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Crownsville

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by Dr. Javier A Suarez   DISCLAIMERS The review is split into spoiler-free and spoiler-filled sections with clear demarcations for each, but even the “spoiler-free” sections will delve into the themes and general set-up of the book. The book contains depictions of serious child abuse. The book also contains disturbing portrayals of racially motivated violence against Black people. I am not a Black person, so the point of view of my review will invariably be from a perspective outside of this particular lived experience. Content advisory: For domestic violence, including child abuse:  National Domestic Violence Hotline in the United States… Read More

A Mild Case of Mass Hysteria

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by Laboni Das Some illnesses begin with a virus. Others begin with a rumour. Felix Cheong’s A Mild Case of Mass Hysteria, illustrated by Ritwick Roy and Riddhi Trivedi, opens with an event that sounds too strange to be true. Set in Singapore in October 1967, the graphic novel revisits one of the country’s most unusual episodes of collective fear: suo yang, when hundreds of people believed their genitals were retracting into their bodies and that death would soon follow. For many readers outside Southeast Asia, this episode will be entirely unfamiliar. Yet Cheong wisely refuses to treat it as… Read More

Trans History—From Ancient Times to the Present Day

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By Martha Cornog   Content advisory: This book/review discusses suicide and sexual violence. The crisis Lifeline number in the U.S. and Canada is 988, in the U.K. it’s 999; and for elsewhere go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines.   Trans History aims to explain the nature of “trans” (also referred to as “transsexual” or “transgender”) by telling the stories of notable likely-trans individuals throughout history, following a sequence from earliest documented times to the present. These brief biographies are intercut with anecdotes about laws and customs that have been applied to such people over the centuries, and commentary about how these individuals fit—or… Read More

The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad

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by Victoria James The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, by David Lester and Marcus Rediker with an Afterword by Paul Buhle, is a striking graphic retelling of a significant moment of collective resistance in the history of the transatlantic slave trade. Adapted from Rediker’s historical study The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom, this graphic novel brings the 1839 uprising into vivid focus, restoring the fifty‑three enslaved African people onboard La Amistad to the center of their own narrative. By situating the graphic novel within a “history-from-below” (p. 117, Afterword) framework, the authors successfully challenge the… Read More