A progressive analysis of politics and the arts.
The chance to talk about a piece of Italian media that makes it onto the international stage, especially through a platform such as Netflix, is rare to come by; even rarer is for that media to be of any actual quality. It was with pleasure, then, that I sat down to watch Strappare Lungo i Bordi (Tear Along the Dotted Line), written and directed by Italian comics superstar Zerocalcare.
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by Lucy Caradog
Content warning: depictions of mental illness
Just before her thirtieth birthday, Ellen Forney is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo And Me is an autobiographical journey which follows her years-long exploration of medication, therapy, and how they affect her creative drive. Despite it being referenced off-hand in popular media, a taboo around bipolar disorder still remains prominent – this is something that Forney does an excellent job of addressing in her graphic memoir: during the second meeting with her therapist, she recalls saying “My mother and I both have bipolar tendencies, but I’m not like, bipolar bipolar”. Despite having an understanding of the mental illness, she initially rejects the possibility of having it.
by Gwen Taylor
How on Earth do I put these feelings into words? I’m sitting here just after finishing Love is Love and I have been utterly floored. 2016 has been an awful year all around, a year where hatred and intolerance appear to have won, and love has been firmly pushed into a corner. One of the most horrific events of the year took place in June at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. One person took the lives of 49 others who were celebrating their individuality and love in what had always been regarded as a safe space.
Love is Love is an anthology of responses to the shooting published by IDW Publishing and supported by DCComics to raise money for Equality Florida. It contains 144 pages of beautiful stories designed to celebrate love following a tragic event. Each piece is 1-2 pages long and all are incredibly powerful; the sheer number of contributors demonstrates how this horrific event was felt by everyone.
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by Alex Valente
Repeat after me: comics is a medium, not a genre. Good? Good. Let’s start from there. Comics is (yes, plural noun, singular verb) a medium. As such, it has the power to channel ideologies, reflect society, provoke ripples in current trends, generate new ones, validate certain opinions, undermine others, and most of all — it influences a gigantic audience, it creates a dialogue between readers and authors.
Sometimes that dialogue is out of sync. Sometimes a side shouts louder than others. Sometimes it falls short of everyone’s expectations and hopes. And sometimes, really good things happen, and excellent conversations take place.Continue Reading
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