his mark for the acclaimed series Ramayana 3392. AND he was first Indian comics artist published in mainstream American comics. Singh's 2012 comics interpretation of the Lord Krishna was a searing...

When you ask people what the Greatest TV show of all time is, folks say things like "the Wire," or "the Sopranos." When people ask what the greatest movie of all time is, folks say things like "Citizen Kane" or "the Godfather." And when it comes to comics, most will say this week' book, Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman." So for the next two weeks...

This week we are reading SUPERGIRL: WOMAN OF TOMORROW, by Tom King and Bilquis Evely. The 2021 limited series from DC's Black Label - which is basically DCs new mature / Elseworld's imprint. Most just assume that Kara Zor El is simply Superman's girly cousin - which is probably how she was created years ago. But in this cosmic adventure, she is anything but. Yes there is girl power, bu...

This week we're reading Maia Kobaba's GENDER QUEER: A MEMOIR. Created in 2014 - by Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns - created a cathartic autobiography of Eir's experience with gender identity — from crushes to fan fic, from coming out to making out. What started as a series of Instagram posts to explain to the author's family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gende...

It's hard to find optimism with the end of Roe, yet another curtailing of the civil liberties that once defined America. While the Megg, Mogg, and Owl series by Simon Hanselmann won't exactly restore any sense of optimism, it will at least make you feel less alone by plunging you into the misadventures of others who are also flailing through life. In this episode, we'll review two coll...

This week we're talking about BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT - Sean Murphy's 2017 alternate universe mini-series that flips the status quo for Batman - and asks some hard questions along the way. In the book, the Joker cures himself of his psychosis, and reverts to Jack Napier - upon which he begins a campaign to interrogate WTF the city of Gotham has been doing all these years, with law enforcement...

"The idea that a person can't relate to something because it's not directly about them is a misunderstanding of who's been reading books this whole time." Since June is Pride Month and we're cos-playing in our favorite rainbows spandex, we decided to share our Modern Minorities chat with award winning comics creator Mariko Tamaki - who's work we've covered a LOT o...

This week, we're REPLAYING our re-read MS. MARVEL - written by award winning novelist, and Muslim American G. Willow Wilson. Some would argue that MS. MARVEL was one of the most important books - and new characters Marvel comics has released in a decade. While her name might be familiar, everything else is "all new, all different" - because we're introduced to Kamala Khan, a Paki...

Holy (Bi)Robin! Tim Drake Comes Out _“Why change Robin? It was a no brainer. It happens to a lot of bisexual people, it seemed like natural character development.” Since it's Pride Month and we're taking a week off to paint ourselves in rainbows, we figured we'd feature a super easy conversation about sexual identity in mainstream comics (from Raman's OTHER podcast Modern Minoritie...

From 1998 to 2013, the French writer Matz and the illustrator Luc Jacamon told an epic story of an unassuming man who kills people for money. But as he does so, he begins to question what he's doing and why he's doing it. In this week's episode, we'll take a look at the entire saga of "The Killer." Overwhelming in scope and ambition, Matz and Jacamon aren't content wi...

while Raman & Ryan are off saving the multi-verse, here's Raman's Modern Minorities conversation with award-winning comics creator Gene Luen Yang... Gene Luen Yang’s (comic book) American dream “Being an immigrant kid - your experience and your parents’ and your grandparents’ experiences are in three completely different worlds.” _ ** Gene Luen Yang is an award-winning cartoonist, stor...

PALESTINE is Joe Sacco's seminal work of cartoon journalism - which we're reading to commemorate Al Nakba* First published in 1993, PALESTINE covers Sacco's travels thru occupied Palestine territory - and Israel - to embed himself with the Palestinian people - hearing their stories first-hand to understand how they lived their every day lives. Sacco wanted to get around the sanitized s...

Did you know Dr. Doom had a mom? He did! She made a pact with Mephisto (Marvel's version of the Devil) and now she's in hell. And Doom needs Dr. Strange's help to free her. In celebration of Mother's Day and the release of "Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," we'll check out "Triumph and Torment" by the writer Roger Stern and the illustrator -- a very...

This week for Ramadan (~kinda?) we are reading SQUIRE by Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas - a comic set in an alternate history Middle East and North Africa. Squire follows Aiza, a 14 year old girl training to become a knight for a war-torn empire while hiding her true background as a girl from conquered lands...which could be any major world civilization. Born Ornu - a second-class citizen of the...

The Drifting Classroom is part Lord of the Flies, part Lost in Space, and wholly weird and unexpected. At once funny, absurd, and horrific, Kazuo Umezu's epic will transport you to a seriously odd place, where children are crucified or turned into bugs, janitors lurk the hallways like monsters out of a slasher movie, and grieving mothers smuggle bubonic plague medicine across space and time vi...

Miyamoto Usagi is not a bunny who delivers eggs. He is a bunny who delivers justice across the wilds of Edo-era Japan. In this episode, which also features recurring guest Penn Genthner, we'll get into the poetry of Stan Sakai's writing and why, despite an insanely high body count, Usagi Yojimbo is an epic for nearly everyone. Happy Easter!