MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 041: QLRM GSV XOFY! In today’s comics world, there seems to be an ever-expanding population of websites, user groups, Facebook fan pages, and apps as part of the wider network of “social media.” Today’s wider network leads me to consider the comics clubs of days gone by. There […]

MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 040: Great Power “Good grief!” Obviously, that exclamation was in wide circulation long before Charles Schulz used it as an expression of dismay and exasperation in Peanuts. Although it seems forever bound to Charlie Brown, it was Patty who first uttered the phrase in the strip—on July 15, 1952. […]

MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 039: 2016 Fanniversary 55 Last year in September, I celebrated the 55th anniversary of the sparks that were soon to ignite the tinder of my involvement in the world of comics fandom. Don and I had attended the World Science Fiction Convention in Pittsburgh at which we decided […]

MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 038: The Little Red Hen We know the story, right? The little red hen finds the wheat, asks her friends for help planting it, they say they won’t help, so she does it herself. And harvests it and grinds it to flour and makes the bread and bakes […]

MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 037: Villainy Again and again, comics fans tend to focus on heroics: Which good guy or gal is better, is nicer, has a better costume, is more powerful than which other good guy or gal? The forces against which superheroes struggle (and, in so doing, provide us with […]

MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 036: Goofy Heroics of the Code When characters in masks and capes fought villainy in the early days of comic books, their goals pretty much involved defeating bad folks. With stories that seemed inspired by the likes of newspaper strip crime-fighter Dick Tracy, they tackled, often with grim […]