Author: Jessica Baldanzi

Photo by Jill Steinmetz I’ve been a comics fangirl since I was a kid—Betty and Veronica to my big brother’s Spider-Man comics—and Chris Ware and Lynda Barry helped complicate my understanding of the genre when I lived in Chicago and their comics were serialized in New City and The Chicago Reader. I first brought comics into my professional life when I created and taught a course called The Graphic Novel in 2008. I’ve taught that class many times since then, have also given talks about comics to general audiences and scholars alike. Commons Comics began in 2013 as a way for me to learn how to blog and to stay current in the field. It was hosted first by my college, then picked up by The Elkhart Truth, a local newspaper, before I moved it to my own page. I teach English at Goshen College, a small but mighty liberal arts school in the “Michiana” area, east of Chicago on the border of Michigan and Indiana. My specialty in graduate school was twentieth-century and more recent American Literature, but my teaching has brought me into multiple fields. My upper-level courses have ranged from critical theory and gender and popular culture to memoir writing, and my introductory courses from to composition and speech to creative writing. I am now co-editing an essay collection with comics and religion scholar Hussein Rashid about Kamala Khan, the new Ms. Marvel. Look for it on the University Press of Mississippi in the coming year. (Working title: Ms. Marvel in America.)
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Getting the Story Straight: Peter Bagge’s ‘Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story’

Originally published on GoshenCommons.org February 3, 2014

If you’re not familiar with Peter Bagge, he’s best known for comics about suburban youth with titles like “Hate,” “Apocalypse Nerd” and “Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me.”

Here’s a self-portrait that captures his damp, bug-eyed style as well as his chronically ironic tone:

bagge-my-little-pony

Image from reason.com

Continue reading “Getting the Story Straight: Peter Bagge’s ‘Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story’”

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History Made Accessible: ‘Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story’

Originally published on GoshenCommons.org January 20, 2014

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I encourage you to read, whether again or for the first time, “March,” written by the Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, and illustrated by Nate Powell. See the November archives for a review.

Within “March,” Lewis mentions a 1957 comic that inspired him and college students across the country to organize the lunch-counter sit-ins that gave the civil rights movement critical momentum.

march-mlk-1958-cover Continue reading “History Made Accessible: ‘Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story’”

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‘Calling Dr. Laura’: A Lost Father, Five Dogs and a Pet Chicken

Originally published on GoshenCommons.org January 6, 2014

“Nicole J. Georges: Friend to Creatures” reads the label on the home page of this week’s author/artist. Mainly a writer and illustrator, Georges is also for hire, according to her website, as a pet portraitist, punk aerobics instructor, advice columnist, and teacher of comics and self-publishing workshops, especially for young girls.

Here are some of her drawings and paintings:

cdl-juno-the-dog Continue reading “‘Calling Dr. Laura’: A Lost Father, Five Dogs and a Pet Chicken”