comics scholar, library educator, youth advocate
I have compiled a public bibliography about the experiences and demographics of Black comics readers. This initial release includes more than 50 sources – a mix of photographs, theses, journal articles, and more – that provide direct (or really compelling) evidence of the reading experience.
This exhibit also serves to draw connections between the knowledge these academics pursued and the knowledge their deaths deprived us of. And that’s where the issue of academic freedom enters. Death—unexpected, violently imposed, politically-motivated—is, after all, the greatest assault on academic freedom.
Enjoy this 1966 cartoon pitting Batman against Dracula! It was created by Sid Harris (S. Harris) and published in issue #2 (of 3) of the short-lived nostalgia magazine P.S.
Tom Heintjes at Hogan’s Alley kindly put my 2019 article on a popular early cartooning contest for young people online for free. For more than a decade, the magazine Open Road for Boys gave aspiring artists a chance to share their “solutions” to a problem cartoon. At the head of this post, you can see…
I am a former high school librarian. For more than twenty years I have taught graduate students who plan to work with young people in public and school libraries. I am also a historian who studies the intersection of comics, young readers, and libraries in the US during the mid-20th century. Unsurprisingly the recent surge…