This is an excerpt from Return by Niki Bañados, out with GOOD Comics.
‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
Niki Bañados is a comic book artist and graphic designer. In 2019, she was awarded the Laydeez do Comics Prize. Her work focuses on sustainability, biodiversity and environmental well-being.
More about the author →
‘In Smiler’s confrontational images, the dead outnumber the living.’
Iain Sinclair introduces Mark Cawson’s photography.
‘How do you love a monster when they are no longer monstrous?’
New fiction by Diana Evans.
‘For you, an image makes sight sacrosanct. It wasn’t always like that.’
Guy Gunaratne introduces photography by Kalpesh Lathigra.
‘She rings a tiny cymbal over your body. She says, The experience is finished now.’
A story by Yara Rodrigues Fowler.
‘As evidenced by the Met show, everyone wants to be a bit punk.’
Anouchka Grose on the birth and death and rebirth of punk.
Peter Pomerantsev takes us on a tour of the lewd, crude language of modern politics – from Trump to Putin to Duterte, Milo Yianopoulos, Boris Johnson and more.
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