It’s been a long time coming, but a fair number of teachers in mainstream American education are finally recognizing that what the comics medium brings to the table can be just as meaty and challenging as the best prose novels. This week we meet Juan Mah y Busch, an Associate Professor at Loyola Marymount University. Juan teaches comics like Frank Miller’s 300 and Anders Nilsen’s Dogs and Water not in special “comics appreciation” courses, but alongside novels like Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” to make other points about cultural history.
How do fellow faculty and administrators react to comics in the classroom? Do students have any trouble with the concept? Why can comics often be better for teaching cultural history than most other media? That and more in this episode!
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This week, the comic that shows there’s definitely an “I” in “Immune system”! In 
Irya is a boy in a unidentified country. His brother has just left, saying he’s going to “farm”. Then, Irya moves rocks by telekinesis. Wait, what? Tim and Mulele discuss 
While the phrase “’90s comics” tends to elicit some eyerolls nowadays — Foil covers! X-men with huge guns and lots of pouches! — there was still some good comics work done in that era. What was it like to be in the business back then? Joe St.Pierre drew some Spider-man Clone Saga-related comics, so let’s ask him! 
There are numerous ways in which you may have encountered 
Nearly three months ago, way back before “Tim Across America,” Kumar and Dana discussed Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s classic graphic novel “From Hell.” Now they’re back with a discussion of last year’s From Hell Companion, which includes an annotated script and a lot of other behind-the-scenes information, inspiring our guys’ repeated forehead slaps and exclamations of “How come I never noticed THAT bit of symbolism before?”
In a special bonus episode, we check out a few remaining tidbits from Tim Across America’s final state, California!
Tim Across America, part nine! When it comes to Big Two comics these days, there’s a lot to complain about. Marvel characters changed to look like the actors who play them in movies; nearly the entire DC line subsumed into a grim-and-gritty muck. And yet… we still like some of these books! Superior Spider-man, anyone?