When is a (comic book) house a (comic book) home?

I recently made a rather significant move from Omaha, Nebraska to Stockholm, Sweden. I accepted a visiting lecturer position in the English Department at Stockholm University, where I am teaching a variety of linguistics courses and supervising student research projects. One part of moving is that I had to say goodbye to my home comic book store, Legend Comics in Omaha. I had to shut down my pull file, and I already miss being able to sit in the coffee shop there, browsing comics and getting my caffeine buzz on. Back in May, Legend also hosted my book release party for Linguistics and the Study of Comics

What Part English, What Part Spanish?

Back in July, I was sitting in my office at school, working on a syllabus for a new sophomore- level class on language and society. I was exploring the U.S. Census Bureau website to get a sense of the most current information we have about language communities in the United States. I had the radio on, too, and while I was browsing census data about Nebraska, I heard an advertisement on one of the FM stations. The ad was primarily an English-language ad, but it also had a few Spanish words. It turned out to be a job advertisement for a radio station in the city that wanted to hire a Spanish/English bilingual speaker to be a sales director. I don\u27t know if this is the first time an advertisement of this sort has aired in Omaha, but I suspect it is quite rare

Which is Frank’s favorite post by Roy?

For my part in the retrospective, I have the pleasure of revisiting Roy’s questions to choose my favorite from. One of my top three is ‘Does the Joker Have Six-Inch Teeth?,’ and another is ‘What the $#@& is Happening to 1986?’ The post about the Joker’s dentition is a great example of Roy’s thinking about the characteristics and conventions, the very nature of comics. On the other hand, the post about 1986 dwells centrally on the relationship that comics have with audiences and, especially, the…uhm…business practices that for good and for ill run alongside. But for my favorite, I settled on ‘How Should We Feel About “Good Girl Art”?’ Part of my choice reflects a moderately selfish motivation: most of my own research and teaching activities revolve around the social and linguistic construction of identity. Roy’s post delves into (1) formal conventions in comics; (2) issues of reading practices and reader identity; (3) the powerful and lasting role of sexism in the creation of comics as well as the reading of comics; and (4) broad questions regarding gender and sexuality

How Do We Read Comics of the Quotidian? (Part II of a Series)

In my previous post on the textures of the everyday, I explored the blend of everyday occurrences during wartime. How do people who live during times of war construct their day-to-day lives? In this post, I want to extend the notion of the quotidian to a popular web comic calledQuestionable Content. This daily comic, created by Jeph Jacques, is about the lives of urban twenty-somethings, some of whom work at a coffee shop or at a library, but all of whom are attempting to create and maintain friendships and romances as well as trying to figure out what they want out of life. (You might think of the television show Friends as a mainstream media parallel.

Review of \u3ci\u3eSocial Class in Applied Linguistics\u3c/i\u3e by David Block

As Block writes in the prologue and the epilogue, the book is primarily about erasure; his motivation for writing the book is to highlight “the substantial and sometimes complete erasure of social class in applied linguistics research due to the ways in which applied linguists frame their discussions of issues such as identity, inequality, disadvantage and exclusion” (pp. ix–x). Overall, Block achieves his goal of illustrating the widespread absence of social class in applied linguistics; however, the book itself makes some missteps in exploring the very construct it claims as its focus. The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 is an exploration of how Block understands class: his formative years in Texas, the rise of neoliberalism in the global marketplace, and political economy and critical realism. There are two main reasons for this chapter: (1) to describe Block\u27s own experience living in an environment that includes working class and poor people, and (2) to demonstrate his credentials for writing a book on social class

Are more countries on their way to having a culture of comic book readers?

his week (starting Monday 10 June 2013), CNN is broadcasting stories every day in a series called Comic Book Heroes. The series will ‘take a look at the writers, artists, films and characters in this global industry.’ The first video in the series is called ‘The Booming World of Comic Books,’ and it is a rather wide-ranging look at the relationship between superhero comic books and the movies that are based on them. Several men** are interviewed for this piece. Stan Lee describes superhero stories as ‘fairy tales for grown-ups. [Fairy tales] were stories about monsters and witches and giants and magicians. But superhero stories have that same flavor, but they’re done for adults as well as children

Are comics predictive, or do they simply follow the society they’re produced in?

In early August 2013, Alyssa Rosenberg posted an article about a panel discussion she attended, which was a press tour to promote a new documentary about the history of comics in the U.S. One of the panelists was Gerry Conway, who made the claim that “comics follow society. They don’t lead society.” This was in the context of a discussion about the nature of superhero comics and representations of male and female characters. Rosenberg’s article explores the disappointment she feels with the restrictive, underdeveloped representation of women in superhero comics. I think we can also ask similar questions about representations of race and sexual orientation in comics as well. Can comics ever lead society rather than just follow