The name Jessica Pettway may not sound familiar to you unless you are one of her 200,000+ YouTube subscribers or 160,000 followers on Instagram. Beyond her popularity on social media, Pettway is a significant person within the Black community. Why? At 36, Pettway passed away on March 11, 2024, after being diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer. Her death is important to Black women everyone because Pettway’s death could have been prevented or, at the very least, delayed.
Like the story of many other Black women, Pettway’s life was jeopardized because of inadequate health care services. To help keep more Black women safe, here is more on Pettway’s life and death and what Black women can do to protect themselves from the same fate.
How a Misdiagnosis Led to an Unfortunate Death
Pettway was known as a beauty and lifestyle influencer and often shared moments of her life with viewers. Her presence online portrayed a confident Black woman raising a family, but in June 2022, her life started to change after visiting the doctor because of excess bleeding and extreme fatigue. She was diagnosed with fibroids, non-cancerous growth of tissue and muscle that develops in the uterus. In most cases, fibroids are not severe.
The doctors dismissed Pettway with no other concerns. Yet, she returned to the hospital a month later after her husband found her unconscious and not breathing. While her symptoms were more severe than before, she received a second diagnosis of fibroids. It wasn’t until February 2023 that she was diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer after an oncologist performed an outpatient biopsy.
Although the news was devastating, Pettway kept her faith and shared her journey with her followers. She told her audience that her faith in God would help her recover. Unfortunately, it seems that God had other plans for her.
While her story is tragic, Pettway was committed to sharing her fight against cancer in hopes that she would inspire others to take care of themselves and get the help they need. In honor of her, here are some things that Black women should know about cervical cancers and how to protect themselves.
How Cervical Cancer Affects Black Women Differently
Cervical cancer is when abnormal cells develop in the lining of the cervix, and anyone with a cervix is at risk of this type of cancer. However, Black women have a higher risk, especially women over 30.
If you’re wondering how cervical cancer starts, it most commonly comes from the human papillomavirus or HPV. This virus is prevalent amongst those who are sexually active and usually has no symptoms. HPV can go away on its own, but it can also turn into genital or skin warts or cervical cancer. Additionally, HIV and tobacco smoking can increase the chances of attracting HPV.
If HPV develops into cervical cancer, the early stages may not show any signs or symptoms.The later stages, on the other hand, may cause excessive bleeding and abnormal vaginal odor or discharge. These symptoms can easily be associated with other illnesses.
Cervical cancer has four stages. Stages 0–1 involve the development of cancer cells. Stages 2–3 consist of cancer spreading to other areas, including the vagina, the pelvic wall, and kidneys. The fourth and final stage includes the spreading into the bladder, rectum, and other body parts.
One of the most harmful factors of cervical cancer is its racial disparity. While the disease itself isn’t caused by genetics, Black women have the highest rates of morbidity and mortality due to limited access to quality health care. Other factors that affect Black women getting proper treatment include:
Trust in healthcare providers
Knowledge of HPV and cervical cancer
Workplace flexibility and time off
Transportation to medical facilities
Family obligations and responsibilities
Additionally, a study in 2017 showed that Black women take twice as long to clear the HPV infection from their cervix compared to white women. A slow reaction to fighting off the virus increases the chances of the virus turning into cancer.
How Black Women Can Protect Themselves
Because Black women are more vulnerable to this disease, taking the proper steps can literally save lives. The first way Black women can protect themselves is through a Pap test, also known as a Pap smear. During this process, cell samples are taken for the lining of the cervix and later tasted.
Another way Black women can protect themselves is through the HPV vaccine. This treatment can protect women from cancers caused by HPV, such as cancer of the vagina, vulva, anus, mouth, throat, and neck.
Along with the HPV vaccine, early detection is crucial. Patients have a higher survival rate when issues are caught and treated early.
Lastly, Black women must insist on getting fair medical treatment. While speaking up may be difficult and require a second, third, or fourth opinion, it’s necessary for prevention. Pettway’s life was cut too short, but her fight for survival teaches everyone to prioritize their health. Not only will she live on through her online content, but she will live on through every Black woman whom she’s inspired to advocate for their health.
[ID: A screenshot of Eda from The Owl House, an old woman with pale skin, very large, grey hair and pointed ears in a red dress. Beside the screenshot on a dark pink background is text that reads "Disability in media, How the Owl House got amputee representation right before eda ever lost her arm." /End ID]
Dana Terrace's The Owl House has some of the best disability rep I’ve seen on a Disney channel show in a long time, with Eda, the main character’s mentor, being one of many stand-out examples.
Plenty of people have discussed how Eda’s curse and the loss of her magic can work as an allegory for disability and how refreshing it is to see a story (especially one aimed at a younger audience) who’s focus is not on her “overcoming” it, but learning to accept it as a part of her and go from there. Eda’s story tackles a lot of subjects that are often mishandled in other examples of disability representation, from the subject of parents who refuse to accept, to glass siblings and much, much more, The Owl House handles all these topics beautifully.
But one thing that dawned on me during my most recent re-watch of The Owl House is how well Eda (and later Lilith) worked as amputee representation, long before Eda actually lost her arm.
One of the side effects of Eda and Lilith’s curse is that sometimes their body parts, mainly their limbs, can fall off. It doesn’t hurt them, and Eda is seen removing them intentionally at multiple times in the series, but they can always be reattached.
[ID: an image of Eda holding her sister Lilith's hand. Lilith is a pale woman with long, black hair, wearing grey clothes. She is looking at her other arm suprised, as her hand is missing. Luz, a Latina girl with short brown hair and a purple hoodie is looking on, smiling. /End ID]
While most likely unintentional, the way the show depicts this with Eda in particular is exactly what I wish more people would do with their prosthetic-using amputee characters.
Eda detaches her limbs, especially her legs, when they’re inconvenient or when she’s relaxing.
[ID: an image of Eda laying on the couch in a bathrobe, her hair in a towel. She has taken her legs off, throwing them to the other side of the seat. /End ID]
The fact that this is mostly played for laughs is actually a good thing in my opinion (though obviously, the show’s overall tone is part of that), as it shows the audience who are mostly children and teens, that in a world of weird and downright scary (from the perspective of the characters) things, this isn't one of them. It’s just a thing she and Lilith can do, and it can even be funny.
[ID: An image of Luz and Eda dressed as pirates. Eda is sitting on the ground, her legs detached and off screen somewhere. /End ID]
It does startle Luz and Lilith on a few occasions, but that’s more because they didn’t know the curse could do that, but once they’re introduced to it, it’s never really brought up as a big deal again.
I’d love to see more amputee characters who do this with their prosthetics. So often media is almost afraid to have amputees take their prosthetics off on camera or on the page. For some folks, our prosthetics are like a part of our bodies, but that doesn’t mean we never take them off. Show your leg amputee flop on the couch and throw their legs across the room. Have them go without on occasion, not because they have to, but because they just don’t feel like putting them on.
Likewise, the owl house creators never shy away from showing Eda when her limbs aren’t all attached. A lot of media, and kid’s shows in particular, will avoid having an amputee character’s stump visible if they ever do take their prosthetics off - treating that part of the character’s body the same way they treat gore or nudity. I’ve talked before how this actually does have a real impact on how kids in particular react to amputees - I’ve legitimately had kids I worked with cry when I took my prosthetics off, then immediately calm down when they see there’s nothing "scary" under my socks. As much as I love How To Train Your Dragon, it’s very guilty of this. Hiccup looses his leg at the end of the first movie, and wakes up with his prosthetic already attached. The Netflix series has a few instances where he has his prosthetic off, but the camera almost always avoids showing it until he can cover it up again, or is super zoomed-out so you wouldn’t be able to “see anything”. To their credit, they do get better with this in the last movie (though it's still always covered), but for the majority of the series, they are very reluctant to have any shots where hiccup’s leg is in view without the prosthetic (unless they’re very far away).
[ID: a screenshot of Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon 3, a white man with short brown hair, and one leg missing, wearing armour made of black dragon scales and no prosthetic. He is holding onto toothless's head, a black dragon./End ID]
Ironically, Eda does (permanently) loose an arm at the end of season 2, but I don’t really have much to say about her as amputee representation on that front, since she’s absent for a lot of Season 3, and when we do see her again, everything is so hectic, the story doesn’t really have any time to focus on her missing limb (which is reasonable). I will say, I do appreciate that they kept the amputation when she's in her owl-beast form in the finale, but there's honestly not much more to say about it. We do see her again in the epilogue after she’s had some time to settle into the amputation, wearing a hook prosthetic, but it’s, once again, too quick to really say anything from a representation standpoint. There's a few little nit-picky things I could bring up, like the fact they seemed to change the type on amputation she had (when she looses it, we see the split was very close to the elbow, but in the epilogue she has most of her forearm again) but those read to me more like animation mistakes or an odd prosthetic/clothing designs rather than a representation issue - and as someone who's worked in animation, given the stress the team was under for the finale, I'm not really worried about it. Like I said, it's more nit-picky than anything.
[ID: A screenshot of Eda, her hair tied back and wearing a red robe and a hook for her right hand. /End ID]
Despite all that though, I still think Eda is still good amputee representation, but mostly because of how they depict her curse’s side effects rather than her actual amputation. She’s honestly one of the only characters that I think you could refer to as “amputee coded” (outside of maybe Teen Titan’s Cyborg), and I genuinely wish more creators would treat their actual amputee characters the same way the Owl House treats Eda in that regard.
On February 12, 1900, five hundred students of the segregated Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida, where James Weldon Johnson was the principal, celebrated President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday by giving the first-ever performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the song that has since became known as the Black National Anthem. Written by James Weldon Johnson himself, the hymn now stands as a testament to Johnson’s monumental talents and unwavering commitment to civil rights.
Born on June 17, 1871, in Jacksonville, Florida, to James Johnson, an African-American headwaiter and a preacher, and Helen Louise Dillet, a free-born Virginian and a Bahamian educator — Florida’s first Black female teacher — James Weldon Johnson was destined to leave a mark on the American culture and society. In fact, his family was a well-educated, middle-class family that had been free since before 1861, which provided a nurturing environment for the intellectually inclined Johnson boys to thrive in.
James Weldon Johnson was born first in 1871, followed by his brother John Rosamond Johnson two years later. The boys exhibited different interests; James studied both guitar and piano, and he learned how to read and write music. However, he was imbued with a passion for education and equality from a very young age. His brother, John, on the other hand, demonstrated an outstanding talent at the piano and the keyboards in general. After receiving their education at Stanton School, the boys’ academic pursuits took them on their separate ways.
James’ academic pursuits led him to Atlanta University, where he graduated in 1894, after which he returned home and became the superintendent at the Stanton School. A year later, in 1895, James Weldon also founded the nation’s first Black newspaper, The Daily American, which he also edited. But his educational journey didn’t end there, as he also decided to become an attorney. He eventually became the first African-American ever to pass the bar exam in Florida after teaching himself law.
This remarkable achievement, along with his previous works, set the stage for a career marked by pioneering efforts in education, law, and civil rights. In 1897, John Rosamond returned to Jacksonville to become the music supervisor for the Jacksonville school district after spending some time on the road, singing with John W. Isham’s Oriental America. Following John’s return home, the brothers wrote their first musical, and in 1899, they took a trip to NYC to find a producer for the show they wrote.
While that particular effort wasn’t fruitful, they met several prominent figures of African American show business, including Bob Cole, Will Cook, George Walker, and Bert Williams. However, once the school term began, the brothers dutifully returned to their teaching positions in Jacksonville. There, in the early 1900s, James Weldon Johnson wrote the song that would become the Black National Anthem, which was set to the music composed by John Rosamond Johnson. Upon finishing their manuscript, the Johnsons sent it to their publisher, requesting copies for use by Stanton School students.
Then, in 1900, the choir of schoolchildren at Stanton School first performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing!” in public to celebrate President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Satisfied with their achievement, both James Weldon and John Rosamond hurried on with other things, but the song touched every Black person who had heard it, leading to its spread across the South. Sadly, in 1901, the Stanton School suffered irreparable damage by fire, prompting James and John to try to get into show business.
James Weldon and his brother went back to NYC and rekindled their friendship with Bob Cole, which resulted in a fruitful partnership — the trio eventually wrote more than 200 published songs. However, James remained engaged in other roles as well, mostly in public capacities as an educator and civil rights activist. In 1904, he took part in Theodore Roosevelt’s successful political campaign, after which Roosevelt, acting as the President, appointed Johnson as the US consul in Venezuela and later Nicaragua — the roles he served from 1906 to 1913.
In the meantime, in 1910, James Weldon Johnson married a well-educated and cultured New Yorker, Grace Neil, with whom he collaborated on screenwriting projects. After their return from Nicaragua, Johnson became increasingly involved in the Harlem Renaissance and became one of its leading voices. He also acted as a field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), becoming one of the organization’s most successful officials who publicly spoke at the 1919 National Conference on Lynching.
In 1930, James Weldon Johnson was appointed as the literature professor at Fisk University, followed by the release of his book Black Manhattan. In 1934, he became the first African-American professor to ever teach at New York University. Sadly, the truly remarkable life of this great man ended in 1938 when the car his wife was driving was hit by a train. James Weldon Johnson’s funeral in Harlem was attended by more than 1,000 people.
However, his life’s work still survives. As we sing the Black National Anthem, we honor the memory of James Weldon Johnson, whose vision of a society united in diversity continues to inspire to this day.
Digital microscope view of loom state cloth woven in the 'new to me' weave structure. Reed marks are clearly visible and the threads are pretty much straight on the 'grid'. There is little curvature or bending of the threads. The warp and weft threads are clearly distinct. The web looks very 'thready'.
Same weave structure (different cloth) after wet finishing. Reed marks have been reduced enormously, although they are still visible if you look closely at the cloth. But the threads have 'bloomed' and shifted closer together. Slight curvature can be seen as the threads go through the weave structure and in some cases, it gets hard to follow one thread through the cloth without very careful tracking. This can make fixing errors a bit challenging, but once the needle is in the grid, it gets easier to follow the path of an individual thread.
Some new weavers get very confused when they first begin weaving - and wet finishing - their webs. There is a phenomenon called 'tracking' that appears, primarily in plain weave. But, the new weaver says, why doesn't it happen in other weave structures?
Well, it does. But the dynamic is different because in plain weave the latent twist energy has no where to go as the threads go over and under each other, so the yarns can tend to poke up and out causing weird lines in the plain weave.
In other weave structures, those areas are longer, so there is more room for the threads to shift and move without causing such structural evidence in the finished cloth.
Cotton and other bast/cellulose fibres do NOT full. They do, however, bloom. The fibres swell and will shift and shuffle themselves around in the weave structure. Some weave structures will encourage this effect more than others. Bedford cord, honeycomb, lace weaves, pique, and others, rely on this shifting of the threads to develop their final state to it's maximum effect.
Twills generally don't seem to change appearance much, except when you get up close and personal, as in the two photos above.
The loom state sample is quite 'thready' but after wet finishing the motifs resolve and become more cohesive.
And this is why I always recommend that a new weaver does a sample and *wet finish* it to find out what will happen when the web hits the water for the very first time.
Many new weavers are anxious about the 'washing' of their brand new cloth. But the thing is, it isn't truly 'cloth' until it has been wet finished.
Why do I call it wet finishing and not simply tell folk to 'wash' their webs? Because frequently the wet finishing process will use hotter water and more vigorous agitation than regular 'washing'.
Anyway, if people want to know more, Magic in the Water is still available You can purchase a print copy (magazine format) or pdf (digital). Or I'm available to do guild programs/seminars on this (and other topics which are listed on my website Yes, I know I don't have the s on the URL. I'm hoping to get that fixed at some point but I don't have the skills so I'm waiting until my web master has a few free minutes to deal with it.
Bonnie Raitt's career ended back in 1986. Her long-time record company Warner Bros. had sat on her album Nine Lives for a few years, refusing to release it. Until finally, they put out an updated version with little fanfare, resulting in poor sales — after which Warners dropped Raitt from their label.
Raitt wanted to tour in support of the new album, but didn't have enough money to pay for a full band. So she went on a solo tour, playing acoustic guitar, unable to do justice to the full blues-rock sound of that record. Around this time, her romantic relationship fell apart, and she was struggling to get sober. As she told Rolling Stone in 1990, "I stayed on the road, playing acoustic shows, but I was broken emotionally and physically, spiritually and financially."
Around this time, Prince was interested in signing her to his Paisley Park label, and writing some songs for her. As told to Rolling Stone, Raitt told Prince that "I was interested if it was a true collaboration and not just me singing his music — if we could meet somewhere in the middle." A true collaboration between Prince and Raitt would have been incredible, as would a collaboration between Prince and Joni Mitchell, or Miles Davis. But in all three cases, Prince provided finished demo tracks for the other artists to overdub their own parts, rather than working together in the studio.
In the case of Bonnie Raitt, Prince gave her updated versions of songs he'd written years earlier for his earliest attempt at founding a girl group, the Hookers. (The songs were "Promise to be True," "Jealous Girl," "There's Something I Like About Being Your Fool" and "I Need a Man." You can hear Prince's versions on the Super Deluxe Edition of Sign 'O' The Times.) I like those songs a lot, but they're not really in Bonnie Raitt's wheelhouse — and they were also not in her vocal range, as she told Rolling Stone. In the end Raitt's schedules and Prince's clashed, and she didn't want to go back to Warner Bros., which was distributing Paisley Park Records.
By 1987, when Raitt was considering signing with Prince, she'd been making records for sixteen years, starting when she was twenty-one. She released a series of brilliant albums in the 1970s and early '80s, scoring one hit with a 1977 cover version of the song "Runaway." What I love about Raitt's 1970s work is its stylistic range. As she told Guitar World recently, "I can't limit myself to one style of music." There's a very short list of artists who can cover Joni Mitchell without embarrassing themselves, and Raitt is right there at the top — but she also did some extraordinary covers of New Orleans impresario Allen Toussaint.
A lot of Raitt's early recordings have a big, expansive sound, with layers of horns, slide guitar and piano coming together to fill the high end of your speakers — listen to 1971's "Finest Lovin' Man" or 1972's "Give It Up or Let Me Go." It's the kind of dense, chewy sound that you'd usually expect from heavy synth and electronic effects, but it's pure analog — I get the same feeling of analog bigness from early 1940s Lionel Hampton jazz recordings like "Flying Home."
I've been listening a lot to her 1972 album Give It Up, where she effortlessly shuttles back and forth between Blues and Folk modes, her voice pivoting from high and bell-like with a touch of vibrato ("Too Long at the Fair"), to brassy and expansive, with a deeper undertone ("Love Me Like a Man"). It reminds me a bit of the early Rufus and Chaka Khan albums from the same era, when the band was still trying to do folk-rock and blues alongside heavy funk — Chaka Khan effortlessly shifting from the sweet treble of "I Finally Found You" to the howl of Stevie Wonder's "Maybe Your Baby" is a similar amount of versatility/virtuosity.
(The early 1970s seem to have been a moment when the walls between musical genres — and the racial segregation that lay behind them — seemed to open up a bit, only to slam shut in the late 70s, when both Bobby Womack and Millie Jackson recorded country albums and were punished for it by an unforgiving marketplace.)
A lot of artists whose careers started around 1970 or 1971 were finished by the late 1980s, as tastes shifted and the music industry's ageism caught up to them. But not Bonnie Raitt.
I was watching this 2012 BBC concert, and I was really struck by what she says right before she plays "Nick of Time," the title track from her 1989 comeback album that crushed the Grammy Awards and made her a superstar:
I wrote this song when I was feeling a little nervous about turning forty. Seems like an awful long time ago.
The thing about Nick of Time is that it's a brilliant album, but also that Raitt hustled to make it work: she got in with rising-star producer Don Was, she got Dennis Quaid to appear in the music video for her first single, "Thing Called Love," and she obsessed over every drum effect and sound.
"Nobody expected it to sell well," Raitt told Billboard in 2019. "They just said, 'We're not going to pay a lot of money for you, so just make a record that you want.'"
You probably know what happened next: A string of hits, including one song so massive ("Something To Talk About") that it spawned a movie of the same title. Another song, "I Can't Make You Love Me," has been covered by tons of people including.... Prince.
(As a sidebar, I once read a 1973 interview with Stevie Wonder where he was asked to comment on the fact that some music journalists had just proclaimed that Aretha Franklin's career was over. As I recall, his response was along the lines of, "Aretha gets to decide when it's over.")
One thing I love about Raitt's 2000s albums is her frequent collaborations with Jon Cleary, a British keyboard player who was heavily influenced by New Orleans musicians like Toussaint, and who helped push her music in a funkier direction. (Listen to "Gnawin' On It" or "Monkey Business.") I literally just found out that Cleary recorded an album of Toussaint covers, which I'm now going to pick up.
Bonnie Raitt left Capitol Records in the mid-2000s, and started releasing albums on her own private label — which would usually lead to smaller sales, with records being bought only by her hardcore fans. But her first self-released album, 2012's Slipstream, was also her highest-charting album in years, hitting number six on the Billboard 200. (Slipstream is probably my favorite Bonnie Raitt album of all time, with its ultra-sarcastic lyrics and a harder political edge than much of her earlier work.) She's continued to win Grammy's, including "Best Song" a few years ago, and her most recent album was number one on six different Billboard charts. Pretty good for someone whose career came to a halt nearly forty years ago.
This has turned out to be a very long newsletter — sorry, I got carried away! — but I wanted to close with some lessons from Bonnie Raitt's career.
1) There are no straight lines. One reason I hate the idea of careers (at least for creative people) is because of this idea of a smooth upward progression — which isn't my experience, or that of most other people I know. Making art and surviving are messy and frantic, and there are going to be disasters and low points. If you're expecting a steady climb, you won't be ready for the occasional mudslide.
2) Not every great opportunity is right for you. In 1987, making a record with Prince probably seemed like Raitt's last chance — but it might've been a huge mistake, and not just because Prince wasn't offering Raitt his best songs. Paisley Park Records put out a ton of albums with zero promotion in the late 1980s, by artists like Dale Bozzio (former lead singer of Missing Persons). As Alan Leeds (who was president of Paisley Park Records) put it in an interview, Warner Bros. was upset that Prince kept putting out albums by "legacy artists past their prime."
3) Ageism is fucking bullshit. So yeah... the notion of artists being "past their prime" is beyond toxic. Creative people aren't baseball players! A lot of my favorite writers, musicians and artists have created their best work later in life, and there are real benefits to having a lot of experiments and screw-ups in your rear-view mirror. When I was in my late twenties, I used to obsess about the notion that I was running out of time to make something of myself — as if I would be doomed to permanent failure if I didn't succeed as a writer by the age of thirty-five or forty. I've since learned better: for every writer who hits it big in their late teens, there are plenty of us who struggle in obscurity for years before finally reaching an audience.
4) Be true to yourself — but never quit experimenting. In many ways, Raitt's sound has remained consistent for the past fifty years. But she's also kept trying new stuff, like her funky collaborations with Cleary and the slew of sombre songs about death and loss she wrote (or co-wrote) for her latest album Just Like That... I feel like the secret of longevity is always finding fresh ways to be yourself.
Allen Toussaint Songs I Think Bonnie Raitt Should Cover
I mentioned above that Raitt covered a couple of songs by Allen Toussaint back in the day, and her frequent collaborator Jon Cleary released a whole Toussaint cover album. But here are some mostly lesser-known Toussaint compositions I think Raitt might want to tackle:
King Biscuit Boy, "Mind Over Matter." This plaintive song from a lover who's "wasting my time," drenched in harmonica and horns, is just crying out for some slide guitar.
John Mayall, "Just Knowing You is a Pleasure." One of Toussaint's trademark sweet ballads, along the lines of "With You In Mind," but more wistful. Honestly, half of Mayall's Toussaint-produced album Notice to Appear would be ideal for Raitt, including the ultra-sarcastic "Boy Most Likely to Succeed," "Hale to the Man Who Lives Alone" and "Mess of Love."
Allen Toussaint & Elvis Costello, "Broken Promise Land." Co-written by Costello, this gorgeous song has a sharp political bite.
Patti LaBelle, "Give It Up (The Dawning of Rejection)". It's a disco song, but slow it down and you've got a classic rocker.
Wallace Johnson, "I Can Stop." This whole album, Whoever's Thrilling You, is full of incredible Blues compositions by Toussaint. But "I Can Stop" utterly breaks me.
Albert King, "We All Wanna Boogie." No, it's not a dance song — it's a snarky protest song.
Allen Toussaint, "Viva La Money." Cleary already covered this harsh takedown of economic inequality, but Raitt would crush it.
Etta James, "Wheel of Fire." It's a slow burn – until it reaches the bridge and goes up in a full inferno.
Z.Z. Hill, "Whoever's Thrilling You (Is Killing Me)". This mournful Blues song used to be a standard — Rufus & Chaka Khan covered it, in fact — but now it feels brand new again.
My Stuff
The next episode of Our Opinions Are Correct comes out on Thursday, and it's one of my favorites. Stay tuned!
You can buy two trade paperback collections featuring Escapade, the trans superhero I co-created: New Mutants Vol. 4 and New Mutants: Lethal Legion. If you want the very first appearance of Escapade, you need to find a copy of the 2022 pride issue, which is on Marvel Unlimited but otherwise (sob) out of print.
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