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.)
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New web address, and first review soon!

Welcome to Commons Comics’s official new home! Thanks for your patience while the blog gets settled and I get the hang of managing my own site. Please bookmark commonscomics.com as the site’s permanent home.

Goshen’s wonderful Better World Books has ordered three new releases for me. I’m not sure which one I’ll review first, so let me know if you have a preference. Here are the covers, and an author photo, too:

Nicole Georges and “Fetch”

Continue reading “New web address, and first review soon!”

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Commons Comics is back!

iconic floating cape image of Ms. Marvel
From comicbook.com

If you’re new to Commons Comics, welcome!


This is a bi-weekly review blog focusing on new comics, especially by diverse voices. I began as a comics fangirl, then began teaching a class on comics and graphic novels in 2008, and blogging about them in 2013. Comics have been working their way into my scholarly interests since then, and I am now co-editing an essay collection about Kamala Khan, the new Ms. Marvel, with comics and religion scholar Hussein Rashid. Look for it on the University Press of Mississippi in the coming year. (Working title: Ms. Marvel in America.)

If you were reading Commons Comics before it took a break, welcome back! New comics reviews will be coming soon, thanks to the continuing support of Better World Books in Goshen, Indiana. In the meantime, I’ll start uploading the Commons Comics archive, so you can browse old posts from Elkhart Truth Community Blogs, and even older posts from Goshen Commons. Uploading is a gradual process, so let me know if you’re missing a particular post, and I’ll put it at the top of the queue.

If you’re not familiar with Kamala Khan, featured in the picture above as well as in my bio picture, she’s been part of a recent zeitgeist
of more diverse voices in comics among creators and fans. This Seth Meyers interview of one of her creators, Marvel editor Sana Amanat, will give you an idea of Ms. Marvel’s character, creation, and why she’s important enough to merit a book of scholarly essays. Enjoy, and more soon!

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Superheroes of the Civil Rights Movement: “March: Book Two” by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

I was planning on posting my Elkhart Truth archives in a more orderly fashion, starting with the most recent, but in the wake of the news in Charlottesville this morning, this review clearly needs to be prioritized. Stay tuned for a review of March: Book Three.

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

Scan of March: Book Two, cover

Continue reading “Superheroes of the Civil Rights Movement: “March: Book Two” by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell”