Carrie McClain

Some years ago, I was reading manga and gave some serious thought to the book covers–on what made a manga volume’s design stand out? The colors or lack of? The posing and placement of the characters and so on and so on. I was already halfway with…

You love manga. I love manga. We all love manga. Writing about women mangaka for this month last year brought some eyeballs to the site and was fun to put together on my end, so I thought I’d bring it back again with five more. Happy Women’s History…

I treated myself to some new anime themed enamel pins this month and thought about not just my love for pins (enamel, acrylic and lapel pins) but the ones that showed my adoration for anime in general. I thought back on an older piece on the site by…

With the pandemic came a wave of people falling back on the word ‘comfort,’ and it extended past comfort foods. People started championing their comfort books, television series, movies, and more to anyone who would listen as it was key to aiding…

A one shot in manga is more commonly known as a single, sometimes standalone story. It is the manga equivalent of a short story and an excellent way for readers to get a feel for a manga creator’s storytelling and art style. I thought of a one shot…

As a young child, I was fascinated with flying. No, that’s not right. It is truer to write that I was fascinated with images of people flying and the freedom afforded to them. I found my heart soaring with seeing Black folks cut away from the…

A film that stands as a deliciously horror genre short and also a piece of cinema that speaks to Black motherhood and Black girlhood, Blood Runs Down is an exceptional film that has haunted me since I first watched it two years ago. Written &…

CW: This review will discuss themes of child neglect and death. Published in 2016, the gods lie is a brilliant self-contained single volume of manga with a powerful story about the complexities of childhood and the death of innocence. In it,…

Reflecting on Redemption, Accountability and Blackness Director Kathryn Bigelow’s name and ultimately her legacy will bring to mind that she became the first woman in Oscar history to win the Best Director award in 2010. According to her IMDB…

Under lock down during the COVID-19 crisis, I have been doing a LOT of reading. In the midst of all the reading I’ve been doing, I started giving serious thought to the book covers, the illustrations and text that give us the very, first visual look…