I am thrilled to share the news that Unflattening has won the 2016 American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) in Humanities! (The work also won the sub-category, Media & Cultural Studies.) I’m excited for what it means for me, but perhaps more for what it means for greater acceptance for comics and alternative scholarship. This…
Some updates… Unflattening received a lovely review in the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, by Dr. Amanda O. Latz, Ashleigh N. Bingham, and Jessika O. Griffin. I really appreciated that they drew attention to the educational themes of the work. A little excerpt from their opening and closing: “Unflattening not only deroutinises the traditional dissertation form, it conveys the…
I’m pleased to report, Unflattening found its way onto a number of Best of 2015 lists to close out the year! I want to share a bit of that news, before getting into upcoming conference and speaking travel, and then the continuation of sharing excerpts from my fall class “Comics as a Way of Thinking.” The roundup: Forbes (!) includes Unflattening on…
This time out, I share some work from my comics as a way of thinking course, which just wrapped. But first, some news on Unflattening. The October issue of the American Library Association’s “Choice: Reviews” kindly called Unflattening “potentially revolutionary.” The full text reads: “For more than two decades, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993) has…
Unflattening made The Independent’s (UK) list of top graphic novels of 2015! It’s great company to be in, as the roundup includes Adrian Tomine and others, as selected by Neel Mukherjee who recently reviewed Unflattening for the New Statesman here. I’m pleased to have created a comic for the journal Nature on climate change in conjunction with the Paris climate conference beginning…
My newest piece for the Boston Globe Ideas section came out October 3! “Against the Flow,” explores the idea of entropy and the moments when things swirl back against the downward dispersal of energy – vortices that emerge briefly. It was inspired by my dad’s physics lecture that references Robert Frost’s poem West Running Brook, and…
Last week, I went on a whirlwind speaking trip back East, doing six talks in four days! It started at the Brooklyn Bookfest with a panel alongside cartoonist and comics educator Jessica Abel and moderator Alex Blumberg on Sunday the 20th, then back at Teachers College, Columbia, on Monday the 21st, followed by College Unbound in Providence…
Excited to be back in the classroom with Comics as a Way of Thinking at the University of Calgary! See below for my thoughts on it – but first, a bunch of news from August. Really brilliant and insightful review conversation of Unflattening by Peter Wilkins & Damon Herd on The Comics Grid. An excerpt: [Unflattening] is attempting to…
Last week, I was quite pleased to be interviewed by renowned art director, design critic, and professor Steven Heller in Print Mag. It’s a lengthy conversation in which we talk about my background, process, and influences. I’m sharing a small excerpt here and the rest is on Print Mag’s site. Heller asked me about my influences – I spoke…
On this post, excited to share a roundup of new reviews and interviews, a video conversation, plus more process sketches. First up, I was interviewed in great depth by Tim Hodler for The Paris Review. Hodler’s questioning took the conversation in a number of directions I don’t normally go, and I greatly appreciated the opportunity. An…