e202. To Kill a Mockingbird… and a Maus — Censorship & Book Banning

Every once in a while the world of weekly pop culture and the world of literary academia collide so totally that the world notices even outside of our show. Last week was one of those weeks. A school board in Tennessee voted to remove Maus, the critically acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize winning Holocaust memoir graphic novel,…

CFC: Why Even Really Care About Banned Books Anyway?

From Mav: So, I guess we need to talk about “the Maus situation.” If you live in my world then it’s pretty impossible to escape the news from last week that Art Spiegelman’s Maus was “banned.” Between the fact that it’s a comic, that it was a politically motivated book banning, that there are issues…

Call For Comments: Supersex in the Gotham City!

From Wayne: Superheroes are sexy, right? Skin tight costumes, rippling muscles, big boobs, and a near total lack of genitalia… what’s not to like? But for all of the suggestiveness of their idealized physiques, actual sexuality was a taboo topic in comics for a very long time. Some of this was due to a generally…

Call for Comments: Content Ratings and Parental Ratings Guides

From Mav: I’ve gotten into a couple conversations recently with different people about movie ratings. Not the kind of whether they’re good and bad… stars… thumbs up and down and all that. I mean MPAA ratings: G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17… or at least here in the United States, that’s what they are. Curiously, it…

Call for Comments: Comics for Kids?

From Mav: I had an interesting experience at the comic book store Wayne works at this week. I was standing around browsing the new releases when a white woman walked into the store with her 9ish-year-old daughter and asked Wayne and the other employees for help finding comics featuring both Shuri and Ironheart. With Shuri,…