‘Box of Bones,’ An Endorsement

May 12, 2021July 21, 2021 Shawn Taylor

I am a new convert to horror. I was firmly in my comics, SF, SpecFic, fantasy bag for decades until I read Tananarive Due’s My Soul to Keep. After that, I was all in… on horror literature. However, so-called ‘horror comics’ weren’t scary to me. Not even a little. And as a comic fan, it was disappointing. That was then. Now, there are tons of wonderful horror books that speak to my cultural and aesthetic specificity. There’s Image’s Killadelphia and Bitter Root, which just had a huge announcement. And Vault Comics is doing it big.

Comics, Literature, Scholarship2 Comments

Introducing Megascope: a Diverse Line of Graphic Novels Curated by John Jennings

February 20, 2020July 8, 2020 Shawn Taylor

There are some people who like comics. There are others who love them. Then, there are those who live and breathe comics. Not as a way to keep copyrights up-to-date for further cinematic use, but who see the comic form as important; as a worthy and necessary part of our collective artistic and cultural life. Professor, scholar, and creator, John Ira Jennings, embodies the latter.

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Literature1 Comment

Liminality, Entropy, and the Hidden Corners of the World

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016 Shawn Taylor

Here is my review of my brother, Ayize Jama-Everett’s first book, “The Liminal People.”

Here is his interview from the 2nd Annual Black Comix Arts Festival:

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Literature, Sci Fi4 Comments

The Liminal People: An Endorsement

June 24, 2015June 24, 2015 Shawn Taylor

The Liminal War: A Novel by Ayize Jama-Everett drops this week. In preparation for this much awaited sequel, I urge all of you to read the book that started it all, The Liminal People: A Novel. You will not be disappointed. I will post a Liminal War review in within the next week, or two.

First off, The Liminal People isn’t the X-Men and [insert some other superhero franchise]. Whenever there are characters with extra-normal abilities, someone always wants to toss the X-franchise about. If you wanted to make a more accurate comparison, you would have to compare The Liminal People to the old ’60s British television program, The Champions (Google if you don’t know) — albeit the book is a lot more diverse. In a Spec/Fic publishing world that loves little white vampires and werewolves, or little white magic users, or little white vampire hunters, or little white companions on a quest to fight the big black enemy, Liminal is a refreshing burst of the real world. It is the first truly global Spec/Fic book of the 21st century.

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