Writer: Benjamin Percy/ Artist: Christopher Mooneyham / DC Comics

WHO OR WHAT IS… WYRM?

There is something utterly relatable about Dick Grayson waking up to phone call from a client and proceeding to have a successive series of anxiety attacks regarding his personal, professional, and heroic life and still having to go about his day. Percy has amazingly frantic dialog, and Mooneyham perfectly captures all of these little expressions that embody those mornings where everything is just a little off and just a little inconvenient.

Nightwing #45 is about Dick Grayson, unplugged. It is a story that discusses the constant stream of information and technology at our fingertips and puts a decidedly superhero-esque spin on how it all connects. During a time where the newsfeeds are constantly ablaze, there is a definite appeal of shutting it all out and going back to the basics. Percy approaches the issue with a particular tact that makes a technophilic like myself sympathetic to Grayson’s situation.

And Percy does so much right with the worldbuilding and pacing. Halfway through the issue, Grayson muses on the history of Blüdhaven that gives the right amount of texture and character to a city that we have constantly seen evolve over the last forty plus issues, and it works both as a quick recap and way to drive the story along. These little moments let the issue transcend from good to great. And Mooneyham’s artwork is equally impressive, and the final pages embody the technological horror angle this story is going for, and I absolutely adore it.

The Bleeding Edge breathes new life into Nightwing, while also serving as an interesting meditation on our current technological usage. It leverages the superheroics in all the right ways, and this is an arc that you’re not going to want to miss.

Nightwing #45 gets “You have” 9.4 “Notifications” out of 10

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The post Nightwing #45 Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

Irregardless, you need to read this.

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It’s true. Viola Davis is starring in a new thriller featuring our favorite elements of the genre of drama — crime, passion, and corruption.  This is familiar territory for the Oscar® winning actress who plays the illustrious Annalise Keating on the ABC hit How To Get Away With Murder. Regency Enterprises and 20th Century Fox have released the […]

The post Viola Davis’ Latest Thriller Deals With Crime, Passion and Corruption appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.

Oprah Winfrey has been a mainstay in the American media for over two decades. Her impact on storytelling, literature, and in film and television has been significant, so much so that the National Museum of African American History and Culture is celebrating the media mogul with the launch of an exhibition that explores her upbringing, her influence on American culture, and her life’s work.

The exhibition, titled “Watching Oprah: The Oprah Winfrey Show and American Culture,” opened Friday, according to the Washington Post, and will run through June 2019. The exhibition features video clips, interview segments, movie costumes, and personal photographs, as well as journals, to explore “what has influenced Winfrey and how her work has shaped America.”

“What’s interesting is the same way America thought about Walter Cronkite—you could trust Walter Cronkite and his opinion—they trust Oprah,” museum director Lonnie G. Bunch III told the Post. “An African American woman becomes the person America turns to.”

Winfrey, whose net worth is north of $2.9 billion, according to Forbes, isn’t just a mere media personality, she is also an African American activist whose contribution to American culture “rank alongside those of Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells, according to the new exhibition at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Although Winfrey is the museum’s largest individual donor with her $21 million gift to the $540 million museum, Bunch said her role as a benefactor did not influence the exhibition.

“We made sure there was a bright line, that this was done by the museum and museum scholars,” he said. “The fundraising was not through Oprah’s people.”

The curators in charge of the exhibit—Rhea L. Combs and Kathleen Kendrick—worked with Winfrey and her staff on fact-checking, background information and arranging loans for the exhibition.

“In terms of content and narrative and the way the story is told, it’s the museum’s product. The way we approached it was the way we approach all of our exhibitions,” Kendrick said. “We’re providing a context for understanding not only who she is, but how she became a global figure, and how she is connected to broader stories and themes.”

SECTION BREAKDOWN

The Special Exhibitions gallery, which houses the first section of the show, explores Winfrey’s childhood and early career and how the cultural shifts of the 1950s and ’60s informed her worldview, per the Post.

“Civil rights, the women’s movement, the media and television landscape, she’s at this distinct intersection of all of these dynamic moments,” Combs said. “She becomes someone at the forefront of dealing with ideas, of discussing hot-button topics like racism and sexual orientation.”

The middle section explores the highest-rated talk show in television history, using artifacts from Winfrey’s Harpo Studios in Chicago, where the “Oprah Winfrey Show” was filmed. The section focuses on “its evolution, its variety of subject matter and guests, and its reach into social issues such as racism and equality.”

“She used television as a social medium, convening conversations and creating these interactive experiences with people,” Kendrick said. “She’s offering lessons for living, social guidance in a way.”

The third section looks at Winfrey as a “cultural influencer and tastemaker” in the movies she has featured and produced, the books she promoted in her book club as well as her philanthropic work.

“There are so many issues, about women, power, media, body image,” Bunch said. “This should be a popular show because of the impact of this person, but it is also a show that allows us to think about what it means that a woman who doesn’t fit the TV look could build a media empire and become an entrepreneur.”

The post New Museum Exhibit Explores Oprah Winfrey’s Life, Work, and Influence appeared first on Black Enterprise.