Douglas Wolk (born 1970) is a
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
-based
author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
and
critic
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...
. He has written about
comics
a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...
and
popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...
for publications including ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'', ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'', ''
The New Republic
''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...
'',
Salon.com
''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/ liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events.
Content and coverage
''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...
,
Pitchfork Media
''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog.
Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...
,
''Vanity Fair'', and ''
The Believer''. Wolk was the managing editor of ''
CMJ New Music Monthly
CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events and online media company, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music Monthly'' and ''CMJ New Music Report''. Th ...
'' from 1993 to 1997, and hosted a radio show on
WFMU
WFMU is a listener-supported, independent community radio station, licensed to East Orange, New Jersey. Since 1998 its studios and operating facilities have been headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey. It broadcasts locally at 91.1 Mhz FM, in ...
from 1999 to 2001. He has four published books. The most recent, ''All of the Marvels'', tours the Marvel comics universe via his project of reading all 27,000 Marvel superhero comics. In support of that project, in January 2019 he launched a members-only reading group, wherein participants collectively read and discuss a single issue of a Marvel comic book every day. He frequently appears discussing comics on the YouTube channel of Portland comic book store, Books with Pictures.
Biography
Early life
Wolk grew up in East Lansing, Michigan.
Marriage and children
He married Lisa Gidley in 2001.
They have one child.
Published works
*''
James Brown
James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...
's
Live at the Apollo'' (a volume in the
33⅓ series) (2004,
Continuum Books
Continuum International Publishing Group was an academic publisher of books with editorial offices in London and New York City. It was purchased by Nova Capital Management in 2005. In July 2011, it was taken over by Bloomsbury Publishing. , all ...
)
* ''Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean'' (2007,
Da Capo Press
Da Capo Press is an American publishing company with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. It is now an imprint of Hachette Books.
History
Founded in 1964 as a publisher of music books, as a division of Plenum Publishers, it had additional of ...
)
*''Judge Dredd: Mega City Two: City of Courts'', with
Ulises Fariñas
Ulises Alfonso Fariñas (born December 29, 1985, in Elizabeth, New Jersey) is a Cuban-American comic book writer and artist.
Education
While attending New York's School of Visual Arts, Fariñas studied under Nick Bertozzi, who invited him to joi ...
. (2014, IDW)
* ''All of the Marvels: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told'' (2021)
Honors, decorations, awards and distinctions
* 2002-2003 Mid-Career Fellow, National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University
* 2008
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...
, Best Comics-Related Book
* 2008
Harvey Award
The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be the successor to the Kirby Awards that were ...
for Best Biographical, Historical, or Journalistic Presentation
* 2010-2011 Fellow with the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program
References
External links
Douglas Wolk Douglas Wolk's website
Patreon Douglas Wolk's Comics Reading Club and Discussion Board
TwitterDouglas Wolk's Twitter
Tumblr: All of the MarvelsInstagram: All of the MarvelsHILOBROWThoughts and Oddities by Douglas Wolk at HILOBROW
Lacunae Douglas Wolk's blog
circletheglo.be, Douglas Wolk's tumblrDark Beloved Cloud Records
Articles with hCards
Living people
American music journalists
American music critics
Writers from Portland, Oregon
American bloggers
The New Republic people
American radio DJs
21st-century American non-fiction writers
Comics critics
1970 births
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