And so, another controversy has erupted about a beloved author being allegedly “cancelled” by the “woke”. And once again, the screaming headlines and waves of social media fist-shaking have obscured the facts of the case.
To start with, let’s look at some of the headlines relating to the controversy. Sky News declares “Enid Blyton blue plaque bio by English Heritage includes ‘racist and xenophobic’ criticism”. Metro goes with “Enid Blyton’s ‘racist’ views included in English Heritage’s blue plaque scheme”. iNews has “English Heritage updates blue plaque information for Enid Blyton to include links to racism”. LBC’s chosen headline is “Enid Blyton’s work labelled ‘racist and xenophobic’ in blue plaque rewrite”. I could go on, but you get the picture.
An observer reading those headlines would get the impression that English Heritage has re-written a blue plaque commemorating Enid Blyton to call her a racist. However, that’s not what happened.
What actually occurred is that an article about Enid Blyton on the English Heritage website has been expanded to discuss criticisms of her work, including accusations of racism. The expansion in question isn’t even all that new (a trip through Archive.org reveals that it was present at least as far back as August 2020) so why it’s only now getting news attention nearly a year later is unclear.
Now, let’s take a look at the two-paragraph section in the article that’s raised so much ire…
Continue reading “Enid Blyton, English Heritage and Manufactured Controversy”
Marvel-Loki’s been the topic of discussion lately because of a series on a streaming service I don’t subscribe to, so now seems an appropriate time to take a trip back to the sixties and see another one of his four-colour battles against Thor. This time, I’ve dug up Journey into Mystery #108…
I’ve finished Divided we Fall: One Possible Future, an anthology that was published shortly before the 2020 US election and depicts a dystopian future arising from Biden becoming president (see also the 
In March 1993 metal singer Corey Collins meets the girl of his dreams at a karaoke bar in the small New York town of Fenton. Named Sandy “Btella” Bellavia, she captures Corey’s attention not only with her physical beauty but also her badges honouring sundry metal bands: “she had sworn the blood oath at the altar of the Gods of Metal, making her hard as tempered steel.”
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My latest article for Women Write About Comics (a site that yesterday scooped its third Eisner nomination!) is a deep dive into Chinese animated films based on the Ming Dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods, from 1979 to 2020. 
Juniper is a small and obscure town in America’s deep south: “You wouldn’t find it on any map, try a you might, because it seemed to evade those looking for it, hidden within a crease or untraceable like floaters in the eye.” Those who live near the town despise it; those who live within merely survive it – something that has grown increasingly hard. A flood wiped out Juniper’s main industry of farming, and after this came an intense heatwave that plunged the town into outright famine. In desperation, the residents begin breeding cats for food, referring to their feline food-source simply as “livestock”.