I’ve been teaching a version of “Superheroes” for my first-year writing seminar for about a decade now. My last major reboot was in 2020 (Black Superheroes Matter), with an inevitable annual refresh. I’ve really enjoyed pairing comics with authors’ non-comics writing (G. Williow Wilson’s The Butterfly Mosque, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Eve […]| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
We’ve spent this year witnessing events that I believed could not happen in the United States of my lifetime. The levels of ugliness, cruelty, hypocrisy, and indifference stagger me daily and…| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.” It declared that “the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties … to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech […]| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
I teach advanced creative writing fiction with an emphasis on what I call literary genre fiction — short stories that fulfill traditional genre expectations while also achieving high literary merit. I let my students choose which genres to focus on, and a lot of them are drawn to speculative fiction, especially dystopian fiction set in […]| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
The first book of comics scholarship I ever read was Joseph Witek’s 1989 Comic Books as History, when it came out four years before Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics and five before …| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
3 posts published by Chris Gavaler during July 2025| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
Joe Sacco visited Palestine in 1991, started publishing a series of comics about the visit in 1993, and collected the complete volume Palestine in 2001. I bought my copy in a Philadelphia comics shop while visiting my daughter last year. It’s a classic of comics journalism — so a little embarrassing that I’m only now […]| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
A great deal of my professional life involves writing, so the prospect of copyedits on a book manuscript conjures a special kind of fear and loathing. I’m also a writing instructor, of both fiction…| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
I’m very happy to be headed to the Comics Studies Society’s conference in East Lansing, Michigan this week. CSS posted its call-for-papers last winter: “Since the turn of the century, comics have considered the contested nature of American identity. Comic strips, comic books, and editorial cartoons featured stereotypes and caricatures that contributed to non-white people’s […]| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
I’ve not written about the Generals Redoubt since 2019. The alumni group first came to my attention when they suggested in a mass email that I be “eliminated” for teaching “inane” and “trivial” courses. I responded: “Why I Shouldn’t Be Fired for Teaching Comics.” I then had a lengthy email correspondence with a leading member […]| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
I’ve had the pleasure of serving as comics editor of Shenandoah magazine since Fall 2019, when we debuted the new comics section with works by Mita Mahato and Tillie Walden. I’ve also h…| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
3 posts published by Chris Gavaler during June 2025| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
First a huge thank you to Live Arts in Charlottesville, VA. My twenty-minute comedy “When Mephistopheles Met Helen” appeared in their third annual Waterworks New Works festival at the e…| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
5 posts published by Chris Gavaler during March 2025| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
A version of this commentary ran in the Richmond Times-Dispatch last Tuesday as “editor’s pick” and “top story.” When Donald Trump took office, he swore to “preserve, …| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
Political cartoonists make their living on visual metaphors. How many different ways can you draw Donald Trump destroying the document he swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend? Let’s…| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
My article “The Rise and Fall of Fascist Superheroes” was published in the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics in November 2015 — a year before Donald Trump was first elected. I&…| The Patron Saint of Superheroes
