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 ...

-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 gover ...

. 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). ''Fu ...

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, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'', ''

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 n ...

'', ''

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 t ...

'', ''

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 hu ...

'', Salon.com,

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, i ...

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 hono ...

'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 List of Eisner Award winners, prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Acad ...

, 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 we ...

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
Twitter
Douglas Wolk's Twitter
Tumblr: All of the MarvelsInstagram: All of the MarvelsHILOBROW
Thoughts 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 {{US-journalist-1970s-stub