Welcome back. Today on the site we bid a very fond farewell to Mike Dawson, who is hanging up his TCJ Talkie hat with this interview with Tim Kreider. Thank you, Mike! For a look back at the many great podcasts Mike has turned in, click here. Also today: Ryan Cecil Smith returns with the third day of his diary; and Prajna Desai on a fascinating-looking graphic biography of Indian reformer Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar entitled Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability. Here's a taste:
Beyond this graphic pedigree, the book is also unusually germane for being grounded in present-day journalism. Its two interlocking strands join Ambedkar’s biography with a string of thumbnails about present day caste prejudice, violently pervasive in villages, though all but invisible to most urban Indians. The barbed but seductive quality of this double narrative, the fact that yuppie ignorance is sometimes too easily mocked, makes it that much more impossible to resist second and third readings. This robust exposé about caste is not afraid to tell it like it is—that if you think caste is dead, think again.
Elsewhere online it's a slow links day. The big news is a decision against attorney Mark Toberoff in the ongoing litigation over the Superman case. The decision is here. The Beat has analysis here.
A couple nice archival clicks... Horse-centric Gang Buster stories by Frank Frazetta; and here's a 1938-9 Jack Cole version of the early comic strip Foxy Grandpa.
And finally, Paul Karasik offers a tour of his current exhibition, "Graphic Novel Realism".
