Kristian Williams

The Comics Journal is now a (mostly) online publication. I’ll leave it to others to wonder about the larger implications for the future of comics, criticism, the Journal, and print culture. But one immediate result is that my writing on comics will be appearing more regularly.

It’s only been two weeks since the debut of the new online version of the Journal, and already I have three articles there.

Two are short reviews — one of The Simpsons’ Tree House of Horror #15 (the comic, not the tv show); the other of Shaun Tan’s illustrated short story collection, Tales from Outer Suburbia.

More importantly, though, there is also the first installment of a four-part essay on “The Spanish Civil War, Cartooning, and the Cultural Imagination.” (Truth to tell, I’m particularly proud of this piece.)

You can find all my work for the new online Journal archived at:
http://www.tcj.com/?author=15

I have two new articles out now, each in its own way concerned with state violence.

The first is a long essay about Oscar Wilde and prison, describing his experiences in prison, his attitudes about crime and punishment, and his political efforts after his release.

The essay is titled “A Criminal with a Noble Face”: Oscar Wilde’s Encounters with the Victorian Gaol.

I wrote it with support from the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and you can see it at their website.

The other piece is a review of Judith Butler’s latest book, Frames of War.

It’s in the December issue of In These Times, and on their web site.

There’s a good discussion taking place over at the Gathering Forces website about the potential (and the limitations) of Copwatch organizing. I contributed a small piece on my experience doing that work, and my views on why it is important.

Check it out:
http://gatheringforces.org/2009/11/03/whither_copwatch/

The latest episode of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” features an interview with me. I discuss the history of the police, militarization, crowd control, and . . . donuts.

It’s all put in the context of the recent G20 protests, but I actually did the interview months ago.

Watch it here.