Imaginary Worlds

Once upon a time, the funnies or the comics pages dominated newspapers – back when newspapers were the main source of information for most Americans. In those days, Walt Kelly and Al Capp were titans of the funnies. Their strips Pogo and Li’l Abner were cultural sensations. Both artists were groundbreaking in the way they incorporated satire into their fantastical worlds, back when the comics page was supposed to be an apolitical neutral zone. Even though their strips are not front and center in pop culture today, we are still feeling the ripple effects of what they accomplished. In part one, I talk with Mercer University professor Jay Black, BYU professor Kerry Soper and Harper College professor Brian Cremins about how Pogo met the enemy, and why he is us.

Link to Jay Black's book, "Walt Kelly and Pogo: The Art of the Political Swamp"

Link to Kerry Soper's book, "We Go Pogo"

Our ad partner is Multitude. If you’re interested in advertising on Imaginary Worlds, you can contact them here.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When the artist Cliff Chiang co-created the comic book series Paper Girls, about four suburban kids in the ‘80s who get caught up in forces that can break space and time, he thought they’d come up with something totally original. But soon after the comic book came out, Stranger Things debuted on Netflix. Both creative projects are part of a genre that’s more popular than ever: Kids on Bikes. I talk with Cliff about why he wanted Paper Girls to stand out from other Kids on Bikes stories. Screenwriter Stephany Folsom discusses how she adapted Paper Girls into an Amazon Prime Video live-action show by pitching it as “anti-nostalgia.” I also talk with game designers Jon Gilmour and Doug Levandowski about how they distilled the elements of Kids on Bikes stories into a role-playing game, and whether the genre is ready to outgrow its 1980s setting.

Our ad partner is Multitude. If you’re interested in advertising on Imaginary Worlds, you can contact them here.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Wizard of Oz is deeply ingrained into our culture. While many people can practically recite the 1939 movie, the original source material isn’t as well known. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum was published in 1900. There are a lot of theories as to what inspired Baum – but the answer may be who rather than what. Baum’s mother-in-law Matilda Joslyn Gage was a groundbreaking writer and activist who could’ve been in every high school history textbook if she hadn’t had a falling out with the leaders of the suffrage movement. But her ideas live on in The Land of Oz. I talk with historian Sally Roesch Wagner and UNC-Charlotte professor Dina Massachi about the politics of gender in Gage’s works and Baum’s stories. And I talk with therapist Dr. Gita Dorothy Morena who has a very personal connection to the books.

Go to https://hensonshaving.com and enter IMAGINARY at checkout to get 100 free blades with your purchase. Remember to add both the 100-blade pack and the razor for the discount to apply.

Try Surfshark risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get Surfshark VPN at Surfshark.deals/imaginary. Enter the promo code IMAGINARY for three extra months for free!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When the writer Nnedi Okorafor coined the term Africanfuturism, she wanted to distinguish sci-fi written about Africa from Afrofuturism, which is focuses on the experiences of Black people in the diaspora. Africanfuturism mixes the traditional with the futuristic in a way that resembles modern life in Africa, and many of these stories grapple with climate change. Although the writer Chinelo Onwualu says cli-fi isn’t a subgenre for African writers. It’s often baked into a lot of Africanfuturism because the continent is already at the forefront of climate emergencies. And the writers Suyi Davies Okungbowa and Wole Talabi explain that Africanfuturist cli-fi isn’t as dystopian as Western cli-fi. These visions of the future may feel daunting but there is often a sense of hope and the solutions are more community focused. The actress Nneka Okoye reads from their stories, and other works by African writers.

This episode is sponsored by Babbel, Surf Shark and Magic Spoon

Get up to 60% off at Babbel.com/IMAGINARY

Get Surfshark VPN at Surfshark.deals/IMAGINARY

Go to MagicSpoon.com/IMAGINARY and use the code IMAGINARY to save five dollars off

Reading list from this episode:

• Works of Nnedi Okorafor
• Wole Talabi’s anthology Convergence Problems
• Suyi Davies Okungbowa's novella Lost Ark Dreaming
• Chinelo Onwualu’s short story Letters to My Mother
• Dilman Dila’s story The Leafy Man from the book A Killing in the Sun
• Mame Bougouma’s story Lekki Lekki from Africanfuturism: An Anthology
• Omenana Magazine

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The imagery of Christmas in most Western countries is of pure wholesomeness with Santa Claus or St. Nicholas, presents, candy, lights, etc. But in central Europe, there is another figure in the mix, the horned devilish-looking character called Krampus, who doles out punishment if you’re naughty instead of nice. I talk with Jules Linner and Christina Albert about why it was important for them as children to believe in St Nick’s dark companion. Krampus event organizer and author Al Ridenour, along with cultural anthropologist Matthäus Rest, explain the history of Krampus, and why he’s still an important part of German and Austrian culture today.

Here's the link to Al’s book “The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas: Roots and Rebirth of the Folkloric Devil,” and Al’s podcast Bone and Sickle episode on Krampus.

This episode is sponsored by Walker Books and BetterHelp. Our ad partner is Multitude. If you’re interested in advertising on Imaginary Worlds, you can contact them here.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices