and so I’m back from inner space

Writing? Why, yes, I’ve been doing a bunch of that lately.

My most recent graphic novel roundup for the New York Times Book Review covers books by Jason, Kate Beaton, Ryan North and Erica Henderson, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro, and Asaf and Tomer Hanuka and Boaz Lavie.

Over at Billboard, I wrote about David Bowie’s career-long relationship with R&B. I also interviewed Sleater-Kinney and Carole King and reviewed albums by Yo La Tengo, the Chemical Brothers and the Isley Brothers.

I’ve been writing a series of limericks inspired by out-of-context comics panels for Hilobrow. (I also provided text for a new tarot card for them.)

For Pitchfork, I wrote about Bowie’s Young Americans and Five Years 1969-1973, the [Cease & Desist] DIY! compilation, Sly & the Family Stone’s Live at the Fillmore East, the Velvet Underground’s The Complete Matrix Tapes box, etc.

I wrote some significant chunks of recent Rolling Stone “bookazines” about Bowie and Bob Dylan, but those aren’t online. Likewise with some short essays about foxes in world mythology for Dark Circle Comics’ The Fox and a chapter on comics publishing for the forthcoming anthology Literary Publishing in the Twenty-First Century.

For the Los Angeles Times, I wrote about Stan Lee’s Amazing Fantastic Incredible.

I’ve started a podcast called FONFLIF!, with the estimable Kelly Kanayama; it’s mostly about gender-and-representation politics in comics. A couple of episodes are up so far–you can consider this our pilot season, I figure.

And I made a Spotify playlist of (mostly) hip-hop sources of allusions in “Hamilton.”

Otherwise? Teaching, cooking, working on a few secret projects, one of which is rather big. How’re you?