‘The Eightfold Path’ (An Endorsement)

August 20, 2022August 21, 2022 Shawn Taylor

If anything can be said about Abrams ComicArts books, it’s that they are undeniably beautiful. Aside from what lies within their pages, the books themselves are works of art. They are portable museums. The colors, the weight and heft of the paper used, the end paper designs, the cover images chosen, these make the books worth looking at. The stories being told? These make the books worth buying. Their Megascope imprint? These books are worth collecting.

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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Martial Arts, Streaming3 Comments

‘Cobra Kai’ and Cultural Appropriation

May 15, 2018August 30, 2021 Steven Barnes

by Steven Barnes | Originally posted on his website

Some time back, I watched a documentary about master Fumio Demura, one of the first to bring authentic Japanese karate (Shito-ryu) to the United States. I thought of him because he was Pat Morita’s stunt double for the Karate Kid movies.

Hard N.O.C. Life, Movies1 Comment

The Sunken Place to Wakanda with Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes

February 2, 2018May 8, 2020 Hard NOC Media

With historic Oscar nominations for Get Out and record-breaking ticket pre-sales for Black Panther, 2018 is shaping up to be a watershed year for mainstream genre pictures that center Black characters. Acclaimed speculative fiction writers and educators Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes, who currently offer an online course dedicated to Jordan Peele’s box office phenomenon, join Keith for a frank discussion of both films and their place in American popular culture.

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Conventions, Hard N.O.C. Life

#AACC2017: Envisioning Diverse Futures

July 24, 2017July 21, 2017 The Nerds of Color

Recorded live during the Asian American ComiCon Summit on Art, Action, and the Future.

We’ve seen so many different kinds of futures unfurl in pop culture, and many of them have people of color and LGBTQ individuals as backdrop and “local color.” What would a truly diverse, inclusive and intersectional future really look like?

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Art, Conventions

#AACC2017 and Failing to Get a Photo with Lewis Tan

July 18, 2017August 17, 2021 AJ Joven

To get to my failure, I should start with a childhood that took place in Los Angeles. Hawthorne, California is a small community situated in Southwest Los Angeles. With Inglewood to the north, Gardena to the east, Torrance to the south, and the glamorous beach communities to the west, it was basically the edge of working class/POC Los Angeles butting up against the elite.

Books, Fantasy, Literature

Lifewriting 101

July 5, 2017July 6, 2017 Dennis R. Upkins

One of my New Years resolutions was dedicating this year to leveling up, specifically as an author and artist. Or rather as an auteur. 😉

Breaking personal records and churning out more pieces than ever, I’ve spent the better part of the year in nonstop writer mode which of course is the equivalent of Puppet Angel.

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Books, Conventions

Congratulations Kid, You Have Arrived

March 1, 2017March 2, 2017 Dennis R. Upkins

One cannot truly celebrate #BlackExcellence and look to the future without taking a moment to honor those who paved a way for us to journey forward.

Case in point, author, philosopher, life coach and fellow Wakandan, Steven Barnes, who is celebrating a birthday today.

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Literature, Sci Fi4 Comments

Reading Science Fiction In Our New Political Reality

February 2, 2017February 22, 2017 Shawn Taylor

The way people are reacting (and/or responding) to our current political moment is all over the map. Some are taking the ostrich head in the sand approach: If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Some are happy that the end of the American experiment is closer than we ever thought possible. Some are going full-force with resisting, making sure that what is happening does not become the new default. Some are embracing the newly- burnished hate and division, their fantasies of a fourth and fifth Reich are invading our shared reality. Remember when these people used to be on the fringe? Some say this is the last gasp of a dying ideology. I’m of the mind that it is the first deep breath of a newborn. But what do I know? I’m a born pessimist.

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Fantasy, Literature, Sci Fi4 Comments

We Need More Than More Diversity

July 16, 2014July 17, 2014 David F. Walker

Originally posted at Super Justice Force

The recent death of celebrated author Walter Dean Myers has seemingly left a void in that corner of Young Adult literature that is aware of representation and diversity, and produces works of fiction populated with a rainbow coalition of characters. It seems like every week I’m reading something about the lack of diversity and representation in YA (as well as comics and films and whatever else you care to throw into the mix), much like this piece. And now that Myers is gone, he can join the list of authors frequently cited as those that did the most for those who are represented the least.

Unfortunately, while he was alive, a significant amount of what was written about the lack of diversity in YA failed to mention Myers and his work — which speaks to a problem almost as bad as the lack of diversity itself. That problem, of course, is the lack of dialog about those books and those writers who do put in the work to ensure diversity and representation.

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