Tag: Media Studies

That One Matt Bors Comic

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

I have an essay appearing in a book called That One Matt Bors Comic, an anthology about internet meme culture that has a lineup of incredible names attached, including Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics fame and Ryan Broderick, the host of Panic World podcast. Many of the artists who work with the comics journalism website The Nib are onboard, as is the amazing Matt Bors himself.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m included in this constellation of stars, but I’m not complaining! I have a lot to say about online discourse, especially in progressive spaces. When people talk about “how the internet warps our minds and culture,” I think there’s a tendency to focus on right-wing discourse on mainstream platforms like Twitter and TikTok, but people in left-wing communities on Tumblr definitely have their moments as well.

The book is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/that-one-matt-bors-comic

Essay on WWAC about Machiko Kyō’s Manga Cocoon

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

I’m proud to have worked with the brilliant editorial team at Women Write About Comics on my essay “Nature and War Memory in Machiko Kyō’s Cocoon,” in which I discuss the imagery that propels the story of a heartbreaking graphic novel about the Pacific War.

An animated cinematic adaptation of Cocoon is scheduled to be released in Summer 2025. This is a high-profile project commissioned by NHK and directed by the veteran Studio Ghibli artist Hitomi Tateno, whose animation credits range from Spirited Away to The Wind Rises.

Although the essay (like the manga itself) should be approached with sensitivity to its content, I hope I was able to offer a small contribution to the international awareness of the narrative work of Machiko Kyō, a celebrated and prolific Japanese artist who has created some of the most groundbreaking manga of the past decade.

You can find my essay about Cocoon (here) on Women Write About Comics, an award-winning venue for media journalism covering pop culture from a diversity of perspectives. I’m extremely grateful for the support and excellent feedback of Emily Lauer (on Bluesky here), whose critical insight illuminates the discussions and reviews of genre fiction on WWAC.

Review of Japanese Role-Playing Games

~ Kathryn

This past summer I was given an opportunity to review an academic essay collection titled Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG. The work the two editors did for this collection is incredible, and every single essay is fantastic. Here’s a short excerpt from the book review that I published in the journal Asian Studies Review:

Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG is the first English-language collection of essays focusing entirely on a genre of Japanese games known for their complex stories and rich worldbuilding. The fourteen essays in this collection cover the construction of the JRPG genre, the formation of transcultural gaming communities, and the representation of issues such as nationality, gender, and disability.

Japan Studies scholars with varying degrees of familiarity with the specific titles used as case studies will find a wealth of information and resources in these essays, which briefly summarize the games while explaining why they are representative, important, and connected to broader currents in Japanese history and society. Meanwhile, Game Studies scholars will find approachable yet intellectually rigorous discussions of culture and national origin, which have thus far been relatively few and far between in the field outside of the work of a few specialists.

If you’d like to read the full review, you can find it (here). I understand that not everyone has institutional access to academic journals, so I’m also hosting the PDF on my own website (here). In addition, you can find Japanese Role-Playing Games on the publisher’s website (here), and you can follow the journal Asian Studies Review on Twitter (here).