Smash Pages Q&A: Jeffrey A. Brown

The pop culture scholar discusses his latest books on superheroes, diversity and gender.

Jeffrey A. Brown is an associate professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and over the past few years has written a number of books that have looked at comics, fandom and popular culture through the lens of gender and race. Some of those titles include The Modern Superhero in Film and Television; Beyond Bombshells: The New Action Heroine in Popular Culture; Dangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetishism, and Popular Culture; and Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans.

Last year Rutgers University Press published two books by Brown. At the beginning of the year they published Panthers, Hulks, and Ironhearts: Marvel, Diversity and the 21st Century Superhero and at year’s end, Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes. What struck me most about his work is the way he manages to combine a broad reading – his new book looks at the comics and how portrayals have changed over time, film and TV adaptations, fan fiction and porn parodies, and everything in between. He combines a close reading of the comics with a broad look at these subjects across media and culture, and he does so in ways that fans can relate to and talk about.

We spoke in late 2021 about his new book and his work more broadly, and the need to be a fan of what you study.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Adrienne Resha

The scholar and critic discusses her comic-related thesis and studies, Muslim and Arab superheroes, and more.

Adrienne Resha is a comics scholar and critic, a Ph.D. candidate in the American Studies program at the College of William & Mary. She serves as President of the Graduate Student Caucus of the Comics Studies Society and is a contributor to and Assistant Editor of Comics Academe at the Award winning website Women Write About Comics. This year Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society, published Resha’s paper “The Blue Age of Comic Books,” which had previously been presented at the first conference of the Comics Studies Society.

Resha and I have corresponded in the past, but I asked her to talk because I continue to ponder some of the ideas she raised in The Blue Age of Comic Books months later, as she tackles not just the content of comics but the medium of comics changing as digital has altered how they’re made and how they’re read. We spoke recently about her work, which focuses on Arab and Muslim representation in media, studying comics and learning to criticize art.

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