DC comics new Jewish teen girl superhero and activist is fighting to save a VERY Lower East Side Gotham neighborhood from gentrification. Of course I had to have the co-creator of this new character, Whistle, on my podcast-- New York Times Best Selling author E. Lockhart!  Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero, is a young adult graphic novel from DC written by New York Times best-selling author E. Lockhart (Genuine Fraud, We Were Liars) with art by Manuel Preitano (The Oracle Code). Featuring the debut and origin story of a brand new hero, Whistle takes a closer look at the daily life of Gotham teen Willow Zimmerman and her dog Lebowitz in the unexplored neighborhood of Down River. Follow E. Lockhart on twitter- https://twitter.com/elockhart  and her website http://www.emilylockhart.com/ 

Graphic Policy Radio

Whistle: a New Gotham City Hero. writer E. Lockhart

If Corto Maltese is Cuba is Starro is the Embargo? Or is it Nicaragua and Project Starfish is the CIA drug smuggling? Join journalists / DC comics nerds Spencer Ackerman (Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump) and Arturo Garcia (TruthOrFiction) as we talk about James Gunn's new uber violent political satire movie based on some of my favorite comics. Buy Spencer's book Reign of Terror  and follow him at https://twitter.com/attackerman Keep up with Arturo's reporting and upcoming radio network via https://twitter.com/aboynamedart  and me at https://twitter.com/Elana_Brooklyn

The Suicide Squad w/ Journalists Spencer Ackerman & Arturo Garcia

"Every woman we meet in this story has been sterilized without consent." - Moji Alawode-El "When they can make choices they choose compassion" - Kat Green Two professional feminists who are basically superheroes themselves join me to discuss Marvel's Black Widow movie. We talk espionage, fight choreo, reproductive justice and a good jumpsuit. Kat Green is the Managing Director and Chief Mechanic at Abortion Access Front.  Before joining AAF, Kat worked as a producer, editor, and shooter for film and TV productions around the world. Somewhere along the way, she also designed databases, built a spaceship in her basement, and learned to drive a truck with air brakes.  Moji Alawode-El is a recovered ad exec and current Marketing Manager at AAF. She loves yoga, reading sci-fi by femme people & people of color, roller skates and talking really loudly about her abortion and everyone else's reproductive rights in public spaces.  Learn more about Abortion Access Front https://www.aafront.org/  

Black Widow Meets The Abortion Access Front

We love Keiko and Miles so much that we're sending them to fictional couples counseling.  Joining us is Scott Thorough, a lifelong Trekkie with a Masters in Social Work.  Scott did his internships for social work school with narrative focus. He's the perfect guest to join us to determine if the O'Briens' marriage can or should be saved. Scott is also the co-host of the excellent Zebras in America Podcast https://twitter.com/ZebrasPod.  Keep up with Scott's podcast and music here https://twitter.com/Scott_Thorough  Catch up on past episodes of Deep Space Dive with this playlist - https://bit.ly/playDeepSpace

Deep Space Dive: a Star Trek DS9 pod Sends Miles & Keiko To Couples Counseling

"Being a Black fan means loving media that doesn’t necessarily love you back" -- writer Evan Narcisse. Evan joins me to talk about his new comic about the groundbreaking and radicaly fun wrestling stars, New Day, race, creativity and change in the wrestling industry as well as his work on Rise of the Black Panther. No wrestling knowledge necessary for this episode.  Evan Narcisse is a writer and consultant who works in video games, comic books, and TV, often focusing on the intersection of blackness and pop culture. He was a journalist and critic for many years, having previously written for The Atlantic, Time Magazine, Kotaku, io9, and The New York Times. He’s taught a course on video game journalism at New York University and appeared as an expert guest on CNN and NPR. He's the author of the Rise of the Black Panther graphic novel for Marvel Comics and served as a narrative design consultant on the upcoming Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales video game. A native New Yorker, he now lives in Austin, Texas. https://twitter.com/evnarc 

A New Day for Evan Narcisse, Writing WWE & Black Panther

THE Julia Serano explains why Loki and Sylvie have no time for your gender essentialism, Tea Fougner delves into Loki's gender fluidity in comics and we all wish the queer showrunner would stick around another season.  Julia Serano is an Oakland, California-based writer, performer, biologist, and activist. She is best known for her nonfiction books Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity and Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive. Julia’s first foray into fiction, entitled 99 Erics: a Kat Cataclysm faux novel, won the Publishing Triangle’s 2021 Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, and was an Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) 2021 silver medalist in LGBT+ Fiction. Julia's Loki essay https://twitter.com/JuliaSerano/status/1413186947862859776 Tea Fougner is the Editorial Director for Comics at King Features Syndicate. When she’s not reading comics for work, she’s reading comics for fun, drawing comics, dressing up as comic book characters, or watching comic adaptations on television. https://twitter.com/teaberryblue 

Loki with Julia Serano & Tea Fougner: Queers, Alligators and Kangs

"After a year worrying about Marvel emailing me from their legal team with a cease and disist  — I get an email from Marvel asking me to write a story for an upcoming comic!" - Stephanie Williams Stephanie Williams is a comics historian and pop culture critic for notable publications such as SYFYFANGRRLS, Marvel, The A.V. Club, Nerdist, Den of Geek, and Rotten Tomatoes. She is currently a content producer for What To Watch. Stephanie is also a comic creator with three ongoing webcomics, Parenthood Activate!, But What If Though?, and Living Heroes. She made her Marvel debut with a short story featuring Monica Rambeau in Marvel’s Voices: Legacy.-  Follow her https://twitter.com/Steph_I_Will and find her work here https://linktr.ee/swilliamscreates This podcast was recorded in March, sorry for the delay! Her WandaVision analysis is just as valid now as ever and her Wonder Woman comic will be out sooner now.

Living Heroes & Marvel's Voices Writer Stephanie Williams

"As a boundary defying human I found myself looking for ways to engage with the stories that made me feel alive. When I watched a superhero movie or read Octavia Butler I was talking about real things in a way that felt more fruitful" - S.E. Fleenor, writer/editor/podcaster. S.E. Fleenor joins us to talk about the queer speculative fiction anthology they co-created for Pride Month, http://DecodedPride.com. Decoded is a story-a-day anthology of queer science fiction, fantasy, and horror by queer authors. A short story or comic is released to subscribers every day of Pride month. S.E. co-hosts Bitches on Comics https://bitchesoncomics.com/, a pop culture and comics podcast, and is an editor of Decoded Pride and http://QueerSpec.com. They are also managing editor of Bella Media Channel. They write fiction (podcasts, novels, and short stories), personal essays, and articles centering on queer identities, feminism, pop culture, and literature. Their work appears in The Independent, Buzzfeed Reader, Vice, and http://them.us, among others. They consider themself to be professionally, queer, trans, and nonbinary. S.E. and I delve into the current state of Queer Discorse around creating indepdent art, consuming corporate media, and telling trans stories. My guest appearance on their podcast is one of my favorite guest appearances on someone else's show. You can listen here https://bitchesoncomics.com/episode-14-a-quintessential-jewish-experience-of-christmas/ 

Pride Decoded: With S.E. Fleenor of Bitches on Comics

“One of the goals of Renegade Rule was to present a book and world that allows for queer joy” - Ben Kahn “The closer it is to trope-y fan fiction the more I like it”  - Rachel Silverstein Meet the writers of a new original graphic novel published by Dark Horse, Renegade Rule! "The Manhattan Mist have beaten the odds to land themselves in the national championships for Renegade Rule, one of the hottest virtual reality games in existence. But they’re in for competition fiercer then they ever imagined, and one team member’s entire future could be at stake. Four queer female friends will have to play harder than ever against self-doubt, infighting, romantic distraction, and a slew of other world-class teams if they hope to become champions. From Ignatz-nominated writer Ben Kahn, debut author Rachel Silverstein, and artist Sam Beck is a celebration of friendship, competition, queer identity, and the insane things we do for the things and people we love." Rachel Silverstein is a recent law school graduate. Renegade Rule is her first comic book publication. She also has a Master’s degree in elephant paleontology. https://twitter.com/flirtymango Ben Kahn is an Ignatz Award-nominated comics writer. Their previous works include the comics series Heavenly Blues (Scout Comics) and Gryffen: Galaxy’s Most Wanted (SBI Press). They can usually be found shuttered away in their shoebox-sized New York apartment, afraid to leave the city. https://twitter.com/BenTheKahn Check out Ben's horror podcast: Progressively Horrified https://progressivelyhorrified.transistor.fm/ Hear Ben on my podcast to talk about their earlier comics writing: http://bit.ly/grifBee On Doom Patrol S2 http://bit.ly/DoomPatrolgp & Young Justice S3 http://bit.ly/YJoutsiders

Queer gamers write a queer graphic novel about queer gamers: Renegade Rule

Policing and the model minoirty myth are deconstructed through a noir genre lens in this hardboiled detective series created by today's guests, sak Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkgi.  A new Image Comics series, The Good Asian stars detective Edison Hark—a haunted Chinese-American detective—on the trail of a killer in 1936 San Francisco's Chinatown. The series explores Chinese American identity, US immigration policy and the brutal contradictions inherent in being the first Chinese American cop when the target of his policing is inevitably his own community. It's also a beautifully drawn piece of historical fiction and an exciting mystery. My guests are: sak Pichetshote is a writer for comics and TV. He wrote the critically acclaimed horror comic hit INFIDEL that was featured on NPR's best horror stories of all time. In TV, he's written for the shows Marvel's Cloak & Dagger, Light as a Feather, and Two Sentence Horror Stories.  Alexandre Tefenkgi is the acclaimed artist of European comics and graphic albums as well as the critically acclaimed Skybound book Outpost Zero by Sean McKeever. Born in Africa and raised in France, he's an artist of Vietnamese descent.  The series' colorist is Lee Loughridge and letterer is Jeff Powell. Learn more here https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/the-good-asian

The Good Asian comic w/creators Pornsak Pichetshote & Alexandre Tefenkgi

"Zemo is the only character with an ideology" - Brandon Wilson "A real Captain America looks to the rest of the world like The Joker" - Spencer Ackerman Talking about Disney's latest Marvel TV show, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier with two of my favorite Marvel experts. Spencer Ackerman award winning national security journalist and author of REIGN OF TERROR: How The 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, out August 10 from Viking. https://twitter.com/attackerman Brandon Wilson is a filmmaker and lecturer. Brandon has directed two micro-budget features: 2005’s The Man Who Couldn’t… which is on YouTube and Sepulveda from 2016 which is streaming for free on Vimeo. Wilson has taught Film Analysis for Filmmakers, Introduction to Editing and classes on national cinemas, the essay film, and diversity in cinema at UCLA, Columbia College Hollywood and others. https://twitter.com/geniusbastard And your host, Elana Levin is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Elana_Brooklyn. 

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier with Spencer Ackerman and Brandon Wilson

Doctor Julian Bashir is Deep Space Nine’s resident physician, humanitarian, James Bond cosplayer and disaster bisexual. We are joined by Ali Nagib, Assistant Director of Illinois NORML, an organization that was key to ending cannabis prohibition in Illinois. In this episode, Ali helps us discover why Dr. Bashir was so important for representation, why he’s such a headcanon magnet, why he’s a great role model for health equity activism efforts like cannabis legalization, and why he’s the Anti-Bones McCoy. Catch up on our past episodes of Deep Space Dive with this playlist- https://soundcloud.com/graphicpolicy/sets/deep-space-dive Email us questions-- via deepspacedivepodcast@gmail.com Or catch us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Elana_Brooklyn & https://twitter.com/pas_deChat 

Deep Space Dive: a Star Trek Deep Space Nine pod: Dr Julian Bashir & Section 420

Traumatized people processing loss by watching TV sure do connect with a TV show in which a traumatized person processes loss via the medium of television. Disney+ newest Marvel TV show is a timely hit. I'm joined by three fascinating guests for a nuanced and necessary conversation.  "When someone tells a Black woman she’s not supposed to be there it goes from being uncomfortable to being dangerous" - comics critic Niki J. Occasional voice actress and constant Marvel fan, Niki J posts about comics and queer issues at @blackloislane on Twitter. In her free time she's helped organize panels for Geeks OUT's annual queer comics celebration, Flame Con.  "This was my entire childhood flashing before me"-- Asya Pikovsky is a communications consultant for grassroots and worker advocacy organizations. When she was four, she immigrated to the US with her family as Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union. She also compares Wanda to the FBI...  Diana Hussein is a Detroit-based Communications Specialist for the hospitality workers' labor union, UNITE HERE. She's one of my favorite union voices on Twitter: https://twitter.com/heyadiana. and has a lot to say about the MCU and Arab American fandom. 

WandaVision: Marvel Magical Refugee Girl Origin Stories

"Realism is unfortunate"- Michel Fiffe Michel Fiffe is the creator / writer /artist of the action series COPRA. He’s worked with Marvel and DC on top of fully producing Panorama for Dark Horse, Bloodstrike: Brutalists for Image Comics and Zegas for Fantagraphics. We talk about the development of comics art styles in depth and a graph he made attempting to chart where some of his favorite artists' style fall on a scale of realistic to cartoony, messy to clean. So get artsy with us! "It's a comic, take a risk, do something different" “Go to a museum, open up a fashion magazine, watch a documentary on Klaus Nomi. Do anything but look at a comic book for inspiration. That’s what Kirby did!” "The 90s isn’t just Jim Lee" His interivew of artist Trevor Von Eeden http://www.tcj.com/an-interview-with-trevor-von-eeden-reprise/ https://twitter.com/MichelFiffe

Comics Artist/Writer Michel Fiffe of COPRA. Taking risks & making monsters

"I'm not damning Stan Lee, I'm living with ambiguity" says Abraham Riesman of his essential new Stan Lee biography True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee. No matter where you stand on the debate of who gets credit for Marvel comics, you MUST read this book. It's past time for a serious work of history like this one examining the conflicting stories behind one of most imporant cultural forces of the 20th century. Abe has done completely new research into the Lieber familiy's history in Romania and the Romanian Jewish mileiu of Stan's youth. He's interviewed the journalists who wrote key pieces around Stan's life and times at Marvel. He's gotten everyone to talk, from Stan's brother (cartoonist Larry Lieber) to the vultures who plagued Stan at the end of his life. Abraham Riesman is a journalist whose work has appeared in Vulture, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, The Boston Globe, and many other outlets. He is the author of TRUE BELIEVER: THE RISE AND FALL OF STAN LEE and the forthcoming RINGMASTER: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF VINCE MCMAHON. He lives in Rhode Island with his partner, the journalist SI Rosenbaum. His website is abrahamriesman.com and his Twitter handle is @abrahamjoseph. For more from me on Stan Lee, listen to my episode with journalist Spencer Ackermen upon Lee's death: https://graphicpolicy.com/2018/11/23/stan-lee-politics-and-business-with-spencer-ackerman-listen-to-the-podcast-on-demand-and-on-the-go/  