What is the GBG Metric of DEI Utility? A Definition and a Sample

This formula for determining the utility of a college or university's DEI faculty and staff was developed by my Twitter friend DeAngelo "Dee" Snutz in late January or early February of 2023. I am sure it is overly simplistic in many ways, but perhaps it is a necessary start to evaluating (and articulating) clearly-defined goals of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity work on campuses? 

An Application of the GBG Metric of DEI Utility

The GBG presupposes:

       A.   That the goal of DEI is to increase the numbers of students of color on campus.

       B.    That the goal of DEI might be to increase the number of students on campus who are students of color, first-generation students, students from working class backgrounds, and any and all combinations or iterations thereof.

Example: “Presupposition A” Applied to Smahller-Mahn College:

SMC employs 5 people who are listed as working in the DEI domain. Their combined salary is $200,000 per year (X). The overall cost of attending Smahller-Mahn College is $25,000 per year (Y). These numbers yield a score of 8 (Z), given that 8 students of color could attend SMC if the $200,000 were applied differently.

Currently, SMC has an exact enrollment of 5 students of color (A). So, the ratio of students of color who could attend SMC (Z) compared to the current number actually enrolled (A) is 8:5.

Ideally, the Z should exhibit at least a 1:1 ratio, but better Z scores would represent 1:1+N metric wherein it is clear that there are more people of color enrolled at Smahller-Mahn than the combined salaries of DEI personnel could support.

To that end, to maximize utility of DEI monies for the sake of increasing enrollment of students of color such that the ratio of students of color who could be enrolled matches the number of students of color who are enrolled (a 1:1 ratio), Smahller-Mahn College should reallocate at least $75,000 to funds that would directly enroll more students of color. For the greater good of Smahller-Mahn, current DEI salary expenditures should be reallocated toward student scholarships or other entities that would directly affect minority student enrollment. If diversity, equity, and inclusion are truly important on campus, making these adjustments would make Smahller-Mahn a greater campus than as it exists currently.

Update: The name of the metric was changed to the GBG Metric as a goodwill gesture on March 27, 2023. Image updated June 30, 2023. 

Diversity Pledge/Statement of Pledges and Supports

 Last year or so, I began working on what, for me, would constitute an honest diversity pledge. I worked on it under the pretense that my employer would soon ask for such documents. As you know, many universities and colleges ask applicants to share a diversity statement or to take a diversity pledge.  I share mine with you below. Feel free to tell me what you think about it via a post at my current twitter account, @CarterAcademyNC. What does it lack? Is it a radical document based on today's preferences within the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI, or "DIE," as some call it)? What elements of current academic parlance and conscientiousness does it not cover?

I support the notion that people deserve to be named as they want to be named and identified how they want to be identified regarding gender and pronouns. I do not support the idea that one must believe that the named identity or named gender of any person is who or what they really are, though I pledge to be respectful of calling people by their chosen names and using their chosen pronouns to the best of my ability. I do not support the corrupt, Marxist radical front known as Black Lives Matter. I do believe that all Black lives are important, including the lives of Black Republicans, Libertarians, Classical Liberals, and Conservatives, and the millions of Black lives that have been lost through abortion.  I do support and pledge to continue to support the pro-country, pro-family, and pro-accountability Black-led movement Take Charge. I do not support Black sovereignty, or the sovereignty of any people based solely on race. I support and pledge to continue to support national sovereignty, sovereignty of a nation to be a nation, to protect its citizens, to maintain borders, and to act in the interests of its own citizenry while offering help to those who may not yet be its citizens. I do not support the erroneous, divisive 1619 Project or its tenets as teachings of fact and am especially skeptical of the claim that America’s founding principle is slavery. I support the pro-Founders, pro-American 1776 Unites and the Black-led Woodson Center that helped create it. I acknowledge the efforts of Thomas Jefferson to pinpoint the stain of America’s reliance on slavery as a sin foisted upon the colonies by its European controllers, as Jefferson maintained in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence. I support and pledge to continue to support notions of history that are expansive, interpretive, as accurate as possible, and centered around the recognition of the sacrifices people of all kinds have made to move America ever closer to what Barack Obama has called its Promissory Note. I recognize that land existed in the eyes of God as His before it was ever conceived of as property and that the human notions of stewardship, ownership, and inheritance of land have shifted throughout millennia. I pledge to continue to acknowledge that land pre-dated man, and that land will post-date humanity as well.  I do not believe that the opposite of racism is anti-racism, or that, as Black academic Ibram X. Kendi says, the only way to deal with past discrimination is with more discrimination. Rather, I believe and pledge to continue to believe – and to act in the belief in -- what accomplished Black scholar Carol Swain says: “The opposite of racism is not anti-racism. The opposite of racism is pluralism.” I believe this pluralism must extend to embracing viewpoint diversity as one of many necessary diversities championed through actual diversity, inclusion, and equity work. Inclusion must not be gained through exclusion, and equity work must be rooted, from its onset, in the notion that all people are equal in the eyes of God and were bestowed from God with inalienable rights, rights that have been and still may be systematically kept from them by flawed humans, but not by God. I do not believe that white scholars should champion themselves as anti-racist; rather, it seems to me that should be an honor bestowed upon them from people of color based on their actions rather than from white scholars’ privileged position of and authority to describe themselves as anti-racist. I believe and pledge to continue to believe that the primary goal of diversity, equity, and inclusion work should be opening spaces to those who have not had access to them based on socioeconomic factors and such initiatives should work to create opportunities for the disenfranchised and people of color from all belief systems and political points of view.  I believe that education must be rooted in the classical sense of critical consciousness – the ability to consider multiple viewpoints and think them through – rather than rooted in ideologies of indoctrination and dogma. I pledge to teach according to this belief.  I maintain that the responsibility of those who educate is to help young people learn how to think and to think for themselves, with an emphasis on exploring the multitudinous reasons – not single-factor reasons -- systems have developed the way they have throughout the full run of human development. Further, I do not believe that any rational person should take advice about diversity, inclusion, and equity from any organization or entity so unaware of itself such that it feels compelled to take a lead in that work while concurrently being comprised of a membership that gathers periodically to celebrate ritualistic rites of passage while its members are adorned in hoods and robes.

Call for Papers on Creating and Sustaining Comics Studies Programs, Library Collections, and Journals

 

CFP: Paneled Scaffolding: Reflecting on Building and Sustaining Comics Studies Programs, Library Collections, and Journals.

 SANE Journal is seeking critical, evaluative, and reflective works from those engaged in the making, preserving, teaching, and studying of comics through the creation of comics studies programs, the stewardship of comics collections within libraries, and the establishing of comics studies-associated journals. We prefer writings that address the history, evolution, and dissolution of such entities. What is

the story of your program, collection, or journal? How does it reflect a situatedness in its field and the ontological, teleological, and epistemological surrounding it, both in relation to current exigencies but in relation to the past as well? What processes, people, and supports were in place – or not in place – to facilitate success or failure? Can the process of success and/or failure within these domains best be illuminated through a particular – or particular set – of critical lenses? In these reflections, articulate the issues regarding the proliferation of existing and future programs of study, collections, and journals within comics studies. Methodological approaches to addressing these questions are acceptable for consideration, as well as critical and reflective approaches. 

Please submit works through the SANE Journal system (https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sane/) by February 1, 2023. Inquiries can be sent to Richard L. Graham and James B. Carter at rgraham7@unl.edu and carterj@lmc.edu, respectively. Abstracts sent in anticipation of possible submissions are appreciated.

Join Doc Carter's Truth-To-Power Army: Raise Your Teacher Voice!

Doc Carter's Truth-To-Power Army: Raise Your Teacher Voice! Closed group · 34 members Join Group Welcome! This group is the social arm of the NCNC Podcast, hosted by your NCNC MC, Doc Carter. We welcome fans of the show and all who are interested ...

What has Dr. Carter Been Up To Lately? Give a Listen!

Listen to "NCNC Podcast" on Spreaker.

Welcome to the Archive!

From 2006 to 2016, I used this space to discuss issues associated with comics and literacy. The blog was helpful to many -- probably to more than admit it! ;) -- and only after emerging from a few years of feeling silenced do I now reopen the blog as an archive.

Perhaps I'll be moved to start writing here again, but for now, welcome (again or for the first time) and may this space and its decade worth or thoughts inform and inspire your notions on comics and teaching.

Sincerely,

James B. Carter, Ph.D.

Gene Yang "Levels Up," Named Library of Congress Ambassador For Young People's Literature

Yang, pictured here with Level Up co-creator  Thien Pham, is
a long-time advocate of Asian American voices in comics and
other literatures. The multi-talented comics creator now adds
Ambassador as an *official* title, adding to a distinguished career.

Gene Yang is celebrated for his comics, his commitment to responsible diversity within them, and -- of special import to this blog -- his teaching. Yang has K12- and college-level teaching experience and gets the comics-and-literacy connections. I am so pleased he has been granted this honor and opportunity. He's the perfect person to help the rest of the comics-and-education community fight *prejudices* and bigotries associated with oppressive notions of favoritism regarding so many things, the tyranny of the printed word among them. Learn more about his new position *here*.

No Female Action Figures? No Problem! (Sort Of). Is 3D Printing a Maker-Space Solution?

Notice anything interesting about these toy sets? Go ahead, scroll on down for a bit.

They feature characters from blockbuster movie and comics chains, but where are the women characters? There is no Black Widow in the Marvel set, and no Leia in the Star Wars sets. Vision makes it into the Avengers toys, but not Scarlet Witch. If and when The Force Awakens sets are released, will they include Phasma and Rey? You won't find Rey in the new Star Wars Monopoly either, nor in several other toy sets.

Perhaps the toys are on the way, but if they aren't, is there a 21st-century solution waiting to become reality in the realm of maker spaces?

While having the toy companies decide on their own to release female figures would be great, could someone take matters into their own hands and draft some custom parts for the Mashers series via 3D printing?

 I'll bet there's a market for such parts, akin to the market for special-made LEGO sets. And if someone made such plans and wanted to distribute them for free, I am sure the internet hive-mind would approve.

I come from a tradition of unsanctioned action figure customization. Before there were viable X-Men action figures, I would use acrylic paint and markers to turn my wrestling action figures into X-Men. Larry Zybysko made a heck of a Banshee, let me tell you!One of the Fabulous Freebirds had curly hair perfect for Nightcrawler, and I even had a Colossus covered in chrome model car paint, though I do not recall whom I customized to make him. My heroes were mine, of course. I didn't have the means or desire to make them for other kids, and it took some tolerance from the adults in my life to let me mess up my toys with costumes and accessories "no one" had even heard of (yet!).

Surely if I could scrounge materials to make the heroes the toy companies weren't interested in yet, today's savvy makers can help solve the gender problem in action figure sets until some of the toy lines become more inclusive. 

(Thanks to my Facebook friend J.A. for helping this idea long via his posts on gender exclusion in toy sets!)

The right paint and cloth for the "wings" was all
it took for me to have a Banshee action figure!

Happy New Year! Welcome a 2016 Filled With Comics Goodness

May your back issues be found, your bags unyellowed, your boards crisp and straight, and may your passion for comics benefit you and those around you all  the livelong days of this new year, 2016.

Merry Christmas, 1979-style!

Two-year old me wishes you a happy holiday season via this groundbreaking rap from Kurtis Blow, whom I wouldn't know about for at least another 20 years but would have wanted you to know about had I known about it then. ;)

The rap reminds me of the time I accompanied my father on a trucking trip through New York State.  I was in fifth grade, if memory serves. I remember Ithaca, Syracuse, and a town called White Plains (?) or White Falls. I remember a complete white out while we were on the road and a deer jumping in front of the cab so high into the sky it was on level with the 18-wheeler's windshield. Luckily it made  it past us! I recall stopping at a shop and getting a brownie almost as big as my head. I remember flipping of someone in a Camaro who almost ran over me. I remember stopping in a drug store and seeing the Todd McFarlane Marvel  Poster Book! 

Dad purchased a truck-stop cassette tape of Christmas rap songs somewhere along the way, which we listened to for as long as we could before tossing it out the window! We were harsh critics. I don't think Blow's rap was on the tape. 

Anyway, happy holidays and Merry Christmas! 

Privileged -- Not Informed -- Perspectives Keep Comics out of Classrooms, Teacher Educators' Considerations

Noting what appears to be less attention being paid to comics and graphic novels at the recent 2015 National Council of Teachers of English, Assembly on Literature for Adolescent of NCTE, and the Literacy Research Association, I have to revisit the reasons why sequential art may be getting pushed back to the periphery of teachers' and teacher educators' social and critical consciousness.

Luckily, current top burner theory and concerns, namely White Privilege, Social Justice, and White Supremacy offer lenses through which to, once again, make a claim as to why this might be the case: 

The light, white, right hand that feeds and starves. 

Around the nation, teachers and teacher educators continue to favor their dominant cultural biases regarding notions of success, quality, and worth. They keep out certain elements such that prevailing discourses and traditions are favored and those with different perspectives remain disenfranchised and under thumb, best seen and not heard -- if acknowledged at all. 

Despite all the wonder adding new voices could could add to their classrooms, these teachers maintain the status quo of bigotry and ignorance. Their knapsacks, ironically, are incredibly visible, and very few stand up to them due to the sheer numbers and weight of those who think similarly. Their privilege knows no ends because they privilege one another and can be as radical as they think they are nestled in the safety of their group think.

Miles Myers, Gunther Kress, other New Londerers, Scott McCloud, Theirry Groensteen, Nick Sousanis and so many others have discussed the reasons why, but has anyone called the reason comics and other visual forms remain on the outside looking in of so man English teachers' and English educators' classes?

Let it be so named: The privilege, bigotry and ignorance is the result of :

Write Privilege and Write Supremacy.

Julian Peters' Comic Poetry Adaptation of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a Beauty to Behold...

... and you can view it in its entirety here! It's not to be missed.

The Panels Guide to Manga Terminology

Who can't use a nifty guide to vocabulary associated with Manga? Surely no one in education or literacy studies can afford not to have access to one, especially given the monstrous sales numbers of Attack on Titan recently. Some even suggest that when it comes to American comics sales, Manga is the dominating force.

Luckily the folks at Panels have created a primer. See their Guide to Essential Manga Terminology here. 

Hey, Hey!

Hi there, readers. You may have noticed I don't update here as often as I have in the past. The blog's not dead. When I read a comic or graphic novel about which I think the public needs to know more, I'll post a review. In the meantime, here are ways to keep up with my work:

1. See a version of my online vita here: http://virginia.academia.edu/JamesBuckyCarter

2. I have a Google Scholar profile now! You should be able to access it at this address: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=v_YyMagAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao. According to information gleaned from Google Scholar on November 3, 2015, my works have been cited at least 270 times, and I have an h-index of 8 and an i10-index of 7.

The latest *SANE* features cover art by
Gene Kannenberg, Jr. 

3. I'm scheduled as featured speaker at 2016's Michigan Reading Association. In Detroit, I'll give a rundown of where I see the next decade of comics evolution and how teachers can tap into growing and emergent trends. For more information, visit http://michiganreading.org/conferences/annual-conference/2016speakers.

4. I'm still writing! I have work with ALAN's "Under the Radar" team in development, as well as entries for edited collections from academic presses. For one such project, I was deemed a "pioneering figure" regarding comics and education. That was quite an honor.

5. SANEjournal is still going strong. My latest peer-reviewed article, "PIM Pedagogy," was downloaded 17 times in September and had views from across the globe. Richard Graham is the managing editor of the journal now, and his first issue went live earlier this fall. SANEjournal now has four issues worth of research and practitioner-based texts, lesson plans, rationales, and more on the subject of comics and education.

Now for some miscellaneous comics considerations en mi cabeza, presented in stream of consciousness for your bemusement:

Learn to code! 

Saga still rocks; Sex Criminals is fun reading;  G. Willow Wilson's work on Ms. Marvel is awesome but G-Force is over-rated; Gene Yang is amazing and his Secret Coders is such a great idea for a book. I'm puzzled that Nimona is getting as much critical attention as it has based on its quality, which is, well, "meh," in my opinion. I'd hoped reading Stevenson, Ellis, Watters and Allen's Lumberjanes would reveal that Nimona was a working space for a new comics writer to hone their skills before nailing it with their next efforts, but I've read enough summer camp comics already. I do feel Lumberjanes has merited the positive attention it has received, though. Bitch Planet continues to challenge me, engage me and enrage me (Well, consternate me, anyway). Writers and critics need to let a series actually debut before they critique it for shortfalls. Also, it would be nice if writers would address a character's entire history and mediated representations before making claims about race, gender, or privilege within their articles -- or at the very least acknowledge the narrowed focus of their articles. Squirrel Girl is a fun, fun series, though I didn't like seeing it get a new #1 so soon after debuting. Raina Telgemeier is a full-fledged phenomenon now, as is Nick Sousanis. All comics are flawed in some way, as are all texts, and this is good news to scholars, as it gives us something to talk about. I'm eager to see fan reaction to the new comics featuring Red Wolf and Spider-Woman. I miss the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle being in our critical consciousness. I still want to make more comics. I'm about to start reading Phoebe Gloeckner's The Diary of a Teenage Girl, the one with the "Now a Major Motion Picture" label on its cover.  First Second seems to have become more corporate in attitude and marketing recently. I am curious to see how Preacher works as a TV series. I want to want to watch Supergirl, but I didn't watch Smallville, Gotham, Arrow or The Flash, so I probably won't.  As comics readership demographics shift, keep an eye on who appears, reappears, and (particularly) disappears in their pages. Doing so will help you see if we're experiencing a more open medium or one happy to replace old powered discourses with new ones. Swamp Thing is still DC's most interesting character, to me. Most floppy comics that I'm not reading but would like to read look like they'd be better read in trade paperback or graphic novel form. Definitely, I can see generational preferences emerge regarding what young people like in comics versus what I like in them, My oldest son is on a Doug TenNapel kick. I'm still hip to Derf Backderf, Nate Powell, and Ed Piskor. Have any comics works of the last five year had as much power as David Mazzucchelli's Asterious Polpy or Jaime Hernandez' The Love Bunglers? Maybe the Tamaki's This One Summer. Maybe.  Otherwise, not that I've seen. I need to read more grown-up comics, though. When it comes to comics-and-literacy scholarship, I often feel overlooked, discarded and disrespected within the education and literacy communities. A good job would fix that for me, though, I'm sure. I picked up the first issue of Gene Yang's Superman but haven't read any other issues in the series.  The news of a Dark Knight III intrigues me more than excites me.

Squirrel Girl has an entertaining set of eponymous titles and the best catch phrase ever.

An Alternative to Bags and Boards

I just read an article from Panels contributor Christine Hoxmeier about an alternative method of storing comics. I won't say too much except I thought the method and article were intriguing enough to post about it here. Click to see what I mean.  Here's a teaser image:

Rest Well, Tom Moore

News outlets report that Tom Moore, an influential comics artist known for his work in Archie, has passed in El Paso, Texas. 

Mr. Moore, who worked on Archie comics for three decades, was among the guests an "El Paso in the Comics" event I organized while I worked at UTEP. I learned about his presence in the area through an anonymous tip.

I remember him as collegial, humble, and eager to speak to any of the other comics creators and event attendees. 

While my time with him was brief, he left an impression, and I join his family and the comics community in mourning his loss. Mr. Moore was 86.

The Quick n' Dirty: An Underdeveloped Review of Ant-Man

Low-key, quiet, and with a simplified plot even for a superhero film, Ant-Man retains a balance of action and (mostly) family-friendly charm not seen since the first Fantastic Four release. Like that picture, the movie invokes both joy and tedium, but with enough charisma and character to make the most hardened comics film critic accept it like a goofy, well-meaning best friend -- with a pat on the back, a "Ruddy" smile, and a welcoming embrace. "Come over here and let me hug you, Ant-Man. I love you despite your flaws."

A "Way Too Early" Look at 2016's Eisner Award Winners

Can the emergence of feminine forces in comics help a series like Spider-Woman become an award-winning hit?
 Read on to find out!

In the spirit of college sports writers everywhere, now that the 2015 champions have been crowned, it's time to write immediately about next year's winners. I'm talking Eisners instead of Final Fours, though. Or would the comparison be more apt if  I used the College Football Playoff instead? Regardless, here are some comics titles and creators sure to make it on 2016 Eisner ballots. I think. I mean, what do I know?

Scott McCloud's The Sculptor, a study on the life of  exceptionally creative people and what it must be to have the urge to make and the compulsion and Godly skill to make art imitate one's visions of life and life imitate one's visions of art -- yet remain a fully fallible human restricted by the realities and fates of non-deity living -- is a sure-fire choice. Having garnered critical and commercial praise, expect this tome from First Second to be up for Best Graphic Album New. McCloud's reputation and place as an American Master will cement even more due to this great work, nomination or no.

In the categories of Best Academic Work and/or Best Comics-Related Book, expect to Nick Sousanis's Harvard University Press release Unflattening to make the ballot and get the win. With excellent, ongoing press and a network of fans spanning academic fields and popular culture audiences,  already Unflattening has  made an impact on hundreds and that number may reach tens of thousands by the time the ballots are announced. Part Understanding Comics, part Ways of Seeing, part Literary Theory: An Anthology, this book -- marketed as a comic dissertation (and it is in so  much as it is a long essay on a particular set of subjects, but do not mistake it for the same work Sousanis would have submitted as a dissertation for his recent doctorate) --  asks readers to reconsider their conceptualizations of knowledge and what counts as serious intellectual representations of such. Inspiring and eye-opening -- mind- and opinion-altering, even  -- especially to those who need to see a book of comics theory from an Ivy League press and an Ivy League-educated author -- Unflattening's following and success at expanding the minds of intellectuals and casual scholars alike make it a sure-fire awards winner. Expect second and third printings to wear some sort of medallion, if not the Eisner.

Bitch Planet is a lock for a Best New Series nomination and would make a controversial non-win

unless another title debuts with as much interest and pinache as DeConnick and De Landro's not-quite-monthly floppy from Image. With a loyal, championing (maybe even defensive?)  fan following, this title's mega-splash debut is enough to get it on the watch list, and while the series is still gaining steam and finding its flow, nothing short of a narrative meltdown will keep Bitch Planet from appearing on the ballots. Not recognizing this self-aware ironic female prison exploitation trope buster would make for judges who were non-compliant to popular opinion.

I have a hunch some assortment of Spider-Man titles will be in the hunt as well and will, along with Ms. Marvel, comprise most of Marvel's representation on the ballots. Whether the categories will honor  Spidey-centric writer, artist, or series I can't prognosticate. Will Miles Morales or Spider-Gwen take center stage, or will an off-center, quirky "super-powered yet still domestic"-themed  series featuring a very pregnant Spider-Woman fill the void left as series like Matt Fraction's Hawkeye and the fan-favorite She-Hulk fade from public consciousness? Could Silk be a dark horse beak-out series or character? Maybe the new group book will prove an Eisner winner. G. Willow Wilson deserves the recognition an Eisner would bring, but now that Ms. Marvel is not a new series, her best bet might be the very tough Best Writer category. Another prediction? The great-in-concept but tepid-so-far A-Force will not garner awards consideration, nor will a majority of contemporary Marvel properties beyond the titles mentioned.

Marvel will still have more representation on the ballot than DC, though, who will have to hope Gene Yang and John Romita Jr's Superman run continues to bring the heat.

Expect current sure-things like Saga and its creators to make at least one category, and expect a return of  The Walking Dead, maybe in compendium form (?), as well. I've a hunch Sex Criminals will find a way back into the ballots too, and that we'll see a push toward more literary, adult-themed comics and graphic novels to offset -- but in no way to invalidate -- this year's crowded slate of winners cross-associated with Young Adult Literature. If the Hernandez brothers catch fire with a new work or a chapter of Love & Rockets with the same meteoric impact as The Love Bunglers -- and having studied their cycles of work, they're due --  I expect Fantagraphics, Drawn + Quarterly, and Image to make the strongest hauls this time next year.

As with the sports columns, though, such columns as this serve as fun speculation more than anything else at this point in the new awards year. Let's meet in just under 400 days to revisit my predictions, though, eh?

2015 Eisner Awards Winners Announced!

Click *here* to see which creators and titles won. Though, while awards are nice, these accolades do not mean the other nominees and many others not nominated aren't doing equally awesome work.

One of Nation's Largest Literacy Events Happening This Week! San Diego Comic Con 2015

Memories of my last Comic-Con from 2012 loom large. Attending this event, which, this year, will most-likely attract over 100,000 enthusiastic readers and viewers of popular culture, is an astounding experience. Educators at all levels should recognize comic conventions for what they are: Literacy events for reading communities.

Seriously, you've never seen a deep reader if you've never experienced a conversation about what that one artifact in the corner of Uncanny X-Men #238 might signify. You've never met an informed, critical reader like the fangirl who can tell you every reason Carol Danvers rocks and exactly how creators have mishandled her character throughout the years and exactly how  Kelly Sue DeConnick got her right.

Me on my way to SDCC 2012, during which I spent some of my time cosplaying as The Thing.

Here's to San Diego Comic Con, all comics conventions, and the eager, critical, engaged, smart, savvy readers and fans who make them authentic literacy events worthy of educators' admiration and respect.