Tag Archives: Feminism

Interview: Barbara Slate and a Career in Comics and Graphic Novels

Barbara Slate self-portrait

Barbara Slate spent twelve-hour days working on The Mueller Report Graphic Novel in order to get it out in a timely manner. In fact, her book got mentioned by a Republican representative during the Trump impeachment hearings in the House of the U.S. Congress. Trump went on to be impeached by the House. But there’s more to Barbara Slate. Here is an in depth look at a wonderful career in comics and graphic novels. Barbara Slate is known for being a pioneer in feminist comics. Her first big break came with her character, Ms. Liz, which began on greeting cards (selling over two million), then a comic strip, and even an animated short on NBC’s Today Show! What an honor. And, as I suggest, there is much more like writing for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Harvey Comics and Archie Comics. Among her many accomplishments in the visual storytelling biz, I was intrigued with the fact that she wrote 150 Betty and Veronica stories for Archie Comics! We cover that in this interview! Barbara was always fascinated with the friendship between these two young women who were so different. And, by the way, what the heck did they see in Archie in the first place? Good question.

Barbara Slate lecture poster

So, as always, I share with you about my own journey to better understand and appreciate the comics medium. I do it by sharing of my own work and by reviewing as much material as I can. And, of course, I do it by putting together special interviews such as this. You can say that I do my best to find a different angle to the people and subjects I choose to focus on. And I have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Not when I have creators like Barbara Slate to help guide the way.

The Mueller Report Graphic Novel by Barbara Slate

Now, a few words on the two recent titles that we feature in this interview. First, let’s cover The Mueller Report Graphic Novel. And then we’ll take a look at You Can Do A Graphic Novel. First off, I think Barbara has definitely created one of those books that becomes a keepsake. I am constantly culling through my books but this one is a keeper. And why? Well, within its 107 pages, it masterfully makes sense of one mammoth of a book that deserves close attention. The actual Mueller Report, a text-dense book clocking in at nearly 500 pages along with supplementary material, lays out how Russian interference has wreaked havoc upon our electoral process as well as provides a jaw-drawing look at how the Trump team, with Trump himself very much involved, have obstructed justice. A stream-lined concise graphic novel actually makes sense–and this is it! This book is, no matter what the subject, a perfect example of how to condense a complex subject into a compelling read.

Page from The Mueller Report Graphic Novel by Barbara Slate

Barbara Slate has the magic touch with bringing the essential facts in better focus. The reader gets to know all the players and what they did. The often Byzantine-like world of Russian oligarchs is treated in a straightforward manner. A con game that no one was expected to be interested in or even be able to follow is made accessible. As we’ve heard many times over, it was not Robert Mueller’s place to determine if the President of the United States, no matter who they are, should be impeached. It is up to Congress. As we all know, Congress took a very different path than would have been expected on their way to impeachment. The Democrats had the compelling case all along with the Mueller Report but they chose to focus on Ukraine. That said, the Meuller Report is still with us, many portions of which await removal of redactions and future days in court. This graphic novel remains a handy guide for when the chickens come home to roost.

You Can Do A Graphic Novel by Barbara Slate

If you’re looking for a wonderful instruction manual on comics, then you’re all set with Barbara’s You Can Do A Graphic Novel. This book will guide you through the process of telling your story through comics. You can aim for doing a full-length graphic novel in the long run. But, to begin with, you can follow these easy-to-follow steps and learn all the components to storytelling. This 232-page, fully illustrated, book will delight newcomers and even more experienced cartoonists because you have Barbara Slate sharing techniques and industry insight from a long and successful career.

Pages from You Can Do A Graphic Novel

As I say, even more experienced cartoonists will welcome the easygoing and highly informative format. Yes, you too can learn how to properly plot a comics script. Barbara Slate learned from the best. When she first started at DC Comics, she was taught the color-coded plotting system by none other than Paul Levitz, one of the biggest names at DC Comics. The book is perfect for all ages, and it will specifically appeal to young people just starting out.

Barbara Slate is one of the best. Check out her website to learn more about her work and her online comics courses. Visit Barbara Slate right here.

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Filed under Comics, graphic novels, Interviews, Visual Storytelling

Bitch Media Needs Your Help: At Halfway Point to Reach Goal by Sep 25

Bitch magazine

BITCH MEDIA celebrates over 20 years of award-winning, nonprofit, feminist response to pop culture. Due to COVID-19 and the economic downturn, Bitch Media is in danger of ceasing operation. Help Bitch Media keep up the good fight with a donation by joining its campaign that closes on September 25, 2020. Donate, join, or subscribe today.

Bitch Media

Press release follows:

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Filed under Feminism, Magazines, pop culture, Social Justice

Review: WW3 #50: Shameless Feminists

WW3 #50

Guest Review by Paul Buhle

This season has seen the appearance of a prestigious anthology, Drawing Power: Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment and Survival, edited by the veteran artist Diane Nooman (Abrams). It has also seen, more recently, a scrappier creation from the “World War 3 Illustrated” crowd: Shameless Feminists. Although this also marks WW3 #50, it is best seen as a thing-in-itself, a 192pp anthology edited by a special crew, Isabella Bannerman, Sandy Jimenez, Sabrina Jones and Rebecca Migdal. Unique among them is the Bronx-born cartoonist and erstwhile schoolteacher Jimenez, unique by his gender.

At any rate, it’s a whopper, and not only by virtue of something beyond the dreadful experiences described in the other anthology, but also by a certain sense of history and a very particular experience. One of the editors (spoiler alert, it is  Sabrina Jones) was “invited to create her first comics for issue #3,” that is, about 1980 in WW3. The collaboration is, properly seen, historic and marked by three earlier feminist anthologies as WW3 issues, in 1992, 1999 and 2000 (it’s been a long pause this time).

It’s global, it’s interracial, it’s sometimes pretty dreadful—rapes and near-rapes, humiliation and frustration. But it’s got a pretty persistent note of…persistence. And the occasional victory, not something very likely to be noticed beyond a circle or friends or even perhaps among them, but a personal triumph and sometimes a collective one.

Sabrina Jones offers several high notes along these lines, as well as the main figure of a dreamy, collective front cover. In one of her two strips she reveals her self-daring, a teenager wandering into dangerous places, a young woman choosing to live in sketchy neighborhoods, engaging in multiple affairs for the sheer joy of it, later on pressing herself to stay limber. Later on in the anthology, she makes up her mind to ride a mountain bike over part of the Pyrenees mountains from France to Spain, inevitably meeting dangerous men, and by this time, in her fifties. All of this adds up to the life story: I will not be intimidated. Indeed.

She stands for others in that sense. Lou Allen  and Teresa Cherubini separately relate how their “body image” was just never good enough for herself or her boyfriends until…each one broke from the socially-created trance. Jennifer Camper offers a menstruation metaphor through her protagonist’s life. Artist Regina Silvers is the solid leftwing grandmother who joins an antiwar Granny Brigade. And so on.

There is no summarizing the artistic approaches except to say that they are starkly different and also remarkable. This is a book that draws upon great creativity and honesty, and should inspire the same.

Paul Buhle‘s next comic, drawn by Sharon Rudahl, is a life of Paul Robeson (Rutgers University Press, October, 2020.

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Filed under Book Reviews, Comics, Guest Column, Paul Buhle

Kickstarter: Janelle Asselin Fires Back With FRESH ROMANCE

Fresh Romance Issue 1 Cover by Kevin Wada

Fresh Romance Issue 1 Cover by Kevin Wada

It was one year ago that comics professional Janelle Asselin was in the middle of a raging storm regarding the comics industry’s ongoing problem with the distortion of women. Catch up and/or refresh your memory on that right here. So, to find Ms. Asselin undertaking a whole new way of addressing this issue is quite inspiring. Sometimes, you just gotta go out and show them all how it’s done, right? Enter FRESH ROMANCE.

FRESH ROMANCE is a new generation’s answer to romance comics. This is part of a new imprint, Rosy Press, brought to you by Janelle Asselin, Senior Editor of ComicsAlliance.com and former DC Comics editor. If funded through the now-live Kickstarter campaign, Asselin’s new imprint Rosy Press will debut FRESH ROMANCE in May 2015. This Kickstarter campaign ends April 22. Visit it right here.

The first issue of this monthly digital comic magazine features sundry stories ranging from a clandestine, queer high school love affair to an impeccably researched and illustrated Regency-era romance. In addition to three forward-looking romances, each issue of FRESH ROMANCE delivers a relationship advice column by a quartet of divorced writers, behind-the-scenes art coverage, and a fashion report.

Full press release follows:

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Filed under Comics, ComicsAlliance, DC Comics, Feminism, Fresh Romance, Janelle Asselin, Kickstarter, Romance, Romance Comics, Rosy Press, Women

Review: ‘Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World’s Most Famous Heroine’ by Tim Hanley

Wonder-Woman-Unbound-Tim-Hanley

If Wonder Woman did not exist, surely she would have to be created, right? As comic book historian Tim Hanley makes clear in his new book, “Wonder Woman Unbound,” there never was just one Wonder Woman and, lucky for us, she has emerged as the symbol we are all familiar with. But just how familiar? Yeah, what is Wonder Woman all about? That my friend is worthy of a book and here is that book.

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Filed under Book Reviews, Books, Comics, pop culture, Wonder Woman