Comics and Post-Secondary Pedagogy Issue ImageText Now Live!

Click here to read essays from folks teaching comics across a broad array of fields and disciplines. Thanks to co-editor Najwa Al-Tabaa for asking me to guest edit the issue. I'm thrilled with how it turned out and know -- whether you're a K12 teacher, a teacher educator, a librarian, a graphic designer -- you'll learn from this issue.

Great essays; great reviews, and great resources for all interested in comics and education! What are you waiting for? Read! Read! 

Erik Evensen and the Curious Case of the Slaughtering Sasqui: A Review of _The Beast of Wolfe's Bay_

Erik Evensen’s latest graphic novel, The Beast of Wolfe’s Bay, is part rural legend/supernatural adventure story, part romance, part parody of academic life. Brian Wegman, struggling doctoral candidate in Anthropology, is called upon to help small town cops in rustic Wolfe’s Bay solve a murder mystery, despite many considering him unqualified for the job. Along the way, he reunites with childhood acquaintance Freddie Roth, an attractive comparative literature professor as comfortable talking about folklore as she is making pop culture references. The two become fast foils, then friends, then more than friends as they fight Wegman’s severe career fatigue, a jealous investigator, an army of wendigos and their unhinged human leader, Dr. Greta Wendel.

References to the epic Beowulf are interlaced throughout the story; for example, Dr. Wendel’s character is a Grendel analogue. “Hwait!” begins the tale. Wolfe’s Bay is in Heorot County. In the closing notes, Evensen, a Xeric Award winner for his graphic novel Gods of Asgard, suggests that the book was planned as a more direct retelling but ended up as a sort of half-baked Beowulf, and while it is true that the text runs less than a hundred pages and is not an exact adaptation of the epic set to contemporary times, it doesn’t have to be for uninformed readers to enjoy it on the surface as a fun, thrilling narrative or for the more literary-inclined to appreciate the numerous interspersed allusions.

                                     The first page and invocation for The Beast of Wolfe's Bay

Indeed, high school teachers could use the text to help explore differences between adaptations and stories that are “inspired by” other texts. Intertextuality is comprised of ranges, after all. Readers in college – especially those in graduate school – and more than a few doctorates should get a kick out of seeing professors and university cultures take a few pokes and jabs. Unless they’re sensitive like Dr. Wendel, in which case I’d advise them to take field work in a remote location and never return to “normal” life, as does she.

Quirky, quixotic, and upbeat, The Beast of Wolfe’s Bay asks readers to balance between anticipating new love and anticipating criminal resolution, between jokey asides and literary subtexts. Often the plot-driving presence of hulking, killing sasqui is just a strange after note. Embedded within is a subtle critique of the problems associated with high cultures vs. low cultures arguments and their inherent notions of “worth,” and Evensen seems to suggest that no matter what one values and thinks is “real” or important, time, literatures, and life choices always push against the boundaries of normalcy – and accepting that might be the key to ending one’s quest happily.

3rd part of Interview Series with _Gods of Asgard_ Graphic Novelist Erik A. Evensen

2nd Part of Interview w/ Erik A. Evensen Posted!

Read more about the Gods of Asgard author and his process!

Evensen Interviewed @ *Norse Mythology blog*

Part one of an interview with my friend and collaborator Erik A. Evensen has been posted at Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfried's blog on all things Norse mythology. Erik hosts questions about his book Gods of Asgard, which debuted in 2007 and is a graphic novel adaptation of the Norse myths, recently brought to the fore by Summer blockbuster Thor movie. "Brought to the thoor," you might say. :)

Anyway, check out the interview! When the next installment/s post, I'll help you to it/them as well.

Katie Monnin's GNR Interview with Erik Evensen and Lil Ol' Me!

Katie Monnin's been on fire lately!She's got another book coming out; she's been on TV, and she's talking GN's with Jacksonville-area parents.

Here she triumphs in making a dullard like me seem interesting, assisted by my friend Erik A. Evensen. The bulk of the interview is about our groovy new book Super-Powered Word Study, which combines comics and morphology in keen ways, daddy-o!

Pin-Up Style Promo for _Super-Powered Word Study_

Wouldn't you love a full-sized poster of this image for your classroom? I added the letters and the MP logo at the bottom and cropped the title art from the front cover and put it in the top left. When my co-author Erik A. Evensen, who handled the art for the book, sent me this image (which will be part of the back cover), I felt it was too good not to share!

Featured: Polly "Popular" Lopez; Trans-Phat; the Communicator; Green Tonya: She-Student with a Sword, and the Vegetarian.

Unofficial Promo Video for _Super-Powered Word Study_

The "A" stands for "Awesome"

Erik A. Evensen (MFA, Ohio State University) and I are teaming up on a comics-and-literacy related project due out this fall. Erik is an award-winning artist who earned the Xeric Grant to help him publish his first graphic novel Gods of Asgard, which is about to gain global distribution. In this clip, you can see him profiled by Lakeland Public Television, based in Minnesota. You'll also see him working on some preview art for our project! :)