comics

Alison Bechdel's family tragicomic

Continuing his reviews of graphic novels and comics, Andrew Chuter presents Fun Home, Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir of growing up with her emotionally distant and closeted gay father.

V for Vendetta's prescient dark visions

Continuing his reviews of graphic novels and comics, Andrew Chuter focuses on a work that has had a lasting impact on the global protest movement.

Five graphic novels and cartoons to politicise and criticise

Comics, graphic novels, narrative drawing, illustrated fiction are a growing arena for serious social and political commentary. Andrew Chuter reviews five that are a must read for activists today.

Comic book takes alternative path to accurate history

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is the account of the life of a Singaporean comic book artist who started drawing at the age of 16. From that point, his work depicts his life story in parallel to that of the history of Singapore.

Ta-Nehisi Coates new comic is 'Black as hell'

Black Panther #1 By Ta-Nehisi Coates Marvel comic series The new Black Panther is “Black as hell” — a phrase Ta-Nehisi Coates used to describe himself on Twitter a week ahead of the release of Black Panther #1, the highly anticipated first issue in a new 12-part Marvel series penned by Coates. That's no small thing in the comics world. Sure, comic companies have begun to show an understanding that their core audience is diverse, increasingly female and of colour.

Rosa Luxemburg as comic book superhero

Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg By Kate Evans Edited by Paul Buhle Verso Books, London, 2015, 220 pages $16.95. Order here Perhaps a new comic-book super hero is about to take the world by storm. An unlikely Frau Luxemburg, who transforms from a tiny and odd-looking outsider into the almost unstoppable Red Rosa — Revolutionary Scourge of the Oppressors.

The secret history of Wonder Woman's conflicted feminism

The Secret History of Wonder Woman By Jill Lepore Knopf, 2014, 410 pages Wonder Woman cannot marry, according to Amazon law. She doesn’t want to, either. Especially if it would mean that she — the comic book superhero disguised as a secretary — would be stuck in the kitchen cooking dinner for her would-be domesticator, Captain Steve Trevor, the US pilot she fell in love with after rescuing him from his plane crash on her woman-only, feminist island utopia.