Interview of Jessica Abel and Matt Madden

Jessica Abel and Matt Madden are award-winning cartoonists and writers. Ms. Abel is best known for her graphic novel La Perdida published by Pantheon in 2006; her most recent comic-strip publication is Life Sucks (First Second, 2008), a graphic novel co-written with Dave Soria and illustrated by Warren Pleece. Mr. Madden’s 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style (Chamberlain Bros., 2005) was inspired by Raymond Queneau’s Exercices de Style. They have recently co-authored a comic art textb..

Interview of Jessica Abel and Matt Madden

Jessica Abel and Matt Madden are award-winning cartoonists and writers. Ms. Abel is best known for her graphic novel La Perdida published by Pantheon in 2006; her most recent comic-strip publication is Life Sucks (First Second, 2008), a graphic novel co-written with Dave Soria and illustrated by Warren Pleece. Mr. Madden’s 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style (Chamberlain Bros., 2005) was inspired by Raymond Queneau’s Exercices de Style. They have recently co-authored a comic art textb..

Introduction

When we want to be unkind to the tradition of comics studies we compare it to the work accomplished in other disciplines. Academic areas with higher levels of cultural credibility, longer institutional histories, and superior resources continue to dwarf comics studies in almost every imaginable way. Even in a comparison with cinema, an art form that is its rough contemporary, comics pales badly. Indeed, one could argue that comics studies in 2009 exists in a state comparable to film studies i..

Dendritic cells are crucial for maintenance of tertiary lymphoid structures in the lung of influenza virus–infected mice

Tertiary lymphoid organs (TLOs) are organized aggregates of B and T cells formed in postembryonic life in response to chronic immune responses to infectious agents or self-antigens. Although CD11c+ dendritic cells (DCs) are consistently found in regions of TLO, their contribution to TLO organization has not been studied in detail. We found that CD11chi DCs are essential for the maintenance of inducible bronchus-associated lymphoid tissue (iBALT), a form of TLO induced in the lungs after influenza virus infection. Elimination of DCs after the virus had been cleared from the lung resulted in iBALT disintegration and reduction in germinal center (GC) reactions, which led to significantly reduced numbers of class-switched plasma cells in the lung and bone marrow and reduction in protective antiviral serum immunoglobulins. Mechanistically, DCs isolated from the lungs of mice with iBALT no longer presented viral antigens to T cells but were a source of lymphotoxin (LT) β and homeostatic chemokines (CXCL-12 and -13 and CCL-19 and -21) known to contribute to TLO organization. Like depletion of DCs, blockade of LTβ receptor signaling after virus clearance led to disintegration of iBALT and GC reactions. Together, our data reveal a previously unappreciated function of lung DCs in iBALT homeostasis and humoral immunity to influenza virus

The lung vascular filter as a site of immune induction for T cell responses to large embolic antigen

The bloodstream is an important route of dissemination of invading pathogens. Most of the small bloodborne pathogens, like bacteria or viruses, are filtered by the spleen or liver sinusoids and presented to the immune system by dendritic cells (DCs) that probe these filters for the presence of foreign antigen (Ag). However, larger pathogens, like helminths or infectious emboli, that exceed 20 µm are mostly trapped in the vasculature of the lung. To determine if Ag trapped here can be presented to cells of the immune system, we used a model of venous embolism of large particulate Ag (in the form of ovalbumin [OVA]-coated Sepharose beads) in the lung vascular bed. We found that large Ags were presented and cross-presented to CD4 and CD8 T cells in the mediastinal lymph nodes (LNs) but not in the spleen or liver-draining LNs. Dividing T cells returned to the lungs, and a short-lived infiltrate consisting of T cells and DCs formed around trapped Ag. This infiltrate was increased when the Toll-like receptor 4 was stimulated and full DC maturation was induced by CD40 triggering. Under these conditions, OVA-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses, as well as humoral immunity, were induced. The T cell response to embolic Ag was severely reduced in mice depleted of CD11chi cells or Ly6C/G+ cells but restored upon adoptive transfer of Ly6Chi monocytes. We conclude that the lung vascular filter represents a largely unexplored site of immune induction that traps large bloodborne Ags for presentation by monocyte-derived DCs

The Sociological Image Nation

This article points to the origins of the comics format in nineteenth-century Geneva as a way to think through some of the fundamental questions posed by the use of comics production to report social scientific findings. Surveying the articles in this special issue, a case is built for the importance of transdisciplinary approaches in the field of sociology and elsewhere