Author: Jessica Baldanzi

Photo by Jill Steinmetz I’ve been a comics fangirl since I was a kid—Betty and Veronica to my big brother’s Spider-Man comics—and Chris Ware and Lynda Barry helped complicate my understanding of the genre when I lived in Chicago and their comics were serialized in New City and The Chicago Reader. I first brought comics into my professional life when I created and taught a course called The Graphic Novel in 2008. I’ve taught that class many times since then, have also given talks about comics to general audiences and scholars alike. Commons Comics began in 2013 as a way for me to learn how to blog and to stay current in the field. It was hosted first by my college, then picked up by The Elkhart Truth, a local newspaper, before I moved it to my own page. I teach English at Goshen College, a small but mighty liberal arts school in the “Michiana” area, east of Chicago on the border of Michigan and Indiana. My specialty in graduate school was twentieth-century and more recent American Literature, but my teaching has brought me into multiple fields. My upper-level courses have ranged from critical theory and gender and popular culture to memoir writing, and my introductory courses from to composition and speech to creative writing. I am now co-editing an essay collection with comics and religion scholar Hussein Rashid about Kamala Khan, the new Ms. Marvel. Look for it on the University Press of Mississippi in the coming year. (Working title: Ms. Marvel in America.)
Posted on

“The Glorkian Warrior Eats Adventure Pie,” by James Kochalka, Master of Silly

Here’s another review from the archives, for those who might need a laugh amidst all this snow and ice. This review was originally published in the “Elkhart Truth” in the summer of 2015, and the final installment, “Glorkian Warrior and the Mustache of Destiny,” was released in 2016. If you and your kids—or just you—like this book, check out some of Kochalka’s Johnny Boo series, too, with “Johnny Boo and the Ice Cream Computer” coming out this summer, and “Johnny Boo Is King” next year, both on Top Shelf Books. His new series “Mechaboys” is coming out this summer as well, so let me know how that is if you get to it before my boys and I do.

Continue reading ““The Glorkian Warrior Eats Adventure Pie,” by James Kochalka, Master of Silly”

Posted on

“Kid Code” and “Malice in Ovenland”: Rosarium Publishing Mixes and Remixes It Up

Here’s another post from the “Elkhart Truth” archives, originally published February 2015. The fourth and concluding issue of “Malice in Ovenland” has since been released, in August 2016. “Kid Code” is still on issue one, but Damian Duffy and John Jennings have been busy with other projects, most notably a graphic novel version of Octavia Butler’s classic science-fiction novel “Kindred.”

Even more exciting, especially for my Goshen readers, keep an eye out for a visit from Rosarium Comics’s Bill Campbell on March 13, 2018. Campbell will be visiting Goshen College as part of the English Department’s S.A. Yoder lecture series.

Disclosure statement: Rosarium provided me with free access to their comics titles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being raised in an all-white community in the United States during the 1970s and ‘80s, I often felt like I was imprisoned in the “Land of Can’t,” says Bill Campbell, founder of Rosarium Publishing, in his testimonial for the Comics Empower Project. He cites his mother as one influence who helped him dismiss negative messages about being black. The other was comic books, which gave him “the chance to explore a world, ever so briefly, where fantastical things such as flying were possible, a world where the Land of Can’t could never be found on the map.” Continue reading ““Kid Code” and “Malice in Ovenland”: Rosarium Publishing Mixes and Remixes It Up”

Posted on

“The Juggler of Our Lady,” by R. O. Blechman

Another lost post from the Elkhart Truth archives: this is one of my favorites. Check out the video links at the bottom if you don’t have time to read the whole thing. Enjoy your holidays, all, and stay tuned for more reviews in 2018!

Thanks to Better World Books, 215 S. Main St. in Goshen, for providing me with books to review. You can find all of the books I review at the store.

When veteran animator and illustrator R.O. Blechman graduated from high school, his art teacher refused to write him a recommendation.  As Blechman told Jeet Heer in a 2011 interview in “The Comics Journal,” “She basically said ‘Look, I can’t say anything good about you, and I won’t say anything bad about you so I won’t say anything.’”

Blechman and his now-signature wobbly lines probably didn’t translate very well to traditional high school art assignments. Fortunately, his professors at Oberlin College encouraged him to develop his own style, however idiosyncratic. When he graduated and got his first break—to write a Christmas story for the publisher Henry Holt—he chose a simple story to match his simple illustrations, and drew up a manuscript in a single night. Continue reading ““The Juggler of Our Lady,” by R. O. Blechman”