Solve for X: How X-Men Comics Got a New Identity

Douglas Wolk

Free Zoom talk on April 20, 2022, at 5 pm PST. Register here

 

The X-Men comic books of the past three years—the “Krakoan era”—have reinvented the long-running, impossibly rococo superhero franchise, devising ingenious solutions to its longstanding narrative and design problems. Douglas Wolk will present a whistle-stop tour of six decades’ worth of Marvel’s mutant comics, and discuss how “Head of X” Jonathan Hickman, designer Tom Muller, artists Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva, colorist Marte Gracia and their collaborators overhauled the X-Men line in 2019.

 

Douglas Wolk is the author of All of the Marvels: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told, and teaches comics history at Portland State University. He’s written about comics and music for magazines, newspapers and web sites including TimeThe New York TimesRolling StoneThe Washington PostThe BelieverEntertainment WeeklyThe Los Angeles TimesThe Village Voice, Slate and Pitchfork. Wolk has been a National Arts Journalism Fellow at Columbia University and a Fellow in the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program. His other projects have included the books Reading Comics and 33 1/3: Live at the Apollo, the comic book Judge Dredd: Mega-City Two, and the record label Dark Beloved Cloud.