iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Karen Green (she/her)

Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

America cannot long remain free, nor first among nations, if it becomes the kind of place where universities are dismantled because they don't align politically with the current head of the government.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

What’s up, doc? Seen hanging out on 231st St, half a block from the Henry Hudson Parkway.

A brown rabbit hangs out on the grassy verge as I head down the sidewalk.

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Reposted by Karen Green (she/her)

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

60% of American households can’t afford a minimal quality of life. Meanwhile, the 19 richest households saw their wealth increase by $1 trillion in 2024 — the biggest one-year increase ever. Our problem isn't a lack of resources. Our problem is ever-expanding inequality.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

@nsousanis.bsky.social and I made it into the timeline of 50 years of Columbia alumni magazine. If you want to see the other 49 years, click here magazine.columbia.edu/article/50-y...

Screengrab of section of 50 Years of Columbia Magazine, with the 2017 entry about my job, drawn by Nick Sosanis, which won the Eisner for Best Short Story in 2018.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

With thanks to J.J Sedelmaier and Howard Beckerman’s daughter Sheri, these beauties are now gracing our collection. Descriptions in the ALT text.

“A tragedy of temperature” comic by Louis Glackens in 1906. After a refreshing dip in the ocean, a portly gentleman retires to dress in his street clothes. By the time he finishes, he’s drenched in sweat.

An undated Sunday strip of “Abbie an’ Slats,” by Raeburn Van Buren. Judging by the fashion, I’d reckon mid- to late-1960s (the young woman looks a lot like Marlo Thomas in “That Girl). Aunt Abbie and her niece Kit are in London, where Kit believes a young man following them is a spy.

Not original art, but a beautiful “Barney Google and Sparkplug” game board, drawn by Billy DeBeck. A Milton Bradley game with a copyright of 1923.

A daily “Oaky Doaks” strip by Ralph Fuller, circa 1945. Oaky Doaks was a wannabe knight who made his armor from tin and took a plowhorse as his trusty steed.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

This is a major milestone. It’s even bigger than this post indicates. Art Spiegelman won a special Pulitzer. Tessa Hulls won a Pulitzer for a category that branched off in 2023 from one established in 1917.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Wonderful, fabulous @cathkastner.bsky.social drew this portrait of me after my visit with her in Paris. It is accurate to every detail, from Sacre-Coeur in the background to my fuschia coat to the pockets on my suitcase to my omnipresent chocolat chaud.

Drawing by Cath Kastner, of me in Paris, with my Doc Martens, my fuschia coat, Sacre-Coeur (I was staying in Montmartre, and my trusty oversize cup of chocolat chaud. Thank you, Cath!

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

So…more fun at Columbia. I left the library at about 3:30 to go have tea with a donor. There was a crowd outside the entrance, but they were milling about. No chanting, no placards.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Last night at @92ndstreety.bsky.social : Naomi Fry talks with Robert Crumb and Dan Nadel, on the occasion of the release of Dan’s Crumb biography. Also, obviously, the most important content in the book (see alt-text for why)!

Onstage at the Y: Naomi Fry talks with Robert Crumb and Dan Nadel beneath a photo of the book cover.

In the acknowledgements: thanks given to me ☺️ ! The university was still closed to non-Columbia researchers at the time, and I spent a few hours with Dan on Zoom, projecting scores of letters between Robert, Aline, or Jesse Crumb and Denis Kitchen of Kitchen Sink Press, the most useful of which i scanned and emailed to him.

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Reposted by Karen Green (she/her)

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

MMR vaccine doesn’t just prevent measles, mumps, and rubella. It also prevents RFK Jr. from showing up at your child’s funeral to exploit your grief at your most vulnerable moment.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Look at this absolute BEAUTY of a cartoon: Sisters of Liberty!, by Burris Jenkins, 1943. From a time when a majority of Americans pulled together for a common goal. Hard to believe, eh?

Original art for a 1943 cartoon about women in the war effort. Women are shown as nurses, welders, Red Cross workers, in factories tightening airplane tires, working heavy machinery, oiling propellers, and in the various Women’s Auxiliary uniforms. In the center of them all, Lady Liberty holds her torch up high.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Interesting. I would have expected the price to be higher. The one on the left might belong in a different bin, though.

A bin at a bodega, with a sign reading “CoCunt $3.99 each”—the coconut on the far left bears a resemblance to male genitalia.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Jeez, let’s get back to comics, eh? I’m trying to avoid current events as much as possible to stave off insanity (witness my last post, wherein I succumbed). Herewith, for those of you on FB, a minuscule portion of the photos we got in a recent donation… www.facebook.com/126490/posts...?

facebook.com

Karen Green

Also in the Robinson addition is a massive stack of photos, of cartoonists and comics-related folk. Some have a name and no date, some have a date and no name, some have bupkis. But here's a...

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Jeezus Chriminy-rist, “Democracy First”: are you his pawns?!?

A text from a PAC called Democracy First that is literally asking me if I agree or disagree that 🍊should be added to Mount Rushmore.

My texted response, which I’m sure they’ll never see, expressing my dismay and disgust that Mount Fucking Rushmore is what they consider worthy of my time when my country is being dismantled and sold for parts, while we lose every ally we’ve ever had.

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Aditya Mukerjee 🦦 🏳️‍🌈 @chimeracoder.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

If you are pissed off about the news that Columbia University is capitulating to Trump, please consider donating to the Spectator, the fully independent newspaper that has broken so much of the news about Columbia's role in Gaza protests and more. www.specpublishing.com/donate

specpublishing.com

Support Work-Study — Spectator Publishing Company

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Reposted by Karen Green (she/her)

Aditya Mukerjee 🦦 🏳️‍🌈 @chimeracoder.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

The Columbia Spectator is published by a 501(c)3 that is financially independent from Columbia University. Outside donations are the reason they are able to keep up the amazing journalism they do, holding Columbia University accountable.

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Reposted by Karen Green (she/her)

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Okay, this is my newest very very favorite meme.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Gotta admit—this is not a shining moment in the history of NY Democrats.

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Reposted by Karen Green (she/her)

Tal Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

the fact that people are being disappeared in the name of ""preventing antisemitism"" by a christian nationalist administration is making me nauseated and horrified in ways i cant even begin to explain

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

I saw a truly bizarre caryatid on a late 19th-c building near Columbus and 69th Street. I figured, that CAN’T be real. And what the hell—is she holding in her intestines?? I went looking for an image of the original in those 1940 WPA building photos and, sure enough, somebody did sumpin’.

A caryatid on the facade of a brownstone. There is no body below the waist: just a column of overlapping disks. The face is rendered in a primitive, almost mask-like, style. It is very flat. The right arm appears almost boneless. It also is wrapped around a confusing and indistinguishable middle that extends down past the top of the column.

A grainy detail from a low-res photo, circa 1940. There is a lively 3-dimensional head emerging from the wall. The upper body is covered with drapery, and seems to end under the ribcage in a pedestal, which sits upon the column of discs. The right arm rests on the top of the column.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

I got roughly 300 new followers today and I can’t help but wonder how many of them are bots…

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Reposted by Karen Green (she/her)

Katy Montgomerie 🦗 @katymontgomerie.com · 27/02/2025

The fact that the USA has banned visas for trans people but welcomed rapist Andrew Tate shows how all this "defending women" stuff is total bullshit

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Well, it's been a long time in the works, but at last the elf is out of the bag: Wendy & Richard Pini have donated $500K to create an endowed fund to support acquisitions, processing, and stewardship of the comics collections at Columbia. www.forbes.com/sites/dbloom...

forbes.com

ElfQuest Creators Donate $500,000 To Columbia University Comics Archive

Wendy and Richard Pini, who previously donated a collection of Elfquest work, are nearly doubling the resources to preserve Columbia University's comic book collections.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

This…this is quite a good idea. Punk versions. C&W versions. Swiftie versions. The whole gamut.

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Reposted by Karen Green (she/her)

Matthew Dow Smith @matthewdowsmith.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Every artist I know is really struggling right now. Financially, emotionally, their confidence, in general. If you like an artist's work, support them any way you can. Buying their stuff or subscribing to their Patreon is great, but words of encouragement are also incredibly helpful.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Bravo to Governor Mills of Maine! Proud that my father was a State of Mainer, and wish he were alive to hear her (he’s been gone for 39 years). Her third paragraph is the crux for me, and echoes Martin Niemöller’s famous “First they came…” maxim.

The full text of Governor Mill’s statement:

“I have spent my career – as a District Attorney, as Attorney General, and now as Governor – standing up for the rule of law in Maine and America. To me, that is fundamentally what is at stake here: the rule of law in our country.

No President – Republican or Democrat – can withhold Federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold.

Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last. Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your

Side-by-side photos: one of Governor Mills sitting with her lips pursed; the other of Trump standing at a podium

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

For Valentine’s Day, my Amicus Incognitus gave me a new drawing for the Alice Sketchbook. This one is from Fernando Ruiz and is simply lovely. (For more examples, go to Instagram and search #AliceSketchbookKLG. There are some real corkers!)

A drawing of Alice in a forest with tree trunks and large mushrooms. She is holding the White Queen’s crown in one hand and the Mad Hatter’s top hat in the other. A frog is leaping away at her feet. The triple speech balloon reads, “These are very nice… but do you have something with ear flaps?”

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

The winners and special mentions of the BolognaRagazzi Awards are announced! Here are the winners I was involved with… Comics, Early Readers: www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/awards/bo...

bolognachildrensbookfair.com

COMICS - Early Reader

WINNER Gutenachtgeschichten für Celeste - Ein sehr gruseliges Bilderbuch (Bedtime Stories for Celeste - a Very Scary Picture Book)Text ...

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Sigh. When have Democrats ever taken that strong a stand on anything?

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Reposted by Karen Green (she/her)

Mark Harris @markharris.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

We are living through Republicanism boiled down to its essence: Everyone should be deprived of everything, because otherwise, somebody I don't like might get something I don't want them to have. We call it an ideology, but it's really a personality: Greedy, withholding, suspicious, angry, cruel.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Dang. That’s not even a remotely competent phishing attempt (asssp to you, too, tiger). Not to mention I don’t even own a car.

Text message providing a link to “pay” my FastTrak Lane tolls. The URL starts out convincing, then tacks on a -asssp.top/i after the .com.

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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Tesla's stock is ridiculously overvalued, and even a modest consumer boycott could tank the company, which accounts for the majority of Elon Musk's wealth. The divestment movement weakened apartheid South Africa. Let's do that again. slate.com/business/202...

slate.com

Don’t Buy a Tesla. Sell Your Tesla. Refuse a Tesla at the Rental Counter. Yes—It Will Help.

Elon Musk’s car company is in a precarious spot.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

I started the graphic novels collection at Columbia just a few months shy of 20 years ago. In July 2005, we had three titles in the building: MAUS, PERSEPOLIS, and PALESTINE (I nice example of diversity right there, actually. But I didn’t want an all-English collection. (Exposition in ALT text)

These are the languages in the circulating collection on campus. They are in order of highest number to lowest.

They occupy three reading rooms in Butler Library.

But that’s not the entire collection. We have over 1000 titles in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. We have a separate East Asian library where manga and manhwa may be found in their original languages.

And we have Offsite storage, which is the largest library in our system. These are the comics languages housed there, but the list is deceptive. My search was: “comic books” OR “ graphic novels” OR manga.

But many titles from abroad have only a very basic “Comic books, strips, etc.—>Venezuela” which tells you the book is from Venezuela but nothing on what it’s about. Some have no subject analysis at all.

So, this list doesn’t include those with no subject terms, because I have no way to identify them. Nor do my readers. Very frustrating!

Still: I’m enormously proud of our diversity, and grateful to my colleagues in Global Studies who’ve provided many of the rarest languages on this list…

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

I know it’s not “cool” anymore but, for the love of all that’s holy, if you need to get an answer or arrange a meeting…EMAIL ME.

A heartfelt plea:

Folks, there are just too many avenues for communication.

Email, Messenger, Instagram DMs, Bluesky DMs, Texting…

Have I left any out?

Seriously, if you REALLY want to get in touch and expect an answer—or expect me to be able to find your message again a year or more from now—or want me to be able to search using topic keywords—or hope that I’ll answer a message more than three sentences long…

EMAIL ME.

Especially if it’s work-related. Email allows me to place similar messages in folders. Email allows me to search for your name or words relating to the subject matter. Email allows me to see the entirety of a multi-paragraph message and respond point-by-point.

Don’t know my email? It is ALL OVER the internet.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Ah, NYT Pitchbot, you’re like the Onion: parody is now indistinguishable from reality.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

The staircase in Villa Majorelle, Nancy. I never wanted to leave.

A sweeping, gleaming wooden Art Nouveau staircase, with a lamp hanging down the middle of stained glass with flower-shaped bulb covers. A stained glass window is visible on the first landing.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 10/02/2025

DO NOT MEMORY HOLE THE NAZI SALUTE! Elon Musk did it not once but twice, and with vigor! It’s been 3 weeks, and there’s been no accountability. Institutionalized Judaism has let him off the hook. It is up to us to remember, to never forget the ancestors who deserve better, and to make it stick.

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Alyssa Long @measuredandslow.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

My kid learned from Spider-Man that some kids have to pay for school lunch and is having a righteous meltdown about it bc “we HAVE to go to school so people have to FEED US and some people don’t have any quarters” so congrats, everyone in charge, an 8 yr old is beating you on both logic and empathy

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

I was lucky to spend the afternoon and evening with MAD artist Rick Tulka, picking up art he’s donating. After a lovely dinner with Rick & his wife Brenda, I prepared to go. Rick was clearly having second thoughts but the energy from my dinner served me to fight back. The struggle is real, people.

A clearly-staged photo of me fighting to get out the door while Rick lies on the floor grasping desperately to the strap of my art-filled duffle bag. The photo was Rick’s idea.

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Karen Green (she/her) @klg19.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

This time tomorrow I’ll be in Angoulême.

Photo of a departure gate sign for a Delta flight to Paris, leaving this evening.

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