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Nick Sousanis

@nsousanis.bsky.social
6.9K followers 1.7K following 9.6K posts

Comics as thinking. Eisner winner. Unflattening from HarvardUP (bit.ly/1vENIO7). Former Detroiter/NYer/YYC/now assoc prof SFSU-Comics Studies! spinweaveandcut.com Tags #comics #Unflattening #Nostos

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 11h
Continuing posting on making comics accessible for blind/low vision readers, this part of our comic shows 6 possible ways of translating just a single panel, to really illustrate how one size doesn’t fit all needs. Accessibility is messy & an artistic act itself! spinweaveandcut.com/mitcomic/
A part of a comics page, it mostly shows a cube that represents six views of the same comics panel (we can only see three because this is flat paper, but can infer all six sides look the same) with a Batman like character swooping down on some villains. Emanating from it are voice captions that describe this panel in different styles - minimalist to radio drama and others. 
See full description here https://spinweaveandcut.com/mitcomic/
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Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Some news: I’m (officially!) writing another book, tentatively titled TACTILE: MATTER, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE WORLD WE MAKE, working again my brilliant editor @armadilloproxy.bsky.social at @riverheadbooks.bsky.social. I wrote a bit more about it at my newsletter: buttondown.com/metafoundry/...
Publishers Marketplace
Deal Report

TACTILE
By Deb Chachra
Imprint: Riverhead

Materials scientist, design educator, and author of HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS Deb Chachra's TACTILE, an articulation of the irreplaceable value of the material world and why the ways we interact with physical objects matter more than ever in a digital age, to Courtney Young at Riverhead, in an exclusive submission, by Zoe Pagnamenta at Calligraph (world).

Rights: tdussel@penguinrandomhouse.com

Non-fiction: Science/Technology

September 22, 2026
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
in relation to our panel on comics for blind readers today, the comic @emilybeitiks.bsky.social & I made for @technologyreview.com - we explored the challenges and potential of making comics accessible. Can see/listen to it here spinweaveandcut.com/mitcomic/
This is page one of our comic on accessible comics. There is an entire alt-text file and audio version of the comic linked to on this page, so please check that out as it is more complete than I can be here.
https://spinweaveandcut.com/mitcomic/This is page two of our comic on accessible comics. There is an entire alt-text file and audio version of the comic linked to on this page, so please check that out as it is more complete than I can be here. https://spinweaveandcut.com/mitcomic/
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Today! Interested in learning how comics can be made accessible to blind/low vision readers? Tune in to our panel at 2pmET/11amPT to learn more from @emilybeitiks.bsky.social Silvana Rainey, @comicnurse.bsky.social @pfanderson.bsky.social & me! Learn about what we’ve done & explore the exhibition!
lib.umich.edu
Comics Beyond Sight
This exhibit demonstrates that comics can be made accessible for those who are blind or have low vision.
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 02/10/2026
This will never stop blowing my mind. A 12-year sequence of real telescope images of a star 133 lightyears away. And around it, four planets slowly orbiting. Four real exoplanets, each more massive than Jupiter, imaged as they move around their host star.
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Matthew Noe @noethematt.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Congrats on this getting going tomorrow @pfanderson.bsky.social!!! #GraphicMedicine www.lib.umich.edu/visit-and-st...
lib.umich.edu
Comics Beyond Sight
This exhibit demonstrates that comics can be made accessible for those who are blind or have low vision.
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Kiddo and I visited the world’s smallest movie theater today… Only realized today that we go by it regularly for years. No sign, no markings of any kind, just a literal hole in the wall! Learn about it here nypost.com/2026/08/01/u...
Photo of my thumb holding open tiny peep hole in wallA look in that peep hole where the movie is projected Back of kiddo’s head peering in the movie
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Wonderful look at @angieforfl.bsky.social & her important work and campaign in this month’s @thenation.com. On banned books, starting her bookstore, Cafe Resistance “they banned the truth, so we put it right here in the community…” go go go! Read/listen here www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Opinion column from the nation on Angie Nixon titled the freedom to read Excerpt:

Florida has in recent years been ground zero in the battie over the freedom to read. And Angie Nixon has bravely stood on the right side of history. Long before she won a surprise victory in the Florida Democratic Senate primary on August 19-and, because of her progressive positions and membership in the Democratic Socialists of America, suddenly became a national figure-Nixon started a bookstore in her hometown of Jacksonville that puts banned books front and center on the shelves. In so doing, she offered a contemporary expression of what Frederick Douglass described as "a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom" that has always animated the greatest of American activists and leaders. The story of her book-store, Café Resistance, is one of courage and words-into-deeds action, and it gets to the heart of how Democrats should position themselves in the so-called culture wars that
Republicans always gin up at election time.
Instead of cowering, Democrats should take
a cue from Nixon's inspired efforts to embrace and celebrate historically marginalized and oppressed melNixon offered an alternative template that defended, as she puts it, "the freedom for our children to learn true history and not have books banned for political purposes." She was an outspoken foe of the book-banning legislation on the floor of the state House of Rep-resentatives, to which she was elected in 2020.
And when the Republican majority rejected her arguments, Nixon started the bookstore and community hub. "In 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 1467, and Florida became the state with the most book bans in the country," she says. "So I stocked the books they tried to pull off the shelves. And Café Resistance was born. They banned the truth, so we put it right here in the community: free tutoring, coffee, and the books they don't want kids to read."
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Angie Nixon @angieforfl.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The most ordinary man imaginable came to my home state to tell me to ‘get out of America’ while he & Absent Ashley enjoyed the comfort of buildings my ancestors helped build. Imagine standing on the shoulders of the ppl who built this country & then telling their descendants they don’t belong here/2
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Tomorrow join @emilybeitiks.bsky.social, Silvana Rainey, @comicnurse.bsky.social & me for a virtual panel on accessible comics to launch a new iteration of the Comics Beyond Sight accessible comics exhibition at UMich. Should be an illuminating conversation & excited to see the show go forward!
lib.umich.edu
Exhibit Opening: Comics Beyond Sight
Hear from the exhibit creators, engage with the exhibit, and talk with tabling presenters.
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Skull (squirrel probably) in an owl pellet…
Photo of the skull of a small mammal with undigested fur pushed through it.
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Rick Jobs @richardivanjobs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
people keep telling me how terrific this interview is, so I’m reposting and thanking again @katecarp.bsky.social
draftingthepast.com
Richard Ivan Jobs and Steven Van Wolputte Figure It Out As They Go
Episode 110 of the Drafting the Past podcast
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Cathy Davidson @cathyndavidson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
We're live! On the @insidehighered.bsky.social podcast w @saracuster.insidehighered.com "How Faculty Can Be Agents of Change" www.insidehighered.com/podcasts/key.... Focusing on our book "Faculties: A Dialogue on Inciting Constructive Change in Destructive Times" @dukepress.bsky.social
insidehighered.com
Ep. 215: How Faculty Can Be Agents of Change | Inside Higher Ed
In their new book, Faculties: A Dialogue on In
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
What a fascinating class reading list to be on! Now I want to read all the books! Thanks, @eireannmor.bsky.social!
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Wow! What an impact @cathyndavidson.bsky.social & Hastac have had these 25 years! I did one of my first talks about planning to do my dissertation in comics at Hastac in Dec 2011 at UMich & that launched me into a lot of conversations I hadn't anticipated! Grateful...
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Last week was Matt Madden week in my intro to making course, where we talk constraints & look at Matt's brilliant 99 Ways to Tell a Story, and then Ss add their own additional page to the book! Some sweet ones from this class! Popup! Fisheye, contrast, diff style each pane, swapped w/water bottle
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Listening to this episode of @onthemedia.bsky.social on bike ride to class and while I should be long from stunned by what comes out of his mouth at this point, trump saying, they can write what they want but I don’t have to let them into the people’s house. If irony weren’t long dead…
podcasts.apple.com
The White House on Mute
Podcast Episode · On the Media · September 25 · 50m
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Andy Oliver @andywpoliver.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Today I saw the term "ai aren'tists" for the first time and I rather like that.
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Lucy Bellwood @lubellwoo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Oh ho ho, I'm joining the fine folks at @crucialcomix.bsky.social on October 11th for an artist talk about STAYING SANE WHILE DRAWING GREAT BIG GRAPHIC NOVELS. Sliding scale, nerdy spreadsheets and coping strategies guaranteed. See you there? www.crucialcomix.com/product/arti...
crucialcomix.com
Artist Talk: Lucy Bellwood
The adventure cartoonist shares strategies for staying focused while working on long-term, land-locked graphic novels.
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Anne Helen Petersen @annehelen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is *the* piece. Kate Manne, professor of philosophy at Cornell, speaks truth to the totality of failures at the university — and why students protesting the war in Gaza have faced far harsher consequences than any of the Cornell 7: www.thecut.com/article/what...
thecut.com
What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now
As a professor at the Ivy League school, Kate Manne has known many, many victims. There’s a palpable feeling on campus, she writes, that this is big.
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Internet Archive @archive.org · 29/09/2026
What's on your bookshelf that the Internet Archive doesn't have? There's an app for that. Scan a book's barcode or ISBN to see whether the Internet Archive needs it for preservation and digitization. Scan your shelves. Save a book. help.archive.org/help/donate-... 🧵
Four "Tools You Can Use" Upload campaign tiles arranged in a 2x2 grid. Top left, a cream and yellow tile with a folder icon reading "Upload" and "Contribute digital materials that you have the right to share." Top right, a cream tile with bold black text: "Upload digital materials to help preserve and share knowledge with people around the world." Bottom left, a cream tile with a screenshot of the Internet Archive's Upload files page, with the "UPLOAD" nav link and "Choose files to upload" button circled in red. Bottom right, a cream tile with bold black text, "Contribute digital materials that you have the right to share," and a small multicolor line-art icon of the Internet Archive's columned building.
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Tiffany Babb 🔜 NYCC @explodingarrow.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Did you know that twice a year, The Comics Courier, a newspaper 🗞️ filled with the best comics criticism around is available through Kickstarter? If this sounds like something you'd like, click that Notify Me on Launch button on our pre-launch page to up to date! www.kickstarter.com/projects/tif...
kickstarter.com
Coming soon: The Comics Courier, A Comics Criticism Journal [Issue 5]
A newspaper-format journal dedicated to in-depth comics criticism edited by Tiffany Babb
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Jack Smith says he stands by his decision to bring charges against Trump in the classified documents case. "If asked whether to prosecute a former President based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that President was a Republican or a Democrat."
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arpad okay @arpadokay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
read my review of a comic that is itself a comic
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Imani Gandy @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 28/09/2026
fucking really
thehill.com
Education Department formally rescinds Title IX protections for LGBTQ students
The Education Department announced Monday it has formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX interpretation that gave sex-based discrimination protections to students on the basis of sexual orientati…
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I love it when my reading interests collide, as Alan Moore & Swamp Thing turn up rather unexpectedly in the final chapter of @rowhoop.bsky.social’s important look at the symbiotic interconnected nature of life in Togetherness!
Page from a book, with text:

CHAPTER 22
Our symbiotic future
As a teenager, my favourite DC superhero wasn't Batman or Superman or Wonder Woman, it was Swamp Thing. A plane-based sentient monster modelled on a man who died in a swamp in Louisiana, he — they would be a better pronoun - they are the personification of the wood wide web, the vast network of connections between life forms in a forest. Swamp Thing's superpower is the ability to connect with all other forms of plant life, to interface, to mesh with them, and swap information. When! first went to New Orleans, on my own as a teenager, I was drawn partly by the desire to hear jazz on Bourbon Street, but also by the ecological pull of the Mississippi Delta, by the fertility, the exuberance of life that I read about in Alan Moore's Swamp Ibing: Until then l'd seen only European ecosystems, and Louisiana was a startling new experience. The heat, the steam, the trees draped with Spanish moss, the grinning caiman slipping into the water, the scrape, the buzz, the bite of the insects! The place seemed more full of life, with more niches crammed with more life forms than I was used to.
This book has been about these life forms and their con-nections. We've learned of the sheer extent of the mycorrhizal network, in forests and graslands, and the mind-boggling amount of information that travels through the network. As we ve seen, scientists have been able to measure that informationCover to Rowan hooper TogethernessText from the book:

on a small scale. They have tound that warnings about her-bivory, for example, can be transmitted through the network, and perhaps information about drought and other environmental conditions. What if, like Swamp Thing, we could tap into this symbiotic network, this alliance between plant, fungi and bacteria, and learn something? In this final chapter we will look ahead to our symbiotic future, starting with the concept of a programmable land.
Andrew Adamatzky runs the Unconventional Computing Lab. He is in the right place. When I spoke with him almost the first thing he said, as an aside, was that most people over eighty are tired of life. Why, for example, do fungi or slime moulds - theoretically immortal - never get tired? Or do they?' Well, I thought, the sexual and social lives of fungi and slime moulds are far more active than those of most humans of any age, let alone those over eighty. Perhaps this keeps them going? Whether ancient life forms - slime moulds, Pando the polytree, elderly lichens, slow-growing stromatolites - get tired of life is something I'd never considered.
But I wanted to talk to Adamatzky about interfacing with fungi. In effect tapping into their network with electronic com-puters. He has shown that electrical activity is transmitted in fungal networks in the lab; he thinks about whether we can take this further. Manipulate that activity, and build a funga computer." Adamatzky grows oyster mushrooms in the lab and connects them to electrodes; he has wired up a decaying stick gathered from a nearby woodland. The sight of this piece of wood, sprouting mushrooms and covered in lichen, in a lab connected to wires and electrodes and connected to machines - it's incongru-ous. Adamatzky thinks we could not only interface with fungal networks, but that we could weave them into wearable computers
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Alex Segura @alexsegura.com · 27/09/2026
Here's a gift article of the @nytimes.com piece by @georgegustines.bsky.social on our KNOW YOUR RIGHTS comic book! www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/a...
nytimes.com
A New York City Comic Book Offers Tips on Rights and ICE Encounters
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Jer Thorp @jerthorp.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Posting this @nsousanis.bsky.social mini comic about AI and creative work for no particular reason
spinweaveandcut.com
Fall 2025 Syllabi!
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Kids and I love this book and already recommended it to students last week, glad it’s back in print!
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Sometimes, they unpave paradise and put in a playground! Thanks for this @sunsetdunes.org Pirates Cove playground was pretty cool!
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Álvaro Pons @alvaropons.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Un sensacional hilo de @nsousanis.bsky.social que solo se puede resumir con una tira de Nancy!
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
people took care of Tamagotchis, but they couldn't feel pain either (or think or...)
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Alex Gibney @alexgibneyfilm.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The trailer for my new film, "Musk," has just been released.
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Cathy Davidson @cathyndavidson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I'm excited to join the other 2025 McGraw Prize in Higher Education winners Frederic Bertley, Joe Wolf, and Rapelang Rabana at 12pm on Oct 6 for “Optimizing Learning for a Volatile World,” a dynamic Zoom panel moderated by 2014 McGraw Prize winner Chris Lehmann: upenn.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
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Jordan Collver @jordancollver.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Thanks to @jgarciaiglesias.bsky.social for the paper copies of the comic we made together. You can read it online here: www.jordancollver.com#/hiv-aids/
An open copy of a comic about HIV, photographed against a wooden floor. #sciart
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I amassed a rather unintentionally crazy thread of cool things that can only be done in comics, showing a few things I use in talks/classes and some great prompts from others. 'Twas fun, and a good use of this forum. Thanks all!
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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
We just dropped a bombshell investigation into ChatGPT's role in the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting. Incredible reporting from @markfollman.bsky.social that will have far-reaching effects...hopefully: www.motherjones.com/media/2026/0...
motherjones.com
ChatGPT helped the Tumbler Ridge school shooter focus on guns, tactics, and terror, our investigation reveals
OpenAI’s chatbot fed the shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre.
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Colin Smith @colinsmith.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Street Smarts For Republicans”, by Matt Groening, 1995.
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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The Dartmouth provost's decision to stop writing by substituting AI-assisted text production is a great opportunity to have the kinds of conversations every institution should be having about AI use in higher education. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
insidehighered.com
Dartmouth’s provost has stopped “writing.”
Dartmouth’s provost raises a tension we should examine.
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David Kaye @davidakaye.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
to be clear, the admin is alleged to have deported AT LEAST 25,447 individuals TO COUNTRIES THAT ARE NOT THEIR OWN with, evidently, ZERO PROTECTIONS. this is a scandal and crime of historic proportions.
forbiddenstories.org
The Deportation Project Map
Between 2025 and August 2026, the Trump administration deported over 25,000 people to countries other than their country of origin. Very few of these removals were publicly announced by the US. The De...
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
One student, reacting to this news about AI, echoed the same terms as a senior colleague: “either there’s an honor code or there isn’t.” Just as AI blurs the lines between fact & slop, for too many students it’s bringing unnecessary confusion to that critical question.
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Your Internet Friend Tom Tomorrow @tomtomorrow.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
every fuckin morning
cartoon that is just a self-insert character saying TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026
Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵
Martin Kao, CEO of defense contractor Navatek, poses next to Sen. Susan Collins for a photo. Collins is holding a model of a boat in her hands. Behind them is a large sign with the Navatek logo.
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Rodger Sherman @rodger.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Tough competition of course, but the Trump admin deciding that white South Africans are the only group of people on earth currently worthy of refugee status has to be the most overtly racist thing any administration has done in decades
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
in my talk today, as an example of the strange things you can do in comics given their sequential but also spatial/simultaneous nature, I included this gonzo panel from 1950s Batman, which I just love in all its weirdness! Yes, I have more intentionally clever examples, but something about this...
part of a page from a batman comic. In one panel, batman leaps from off panel onto a diving board, the motion lines of his rebound travel across to another panel, where we see him finish his leap and crash into the crooks to save the day
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
My talk is in an hour (830am PT/1130amET) and I’m still pretty sure it’s open to the public! The link to join is at my site! (If I’m wrong, join anyway, and don’t make too much of a ruckus so they let you stay! :) )
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is such a fun book - we love it! Glad to see it back in print and at my comic shop last week!
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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
so I'm giving a virtual talk on comics tomorrow morning 830am PT/1130am ET for CT State's Common Read program – & I think, it's open to the public. I meant to post earlier, but if you are so inclined, details on my site here (down below my new syllabus): spinweaveandcut.com/comics-in-ed...
spinweaveandcut.com
Comics in Education Minicomic as Syllabus!
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Everything the pro-Trump billionaire Ellison family will now own: Paramount+ CBS CNN Showtime HBO Warner Bros TNT TBS MTV DC Studios Nickelodeon Comedy Central And more... With this comes the power to decide which stories get told, but more importantly, which stories DON'T get told. Shameful.
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