SCOTT ALSWORTH hears the call to burn down and rebuild the video game industry from the bottom up
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Comics and the counter-hegemony
STEVE ANDREW relishes a survey that sets the genre within a wider social, cultural and political context
The Chinese language only introduced a feminine pronoun in the 1920s. Now, it might adopt a gender-inclusive one, suggests JANET DAVEY
ALEX HALL is intrigued by a detailed history of Gaza that demonstrates its historic resilience and changing economy
RON JACOBS welcomes the long overdue translation of an epic work that chronicles resistance to fascism during WWII
MAYER WAKEFIELD is chilled by the co-dependency of two lost souls as portrayed by German communist playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz
The Star's critics BRETT GREGORY, JOHN GREEN, MICHAEL BONCZA and ANGUS REID review The Stimming Pool, Misericordia, La Cocina, Irena’s Vow, and The End
CHRIS MOSS welcomes a radical history that brings marginalised stories and overlooked people and agencies to the centre
British Comics: A Cultural History
James Chapman, Reaktion, £15
RECENTLY published in paperback, this entertaining, thoughtful and detailed analysis of British comics from the late Victorian period to the present day is not to be missed. Written with insight and passion, if you don’t see yourself as interested in comic books then this might well be the text to get you started.
And let’s be honest, comics haven’t had a very good press, not just from mainstream commentators but from many on the left. Depicted as the worst of an already low and trashy culture, they have often been labelled violently right-wing, racist and misogynistic so much so that in the late 1940s and ’50s the Communist Party of Great Britain joined hands with some unlikely allies to campaign against what were seen as reactionary and effectively pro-imperialist imports.
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While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
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The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
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SARAH TROTT explores short fictional slices of life in the American midwest from a middle-aged and mostly female perspective
STEVEN ANDREW welcomes the third instalment of autobiography by a libertarian socialist whose political work is charged with Gramscian realism
GORDON PARSONS recommends an ideal introduction to the writer who was first to give the English a literary language
AMY MAZOWITA draws attention to artists who are using social media-based comics to process emotion, show solidarity and disseminate knowledge