Writing for the South African daily the Mail & Guardian, artist Khwezi Gule critiques Bitterkomix co-founder Anton Kannemeyer’s new book Pappa in Arika for perpetuating stereotypes of what he, with tongue-twisting élan, calls “the white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy.” Although I haven’t yet seen the book, I’m familiar with Kannemeyer’s work and since my pal Li Se has poked […]

The picks of the week from around the web.
Li Se on the proposed South African media bill. As good a critical overview as any I’ve read on the ANC’s latest media clampdown in disguise.
Sam Lipsyte on Wilson. A fine review of Dan Clowes’ latest comic. One of the few I’ve read that seems […]

As explained here the other day, there’s currently a public debate raging in Denmark about drawn and animated child pornography, triggered in part by the opening of an exhibition on the topic in the city of Odense, in part by the conviction in Sweden of a manga translator alleged to have possessed drawn images of […]

The highly publicized child pornography conviction last month of a Swedish translator, for possessing manga which allegedly depicted sexualised minors or minors engaging in sexual acts, is but the latest manifestation of a debate concerning what constitutes child pornography that has been going for a number of years. The chairman of the Swedish Comics Society, […]

The picks of the week from around the web.
RSA Animate: David Harvey breaks down in simple terms the financial crisis from his perspective, accompanied by some great instructional white-board cartooning (above).
Amoeblog: Billyjam interviews hip hop legend Krs-One in depth, on the occasion of the release of his new book The Gospel of Hip Hop. As […]

The inimitable ‘Li Se’, in whose “extended network” I find myself, has finally opened the floodgates and is committing to writing the kind of intellectual effluvium that people in said network have come to appreciate in conversation over the years. Written on the principle, appropriated from Charles Bukowski, of ‘not trying’, it is blogging as […]

Last week, another of the pioneers of early hip hop culture, Rammellzee passed away. A versatile multimedia artist and cultural theorist, he remained at the margins of hip hop culture as it evolved into a worldwide, commercially successful phenomenon, marching to the beat of his own drum.
From hitting the A train is 1974 and bombing […]

“Like the attacks by Al Qaeda, the disaster in the Gulf was preceded by ample warnings – yet the administration had ignored them. Instead of cracking down on MMS, as he had vowed to do even before taking office, Obama left in place many of the top officials who oversaw the agency’s culture of corruption. […]

The past week-and-a-half or so has seen David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp debated and dissected over at the Hooded Utilitarian, with discussions shooting off in a multitude of directions, amongst them the words-image binary in comics and the potential of comics as literature and the development of comics through modernism to the present day.
Today I’ve […]

“It’s pretty well understood amongst the crew who’s in charge,” …[Kuchta] said.
“How do they know that?” a Coast Guard investigator asked.
“I guess, I don’t know […] But it’s pretty well — everyone knows.”
– Captain Curt R. Kuchta of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig
The weekly linkage is back! Which I guess means the blog is […]

Regular readers might be aware that I was recently involved in the planning of an academic conference on comics at the University of Copenhagen. It was called Contemporary Comics and took place on Friday May 21st. It featured 12 international speakers, as well as the Canadian scholar Jacques Samson, who delivered the keynote address, and […]

The programme for the international comics symposium that I’m co-organising at the University of Copenhagen in connection with the comics festival Komiks.dk, is now ready.
The symposium presents papers from 12 international comics scholars on a diverse range of subjects in contemporary comics, features a keynote from Canadian scholar Jacques Samson, and a special appearance by […]

As you might be aware, legendary impresario and cultural activist Malcolm Mclaren passed away about a week and a half ago. It’s a little late, but I wanted to add my own little tribute here, because besides his cred as the Man at the Crossroads of punk, he had a brief but fruitful involvement with […]

With combined holidays and work backlog, blogging is still on partial hold here, but normal service will return soon enough. In the meantime, I’d like to take a moment to plug another event in which I’m participating later this month, the conference Laughing at Art: The Study of Humour in the Visual Arts at Pembroke […]

Dansk Tegneserieråds formand, Thomas Thorhauge, udtaler sig officielt i debatten om selvcensur ovre på Rådets hjemmeside.
Tegning af Claus Seidel, fra Caricature.dk.