The theme park wars will shift into an even higher gear right before Memorial Day. On May 22, Universal Orlando is scheduled to open Epic Universe, its $6 billion expansion thats meant to lure more visitors away from the Magic Kingdom and other assets of Walt Disney World and make the companys theme-park hub a seven-day visit for tourists.
Announced in 2019, Epic Universe will be the first new Central Florida theme park in more than 25 years. Divided into five lands, its a park that hopes to have something that appeals to all types of family members. And its a serious enough threat that Disney has announced a major upgrade to its Orlando parks, part of a 10-year, $60 billion investment in parks and experiences.
For a park thats so close to its opening day, there are still a lot of questions. Tickets went on sale last October, but unless youre a hardcore theme-park junkie, you might not know what to expect from Epic Universe. Heres what you can look forward to, if youre planning (or thinking about planning) a vacation.
Universal Epic Universe front gate [Rendering: Universal]
Where is Epic Universe located?
While its a part of Universal Orlando, the physical location of Epic Universe will be set about 2.5 miles southeast of Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, as well as Universal Volcano Bay water park and Universal CityWalk.
To transport visitors back and forth, Universal will run buses between the parks and will have a separate parking area for Epic Universe visitors.
What are the five lands of Epic Universe?
The parks layout is designed to let visitors enter a “portal,” which takes them to five different lands.
Celestial Park
This is the entry into Universal Epic Universe, with dining, shopping, and three attractions: a carousel, a dual-launch coaster, and interactive dancing fountains. The Helios Grand Hotel (more details below) will also be located in this area.
Celestial Park [Rendering: Universal]
The Wizarding World of Harry Potters Ministry of Magic
Universal has two other Harry Potter Wizarding Worlds: Daigon Alley at Universal Orlando and Hogsmeade at Islands of Adventure. Those are connected via the Hogwarts Express, but the Ministry of Magic will be a stand-alone park. The new park will include elements from both the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts franchises, and this area will let fans explore several international wizarding communities, from Paris in the 1920s to the U.K. in the 1990s.
Food choices will include Café Lair De La Sirne and Le Goblet Noir. And yes, of course, youll be able to get a Butterbeer.
Super Nintendo World
Already a hit in Universal Studioss California park, this interactive Nintendo-themed world is loaded with familiar characters from Mario to Bowser. It includes a big coaster (more on that below) and a live-action Mario Kart ride. Its a larger park than its California cousin and has additional rides (such as Yoshis Adventure and Mine-Cart Madness) and interactive activities.
Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge in Super Nintendo World [Rendering: Universal]
Foodwise, Chef Toad is serving things up at the Toadstool Cafélike the Mario Burger complete with a bun branded with Marios moustache and tiny red cap. Theres also the Bubbly Barrel in Donkey Kong Country.
How to Train Your Dragons Isle of Berk
On the Isle of Berk, youll be able to ride a dragon. Youll also be able to explore the Viking village at the heart of the animated Dreamworks franchise.
Dark Universe
Universal embraces its monster-based roots, with reimagined classic creatures, including Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and Dracula.
What will be the big rides?
Epic Universe will have several big roller coasters, the standout of which will seemingly be Mine-Cart Madness in Super Nintendo World. This Donkey Kong-themed ride features an effect where the car will appear to jump over a gap in the tracks.
The Wizarding Worlds big draw will be Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry, which features the return of Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge. Dark Universes big draw will be the animatronic-heavy Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment, set under Frankenstein Manor.
Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry [Rendering: Universal]
At Isle of Berk, you can ride Hiccups Wing Gliders, a coaster that simulates a ride on a dragons back. And the Stardust Racers coaster will send visitors in Celestial Park zooming at 62 mph to heights of 133 feet.
Will there be hotels?
Three hotels are being built in the general area around Epic Universe, but the crown jewel will be the Grand Helios, which has a dedicated entrance to the park, along with a rooftop bar overlooking the park.
Universal Helios Grand Hotel [Rendering: Universal]
The others, Stella Nova and Terra Luna, are not within walking distance and will require some travel time to reach Epic Universe.
How much will Epic Universe tickets cost?
Right now, if you want to visit Epic Universe, youll need to buy either a three-, four- or five-day pass. And regardless of which one you choose, that will only get you into Epic Universe for a single day. The other days must be spent at the other Universal theme parks. For adults, those start at $117 per day. Kids are just a couple dollars less.
If youre already an annual passholder at Universal, you can buy one-day tickets, but those are already sold out for at least the first 17 days that Epic Universe will be open. Prices to add a ticket for the Epic Universe add-ons start at $122 a day.
Individual tickets for Epic Universe will go on sale at a later date, which hasnt been announced yet.
In another devastating blow to customers and employees of Joann Inc., the popular fabric and crafts retailer is moving to close a significant chunk of its brick-and-mortar locations as part of ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, according to a court filing on Wednesday.
The company, which filed for Chapter 11 protection a second time last month, had initially said it would continue operating its approximately 800 stores as it restructured and sought a buyer.
However, it told a court this week that it has now identified a number of underperforming locations during the bidding process that it wants to close as a way of cutting costs.
“As the sale process progressed, and prospective bidders continued to conduct diligence and refine their potential bids, the Debtors and their advisors were able to identify a subset of underperforming stores that are unlikely to be considered or included in any going concern bid,” lawyers for the retailer said in the court filing.
The filing lists hundreds of locations across more than 40 states, with big states like California, Florida, Illinois, and Michigan being hit the hardest. Joann says in the filing that it would like to begin store closing sales immediately. It warns that additional locations are likely to close as well.
Reached for comment by Fast Company, Joann spokesperson Amanda Hayes confirmed the closings in a statement.
“As part of the ongoing Chapter 11 process and our efforts to maximize the value of the business, JOANN has filed a motion seeking court authority to begin closing approximately 500 stores across the nation,” the statement read. “This was a very difficult decision to make, given the major impact we know it will have on our Team Members, our customers and all of the communities we serve. A careful analysis of store performance and future strategic fit for the Company determined which stores should remain operating as usual at this time. Right-sizing our store footprint is a critical part of our efforts to ensure the best path forward for JOANN.”
A difficult needle to thread
Founded in 1943, Joann has faced significant challenges in recent years, with factors such as the pandemic, inflation, and the broader shift to online retail hindering its operations. It was taken private last year when it filed for bankruptcy a first time, but it said at the time that it expected to continue operations once it emerged.
A second bankruptcy came at the beginning of this year. Although Joann told customers that stores would remain open during the process, it warned that it could go out of business if it is unable to find a suitable buyer.
Gordon Brothers, the restructuring firm that recently took control of embattled retailer Big Lots, has emerged as a “stalking horse” bidder for Joann. If it is successful, the firm is likely to liquidate and close all stores.
This story is developing….
Im not sure who first compared ChatGPT to Cliff Clavin, the garrulous mailman/barfly from TVs Cheers. Its so an apt comparison that many people probably came up with it independently. Cliff did know a lot of stuffafter all, he was a Jeopardy almost-winner. Yet he was also a blowhard who didnt seem to realize when he was speaking outside the bounds of his expertise. If you were paying attention, you knew that his seeming level of confidence was unrelated to the value of what he had to say.
Even as AI companies have managed to reduce their chatbots’ tendency to hallucinate, a certain degree of Clavin-ism has remained endemic to the category. But Ive been playing with a new ChatGPT feature called deep research, which OpenAI announced last week. Instead of just being glib and eager to please, it weaves together facts and analysis into results with real substance. Its not perfect, but it ranks with Googles NotebookLM among the most impressive AI research tools Ive tried. I dont believe Ive encountered a single hallucination in the tens of thousands of words its generated in response to my queries thus far.
At the moment, taking advantage of deep research requires deep pockets: The feature is debuting as part of ChatGPT Pro, which costs $200 a month. (I treated myself to a one-off upgrade for February to try it outfingers crossed that Fast Company reimburses me.) If further testing goes as expected, OpenAI says, it will come to the $20/month ChatGPT Plus in a month or so. Once it does, I expect to use it frequently.
OpenAIs blog post about deep research offers background on how it works, accompanied by charts showing its performance in various AI benchmarks. In use, what it feels like is a new kind of chatbot that actually does its homework. Far less dependent on a hermetically sealed LLM than most, it comes up with answers to questions in something closer to the way a human research assistant would, by consulting sources around the web in real time and synthesizing them into a cohesive whole. Its a much more fleshed out, immediately useful example of agentic AI than Operator, another recently introduced ChatGPT feature thats able to trawl the web on its users behalf.
By human standards, deep research does its work swiftly, but its hardly instantaneous: OpenAI says to expect the process to take 5 to 30 minutes per query. As it chugs away, it usually displays a running list of notes. For example, following a request I made involving fast-food history, it noted Searched for McDonald’s number of locations in the 1960s. Once in a while, these snippets are mystifying non sequiturs: At one point, it told me If necessary, I will escalate to HR for guidance. Overall however, they make the feat of generating AI text feel less like a magic trick and more like a computational process we mere mortals might comprehenda welcome change from AIs often opaque nature.
I threw a bunch of projects at deep research, such as writing a competitive analysis of the market for image editing software, explaining how mechanical watches work, comparing instant-photography technologies from Polaroid and Kodak, and chronicling attempts to suppress free speech in the U.S. from 1900 to 1950. In every instance, it came back with detailed responses full of well-chosen facts and crisp analysis, on a different plane of readability and quality than standard AI bot fare. It also provided Wikipedia-like citations for its work, a boon for full disclosure and an aid to further reading on a subject.
Impressive though deep research is, certain types of requests revealed its weak spots. As with most generative AI bots, it has a relentlessly positive attitude that gets in the way of anything requiring critical appraisal: I tried to get it to be more blunt by asking about the most forgettable pop culture pap imaginable, and it always insisted everything was a cult favorite. And while OpenAI touts the feature as being able to provide hyper-personalized recommendations on purchases that typically require careful research, the more I knew about a product area, the less impressed I was by its advice. Its suggestions of cameras for street photography, for example, were muddled by some prices that were way, way off. And when I asked it about tablets capable of replacing a laptop, it waxed enthusiastic about the 2022 iPad Prosapparently unaware that Apple replaced them last year.
ChatGPTs deep research feature really does go deeper than the average chatbotand it cites its sources clearly.
Thanks to the features running notes and citations, some of its other current limitations are obvious. For instance, it often tried to read sources that might have been valuablesuch as Consumer Reportsand gave up because they were paywalled. It also doesnt seem to perform what I would consider truly dazzling feats of online derring-do, such as fishing material out of obscure PDFs salted away in the Internet Archives many nooks and crannies. OpenAIs blog-post announcement mentions expansion plans that encompass specialized data sources and subscription-based . . . resources, implying that deep research could get meaningfully better without reqiring foundational advances in its AI.
Oh, and one other thing: It kept asking me if Id like its answers to include charts and diagrams. I always said yes, but it never provided any. It would be nice if it eventually got this option it mistakenly believes it already has.
In 1984, the famously demanding technologist and visionary Alan Kay deemed the original Macintosh to be the first personal computer good enough to be worth criticizing. Even with its current rough edges, deep research might be the first general-purpose AI-enhanced research tool to clear that barboth a breakthrough right now and, with any luck, a preview of even better things to come.
Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if youre reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Wednesday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. Im also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads.
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Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Companys work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions.
Q: How can I get over decision paralysis?A: I feel this one. I think we all do. By most estimates, the average person makes around 35,000 decisions per day. Most of those are small choices like what to wear, what to have for lunch, what to post on social media. Hopefully you’re not paralyzed by those choices. But you also shouldnt discount them completely. If you spend too much time mulling over the less consequential parts of life, you can end up with decision fatigue.
Decision fatigue leaves your brain too tired to make the choices that really matter. Its why some of the most successful people either automate or outsource those thousands of little choices (and why former President Obama always wore the same types of suits).
After you cut down on the mental load of those thousands of small choices, you will hopefully have a bit more space to think about lifes big decisions: Should you leave your job? Should you get divorced? Should you have a child? Where should you go on vacation?
Narrow your options
That last example might not seem as high stakes, but it serves as a good example of one of the things that makes people feel stuck in decision-making: too many choices.When your options are unlimited, its easy to feel overwhelmed and want to give up. Here it might help to narrow it down by thinking about what time of year you are traveling, what type of trip you want, your budget, who is traveling with you, if you want to fly or drive, etc. Hone down those smaller choices and youll be left with far fewer options.
Ask for impartial advice
In the vacation example, you probably want to get the input of the other people you are travelling with. With other decisions that impact others in your life, like job change or moving, factoring in the needs and opinions of those impacted is certainly important. But, after you have that information, if the final choice is yours, you can still feel stuck. Thats when it might be good to ask someone who doesnt have a stake in the outcome.Trying to decide on the best all inclusive resort for a spring break trip? Post the question in your local parenting group. Trying to decide which couch would look best in your living room? Post the pictures side by side and let people vote. Trying to decide if you should change careers? Talk to a friend who knows you well.
Ask yourself the right questions
I love a good pro/con list, and its a staple of decision-making. The problem is it weighs everything equally. When deciding to move, for example, the pro of having a bigger yard isnt really comparable to the con of adding an hour to your commute or leaving your kids beloved school. That’s why asking yourself questions that probe a little deeper can help you arrive at a better decision. Try questions like:
Does this take you closer to your goals?
How do you think youll feel about this decision in five years?
Is this something that you think you should do vs. something that you actually want to do?
Check your gut (and your whole body)
Another good piece of advice when it comes to decision-making? Pretend that youve made your choice and sit with it for a few hours or overnight (the classic sleep on it approach). If you imagine youve already told your boss that you quit and you feel lighter, its a pretty good indication of what you should do. When a decision is important, you can feel it physically. Leadership consultant Diana Chapman says the best decisions are accompanied by a whole-body ‘yes‘”: When youve made the best decision you feel it in your whole bodyhead, heart, and gut.Still cant decide? Heres some more advice:
3 simple ways to become less anxious and more decisive
Try these neuroscience-backed tactics to train your brain to make better decisions
Your ultimate decision-making guide to help you make better choices faster
5 ways to prevent decision fatigue from ruining your productivity
After decades of fielding questions about travel points, loyalty programs, and rewards credit cards, youd think that Brian Kellythe founder of The Points Guywould tire of the subject. Instead, hes more energized than ever, a passion he channeled into his new book, How to Win at Travel. In 300-plus pages, Kelly delivers more than just strategies for maximizing credit cards and points. Hes created a travel bible of sorts, one that makes planning and logistics as rewarding as the trip itself.
Brian Kelly [Photo: Brandon Launerts/courtesy Simon & Schuster]
Its a book built for every kind of traveler, from those working towards their first bucket-list trip to people trying to stretch points for a family of five. Think of it as a choose-your-own-adventure book, Kelly says. Here, he tackles some of the peskiest travel dilemmas: what to do when your flight goes sideways, when to cash in your points, how to stay on the right side of locals, and more.
In your book, you note that we’re in the “platinum age” of travel, a departure from what people considered the Golden Age of travel. What do you mean by that?
People are wistful for aviation in the 1960s, a time when people dressed up to fly. They were served meals on china with silver cutleryweve all seen the pictures. But the truth is travel at that time was less convenient overall, and inaccessible except for the very rich. And everyone was smoking! Today, travel is safer, much less expensive, and we have tons of options. On top of that we have this points ecosystem, open to everyday people, that can unlock elite travel status.
In your book, you write, “Loyalty is less about travel and more about personal finance and harnessing the power of your spending. Can you explain?
Points and travel can be an entry point into better finances, by paying your cards every month, bringing up your credit score, and so on. Youre starting with a reward thats positive reinforcement for being smart about your financial health.
What are three of your top tips for redeeming points and miles today?
The first is to use technology to your advantage. The company Point.Me searches for flights based on your points across 33 loyalty programs on more than 150 airlines. [Brian Kelly is an investor in Point.Me.] Also, let the deals determine where you go. Even if youre not flexible on your dates, you dont have to travel where everyone else is going. In fact, its often better not to. Third, dont hoard your points. They become less valuable over time. When you rack up these huge balances, youre just losing money to inflation.
When it comes to booking award travel with an airline, you know a lot of next-level tricks. Can you tell us about zone-based and distance-based airline rewards, and how you can use them to your advantage?
These are the two types of rewards airlines use. For distance-based rewards, the math is pretty simple. The longer distance you fly, the more miles you pay, though distances are grouped together, so you can maximize these rewards when the price doesnt exactly correlate to the distance of the flight. Zone-based rewards often have something that I call sweet spots. Turkish Airlines, for example, includes Hawaii in the same zone as the Continental U.S. So even though its much farther to, say, fly New York to Honolulu, so you can often fly there for the same number of miles as you would traveling a much shorter distance, like New York to Boston.
What are “awards holds,” and when do you use them?
Awards tickets can come and go in an instant, and its frustrating when you miss a deal. Some airlines, like Air France, American, and Lufthansa, allow you to hold your ticket for a certain number of days. It costs anywhere from $0 to $35. This permits you to make your other travel reservations and get your life in order before you book.
In the past, we’ve seen credit cards offer travelers big points bonuses, which help you along the path to free travel. Are there ways to anticipate great offerings?
In general, the industry is moving toward more personalized offers. So dont ignore snail mail and promotional emails from credit card companies. Some might think it’s tedious to go through all that mail. I think of it as a treasure hunt.
You also advise people to sign up for memberships to organizations that have travel benefits. What are some that people might not know about?
AARP memberships, which start at $15 a year, offer great travel deals, and most people dont know that you dont need to be over 55 to join. I also love the American Bar Association, from $129 a year. Its also open to a wider range of professionslike paralegals, law students, policymakersthan you might think, and the membership means steep discounts on loads of luxury hotels.
When it comes to booking travel, you dont love online travel agencies, like Expedia or Priceline, which are known as OTAs. Why not? How should travelers use them?
OTAs revolutionized the travel industry 20 years ago, and I still use them to compare travel deals before I book. But when you book with an OTA, you are their customer. They own you. They dont even pass your email along to airlines or hotels. So when things go wrong, youve inflicted a world of pain on yourself because you cant go to the hotel or airline for help. Youve agreed to the OTAs terms, and often their customer service is lacking, if it exists at all.
What are your top tips for what you call turning off the friction of travel?
Book through the right travel channeldirectly or with a travel agent that has deep relationships with the hotels youre staying in and the destination youre visiting. Also make sure your contacts are up to date, so your airline or hotel can contact you easily if something goes wrong. If you fly with certain airlines often, read their contract of carriage. Having a basic understanding of your rights can o a long way when youre working with an agent in person or over the phone.
What kinds of information can you find in the contract of carriage?
Theres the flat tire rulea grace period if youre delayed or late for a flightand airlines will book you free of charge on the next available flight. Its also good to know which partner airlines are available to you, so you can search options from those airlines before speaking with a gate agent about rebooking. I always pull up specific flights and have all of the information ready before speaking with an agent.
As of October of last year, the Department of Transportation also finally required airlines to automatically refund passengers if their flights are canceled. Theyre still not required to compensate you, though. European and Canadian airlines are. For that reason, its worth flying on a European or Canadian airline when flying from the U.S. When flying back into the U.S., our airlines are beholden to European rules so compensation is on the table.
Any advice for avoiding long lines at the airport?
Definitely get Global Entry. Many rewards credit cards offer it as a travel perk, and now kids under 18 can get it for free. Clear can also be worth it, but not always. It depends on the airports you frequent. And if your flight plans go sideways, consider calling the foreign-language customer service line while waiting to speak to a gate agent. Its the same service but often has a much shorter wait time.
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When economic analysts talk about a cyclical change, theyre talking about short-term fluctuations driven by the business cycle. When those same analysts talk about a secular change, theyre talking about long-term, structural shifts in the economy. Sometimes a trend can be a little of both.
One example: First-time homebuyers keep getting older. In 1991, the median age of first-time homebuyers in the U.S. was 28 years old. In 2024, it was 38 years old.
In other words, the median first-time U.S. homebuyer in 2024 (age 38) has been out of high school for 20 years but is also only 24 years away from the earliest age at which they could receive Social Security benefits (age 62).
Some of that increase is driven by how strained housing affordability has gotten over the past three years.
And some of that increase is driven by secular changes, which are happening across the developed world, as younger generations are delaying life events compared to previous generationsattending school longer, marrying later, buying homes later, and having children later.
It isnt just first-time homebuyers. Repeat homebuyers are getting older, too. In 1991, the median age of repeat homebuyers in the U.S. was 42 years old. In 2024, it was 61 years old.
While delayed life events and fewer homebuyers in their twenties and thirties are driving up the median age of repeat buyers, there are other factors. Part of the reason repeat buyers are older stems from the fact that the overall U.S. population is skewing older as the giant baby boomer generation ages and birth rates decline.
Another factor is that older U.S. homeowners with substantial equity or even a paid-off primary residence are a little less sensitive to the recent mortgage rate shock. If they need to buy, some have taken the plunge over the past couple of years, avoiding 6% and 7% mortgage rates by simply paying all cash.
Whenever we have a free afternoon, my nine-year-old and I visit our favorite bookshop. By now, we have a routine. Ella makes a beeline to the graphic novels.
Her favorite bookssuch as Smile, Roller Girl, and The New Girlare part of a new genre of graphic novels that has emerged over the past decade-and-a-half specifically targeted at eight-12-year-olds. The books’ illustrations are colorful and fun, but the stories tackle serious issues: Mending broken relationships; confronting social anxiety; dealing with siblings and parents.
Unlike prose, which takes her days to read, Ella will binge these graphic novels in less than an hour. But she’ll come back again and again to the ones she loves, as if they’re guidebooks for navigating life’s tricky situations. Still, at this pace, we need a constant stream of them. Fortunately for her, we’re in a golden age of graphic novels.
Publishers are now churning out thousands of new titles every year for readers of all ages, from the youngest readers to adults. Graphic novelists are pushing the boundaries of the art form, telling a wide range of stories in varied illustration styles. And more people than ever are reading these books. Since 2019, sales of graphic novels in the U.S. have doubled to 35 million books a year, a number behind only general fiction and romance.
[Cover Images: Little Brown Ink, First Second/Macmillan]
Graphic novelsa term interchangeably used with comic booksare particularly popular among young children still building their literacy skills. Surveys show that in recent years, graphic novels have increased in popularity by 69% among elementary school children. Several publishers now have specific children’s imprints devoted to graphic novels, including Macmillan’s First Second and Hachette’s Little, Brown Ink.
My husband and I have observed Ella’s love of graphic novels with curiosity and, if we’re honest, a little skepticism. We’re not alone. More than half of school librarians report that parents and teachers oppose the genre and don’t think it’s a legitimate form of literature. This hesitation makes sense. Most millennial parents didn’t grow up with graphic novels and they now have questions about how these books will shape their child’s lifelong relationship to reading. Will kids ever make the leap to more traditional prose? And ultimately, does it matter?
A Los Angeles city councilman holding horror and crime comics, purchased ca. 1954 [Photo: Los Angeles Daily News/Wiki Commons]
How Comics got a bad name
Comics first emerged in the early 1900s, when newspapers published humorous serialized comic strips. (Think: Peanuts, Beetle Bailey.) In the 1940s, the comics industry exploded, as creators told stories across many genres including horror, crime, and perhaps most famously, superheroes. By the ’50s, Superman comics were selling at a rate of 1.5 million copies a month.
Then came a backlash. Comics of this era were often written for adults, depicting violence, drugs, and sex. In 1954, the psychologist Fredric Wertham wrote the book, Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comic Books on Todays Youth, which asserted that comics had a negative impact on children, pushing deviant sexual practices on them. (His examples now seem far-fetched and prudish, including the bondage subtext of Wonder Woman’s lasso, and homosexual undertones of Batman and Robin’s relationship.)
[Image: Comics Code Authority]
The U.S. government began to worry about how comics were influencing American youth. At a Senate hearing in 1954 about comics’s deleterious impact on society, mainstream publishers agreed to censor themselves, self-imposing a restrictive Comics Code, which ensured that all comics would be safe for children to read. Meanwhile, creators of comics with more adult themes went underground, selling their work on the black market. Comics as an art form regressed, says Eva Volin, supervising children’s librarian at the AlamedaFree Library in California. Many comics publishers went out of business.
By the time I was growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, comics as a genre had largely petered out. The series that remained were formulaic and tamelike Dilbert or Garfieldrather than the rich, exciting stories from previous decades. There was still a community of superhero fans reading DC and Marvel comics, but they didn’t have the same kind of widespread appeal. The attacks on comics had a chilling effect that persisted for decades, Volin says. Some people continue to see comics as something base and potentially harmful.
But in the midst of this dearth, small communities of comics-lovers persisted, says Robin Brenner, head of reference and programming at the Woburn Public Library outside Boston. Some scratched the itch by turning to Manga, a comics style from Japan that spanned a wide range of genres and ages. By the early 2000s, Japanese publishers were translating and exporting these books around the world. There was also a new subculture bubbling online around webcomics, where creators published serialized stories on the internet that dropped once a week.
American publishers took note. “[Publishers] suddenly realized there could be an enormous market for comics that told different kinds of stories, for different audiences, says Brenner.
[Cover Images: Little Brown Ink, First Second/Macmillan]
The New Genre of Tween Graphic Novels
Tori Sharp, a 30-year-old graphic novelist, has always loved comics. I found that so much voice could come through the artwork, Sharp says. There’s something that feels like you are a step closer to the creator than you can get with prose. It feels so intimate.
Tori Sharp [Image: Sabreen Lakhani/courtesy Little, Brown Ink]
Throughout her childhood, though, she struggled to find books in the genre. Even a decade ago, when she was in art school at SCAD, the library had only a handful of well-known titles, such as Maus and Persepolis. But as she was training to be an artist, the plate tectonics in the children’s graphic novel market was shifting.
One breakthrough moment happened in 2010 when Scholastic published Raina Telgemeier’s book Smile, a graphic novel about a sixth grader who injures her two front teeth and must wear embarrassing headgear. The relatable story, with its colorful illustrations, was an instant hit among early readers and middle schoolers. It sold tens of thousands of copies the year it was released, and a decade later it was selling hundreds of thousands of copies annually. Telgemeier went on to create many other bestsellers, including a graphic novel version of The Baby-Sitters Club.
[Image: Scholastic]
Andrea Colvin, the editorial director of graphic publishing at Little, Brown Ink, says that Telgemeier ushered in a new genre of comics targeted at tweens. Soon, all children’s publishers were eager to acquire books by talented graphic novelists focused on the topics that middle-grade readers cared about. It was such an exciting moment, says Colvin. There was this new medium for children to process stories.
In her role at Little, Brown Ink, Colvin brought Sharp on to create graphic novels for middle-grade readers. For Sharp, this was an opportunity to create the kinds of books she had craved as a child. Her first graphic novel, published in 2021, is a memoir that explains how Sharp dealt with her parents’ divorce by living in her imagination. I had thought about writing the story as fiction, with a little dragon whose parents got divorced, she says. But I felt that telling a story that kids would know was true could be really helpful if they were dealing with this particular issue.
Many parents are turned off by the fact that kids go through graphic novels quickly, taking it as sign that these books aren’t as substantial as prose. But Sharp doesn’t see it that way. One of the most beautiful things about graphic novels is how quick they are to read, she says. “It allows kids to cycle through different stories, find one they connect with, and spend a lot of time with that particular story. Kids often read books with characters a few years older than they are, dealing with issues they’re curious about.
Today, graphic novels are often the first books that elementary-school students will seek out for themselves and read on their own. And this is likely to shape a child’s lifelong relationship to reading. This is a formative period in a child’s life, says Namrata Tripathi, founder and publisher of Kokila, a children’s book imprint at Penguin Young Readers. Their experiences with reading in these years will shape how they feel about literature as adults.
[Cover Images: Little Brown Ink, First Second/Macmillan]
Graphic Novels and Parents’ Angst
When publishers first started making graphic novels for young children in the 2010s, there was a lot of opposition. This resistance persists. According to the School Library Journal’s most recent survey, 55% of librarians said teachers opposed them because they were not real books, while 48% said parents felt this way.
Their concern comes at a time when there’s been a steep decline in children’s reading. Scholastic has found that as children go from elementary to high school, there’s a dramatic decline in their reading enjoyment (from 70% to 46%) as well as in reading frequency (46% to 15%). Scholastic says that one reason for this is that children are increasingly spending time on screens, particularly in their tween and teen years.
To many parents and educators, it’s unclear whether graphic novels are making the problem better or worse. With their bold illustrations and shorter word counts, the genre seems tailored to kids immersed in the deeply visual, high-velocity world of TV and video games. But these caregivers worry that kids will never make the transition to reading prose, that they’ll end up in college without having read an entire book.
But new data suggests that graphic novels actually do help cultivate lifelong readers of prose. A 2023 survey from the National Literacy Trust found that children who read graphic novels in their free time were twice as likely to enjoy reading more overall and rated themselves good readers as compared to those that did not read graphic novels. To Tripathi, this makes sense. As parents, we can feel a certain pressure to make reading very metrics-oriented, wanting them to read books of a certain length or with a certain number of words, she says. “We forget that the kid who is going to stay a reader is one who loves reading, who associates it with a kind of pleasure, joy, curiosity, and fulfillment.
[Cover Image: First Second/Macmillan]
Publishers have had to fight to show the world that graphic novels are a legitimate form of literature. The graphic novel imprint First Second, for instance, has been instrumental in this effort. Macmillan launched it in 2006, when graphic novels had only a small, niche audience. But from the start, it focused on acquiring books for children that pushed the boundaries of art and storytelling; many of its books have received prestigious awards. One of the first books it ever published, American Born Chinese, was a finalist for the National Book award. I can’t stress enough how important the destigmatization process was, says Jon Yaged, CEO of Macmillan. Nobody can deny the literary merit of graphic novels anymore.
With parents so fixated on making sure our kids are hitting literacy milestones, many haven’t noticed that children are developing an entirely new form of literacy that we don’t have. Many adults find graphic novels foreign and intimidating because it takes time to learn how to read them. Kids are now fluent in a kind of visual literacy that their parents don’t even recognize as a skillset, says Tripathi. They have a nuanced understanding of symbols. They’re able to understand what is happening in the blank spaces between the panels.
As I see Ella’s well-worn piles of graphic novels around the house, I think about how my daughter has access to an entire universe of storytelling that I didn’t have. And as the graphic-novel industry keeps growing, publishers are now working to create books for adults who grew up loving the format. The First Second team is now launching an entirely new imprint called 23rd Street Books that is devoted to adults. Ella will benefit from this explosion of literature in graphic novel form.
We used to be the lone kooks in the wilderness, says Calista Brill, editorial director at First Second, who will serve the same role at 23rd Street. But comics aren’t niche anymore. For people like me, who love comics, a new world is opening up. Phenomenal creators are creating books that touch on every topic you can imagine, and the possibilities are endless.
Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is ripping apart the federal government at the seams. Theyve decimated the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), strong-armed their way into troves of sensitive personal data, and pushed federal employees as close to quitting as possible. The people running the show, it seems, are a group of 20-somethings.
Because of their youth, these staffers have received an unexpected level of protection. Wired initially left their names out an initial report “because of their ages.” (These young employees are all above 18). When JD Vance defended a 25-year-old staffer who resigned over racist tweets, he called him a kid. But these arent kids, and theyre not worth protecting. We shouldnt feel bad judging Musks far-too-young team.
The ‘kids’ tearing down the government
Back in January, Wired published a report on the nascent groups operations. DOGE had effectively taken over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), filling it with former X employees and Musk devotees. Two of these DOGE staffers were young, just 19 and 24, with résumés that consisted mostly of internship experiences. Wired declined to name the duo, citing their ages. The move was lambasted on X; why were these two men withheld from public scrutiny?
Why is WIRED not naming government officialswho collect taxpayer dollars!just because theyre 21 and and probably 18 years old? pic.twitter.com/paZtnZjIjv— Jarod Facundo (@dorajfacundo) January 29, 2025
Wired has since changed course, publishing the two staffers names (Akash Bobba and Edward Coristine) along with four others. The magazine’s reporting has spun out a whole new media cycle, with many online media sites scoffing at the young employees. The Daily Beast calls the six Musks Goon Squad. (People seem especially tickled by Coristines online nickname, Big Balls.)
But that coverage has resulted to equal and opposite reaction. Tech heads have been coming out of the woodwork on X to tell defensive stories about the six. After the Democrats of the House Foreign Affairs Committee posted about “broligarchs” taking control of sensitive information, one X user responded by naming these Zoomers. Musk’s response: “You have committed a crime.” The respondent’s account has since been suspended
U.S. attorney Ed Martin (who was present at the January 6 insurrection) penned a public letter to Musk, saying he would pursue legal action against anyone who “targeted” DOGE staffers publicly. Martin claimed that anyone whose actions may have “impacted” these employees’ work “may break numerous laws.” Even President Donald Trump himself came in to defend these staffers, saying that they were smart people. The general premise: These six staffers were unimpeachable because of their youth. Many called the naming of these six a doxing.
The drama spun out even further after Marko Elez, yet another young staffer working under Musk, resigned after The Wall Street Journal inquired about Elez’s connection to a since-deleted account’s racist tweets. Among scores of posts, the account posted things like Normalize Indian hate and You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity. But then the MAGA-verse rallied to bring him back. Sure enough, JD Vance posted on X that he didnt think stupid social media activity should ruin a kids life. (Mind you, Elez was 25. Are you still a kid if you can rent a car?)
How do we hold these ‘boys’ accountable?
The point of calling out these staffers agesostensibly, to demonstrate how little experience they havehas backfired. These boys are now being protected by the right, largely because of their ages. Any attempt to name them is doxxing. Anything they posted online is fair game, because theyre too young to know its wrong. But now theyre slashing through the government; if they can wield that level of power, they deserve the same level of judgment.
Dont let the smokescreen of childishness fool you: They do have power. Coristine just gained a new role in the State Department; now, 19-year-old Big Balls is a senior advisor. Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old also named in the Wired report, has full access to USAID systems. 25-year-old Gavin Kliger sent the email that put USAID workers on leave.
These arent boystheyre government officials. They deserve public scrutiny all the same.
When John Eng started studying the poisonous venom of the Gila monster in the early 1990s, it wasnt immediately clear if the research would lead somewhere. But Eng, a physician and a researcher who was working at the Veterans Administration Medical Center at the time, wanted to build on previous research that showed that the venom of some animals could potentially control blood sugar in humans, helping treat diabetes.
He discovered a compound in the venom that mimicked a human hormone and licensed it to a pharmaceutical company for drug development. After more R&D, the discovery eventually led to GLP-1 drugs including Ozempic, the blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss medicine. The drugs can have severe side effects, and arent perfect. But they could also save tens of thousands of lives in the U.S.
Its one of many examples of how obscure fundamental research, funded by the government, leads to pharmaceutical innovation. (In Engs case, the research was funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs, and some of the research he built on was funded by the National Institutes of Health.) And it illustrates how the cuts that the Trump administration is trying to make to NIH funding would slow down medical progress.
Fundamental research is kind of the pacesetter of technical progress, says Pierre Azoulay, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management who studies technological innovation. In a study, Azoulay found that 31% of NIH grants produce articles that are later cited by private-sector pharma patents.
Were putting one dollar in and we get many, many, many more dollars out, he says. Its just that were not getting it next year. Were getting it over the next five, 10, 15, 20, 25 years. Things take a long time to percolate through the economy. But we are getting those benefits.
Last Friday, the NIH announced that it was slashing funding for indirect costs in research grants and capping it at 15%, down from 40% to 60% at most institutions. That money covers the infrastructure that makes research possible, from building labs, paying electric bills, and setting up IT infrastructure, to paying administrative staff. Its so fundamental to how the system works that if the cuts stay in place, researchers say it would be catastrophic. The horrified reaction of people in academia . . . isnt hyperbole, Azoulay says. 15% would really be like the sky falling down.
Thats not to say that the current system couldnt be more efficient, he says. Some of the indirect costs now come from NIHs own policy for grant recipients to fill out paperwork and comply with a long list of requirements. The whole system, which has been in place since World War II, is in serious need of reform, maybe even radical reform, he says. But radical reform is not what happened a few days ago. It was like, shoot first and aim later.
In theory, pharmaceutical companies could do more basic research themselves. But they obviously have different incentives than researchers at a university or other independent labs. Drug companies might be less likely to pursue something like the Gila monster research. Fundamental research “is not tied to any particular product, necessarily,” says Azoulay. “It can be, in rare cases. But most often, it’s undertaken for lots of reasons. Sometimes it’s usefulness, but sometimes just curiosity. You don’t know if or when or where it’s going to be useful. So the private sector is not going to do it.”
If a drug company makes a discovery that could also benefit their competitors, they might be less likely to pursue it. Academics, on the other hand, want to share their discoveries as widely as possible. Having multiple sources of funding for R&Dsome from the private sector, and some from philanthropy, but mostly support from the federal government for universitieshas made the U.S. the leader in biomedical innovation.
For decades, the basic system hasn’t really been politically controversial. Support for fundamental research has been “a bedrock principle of U.S. government policy,” Azoulay says. “I would say that up until last week I would have thought that’s a bipartisan point of agreement.”
After 22 states filed a lawsuit, arguing that the cuts would stop clinical trials and cause immediate layoffs, a judge temporarily blocked the changes, with a hearing to come on February 21. Other lawsuits are pending. Legally, the Trump administration shouldn’t be able to make the cuts: Congress explicitly banned NIH from making changes to how indirect costs are determined without prior approval.
The Trump administration is likely to keep fighting to reduce funding. Part of the motivation is, undoubtedly, to hurt universities. “This would be really bad for the institutions that do research, which I sometimes think is exactly the point,” says Azoulay. “They want to make Harvard cry.”
But the long-term effect would be to dramatically slow down the pace of innovation in health in the U.S. That effect won’t show up immediately, but will eventually be significant. “It’s like if you have a contractor come into your house and start hacking away at walls without looking at the building plans,” Azoulay says. “The house doesn’t fall down immediately. But you’re taking a big chance and it might actually fall down later on.”
Workweeks can go by in a flash. Starting a day can feel like getting on a roller coaster. Strap in, and almost before you can blink, the day is over. And then it is time to start it again.
Because you can get immersed in the chaos of the day so quickly, the momentary emotions you experience as you move from one task to another probably get lost in the shuffle. As Barbara Fredrickson and Daniel Kahneman pointed out, though, most of our lives are really experienced through our memories of events rather than the moment of those events themselves. Paradoxically, then, you want to think about how to create memories of a happy work life rather than maximizing the happiness youre experiencing in the moment.
As an analogy to better understand why this approach works, think about your experience of the passage of time. In the moment, time seems longest when you are bored and can pay attention to the passage of time. But then when you are looking back at things, time seems longest when you are doing the most new things that serve as landmarks in your memory for time that has passed. So, days that seem long dont feel long when you look back on them, but days that fly by may seem long in memory.
Understand the paradox of ambition
You are energized by dissatisfaction. Engaging in a goal to perform an action requires that there is something you would like to achieve or something you would like to avoid and you have not yet succeeded. After all, if you have everything you want in life, there is no reason to do anything.
One place that manifests at work is in the desire for promotion and recognition. When you aspire to another role or greater responsibility, you derive your motivational energy from being dissatisfied with your current situation. That can cause you to focus on aspects of your current role or employer that are less than ideal. On a day-to-day basis, then, your ambition is going to make you feel less positively about work than you would if you were satisfied with your role.
That doesnt mean that you cant be happy if youre ambitious. You have to find your satisfaction by looking at your trajectory rather than at your current state. Feel good about improvements in your skills and the things you have accomplished. Focus on the relationships you have developed at work and the impact your work is having. By expanding your time horizon for thinking about your work, you can enable yourself to be both ambitious and also pleased with your progress.
Celebrate your wins
Because you probably have a lot on your to-do list, it is common to complete a task and immediately move on to the next thing. As a result, you focus on the intensity of the work youre doing, but dont have an opportunity to reflect on the value of something you have finished.
Take the time to celebrate the wins you participate in. When a client signs a contract, a sale closes, or a report gets distributed to a big audience, take a little victory lap. Reflect on the impact that your work is having on your organization and the people it serves.
Those few moments you spend in celebration will help you to remember the important influence your work has on the success of your team and your organization. That will increase your overall satisfaction with your work.
Look for joy moments
Sometimes, there arent natural chances to celebrate a particular win. That doesnt mean that you arent contributing to important positive outcomes. You may have to seek out chances to enjoy the work youre doing and its impact.
If you have a really enjoyable and productive meeting with a team, call it out at the end. Talk about how much you enjoy the time you spend with them. If your work contributes to positive outcomes you dont see directly, find ways to acknowledge those as well.
I encourage the staff I work with at the University of Texas to walk outside during the busy times of the semester to remind themselves that the work they do is contributing to the college experiences of so many students. While they may not see the direct influence of a specific project on students, without this collective effort, those blissful college years would not be as rich.
Celebrate your colleagues
Often (particularly if you are ambitious) you may treat the accolades and successes in your organization as a zero-sum gamemeaning that if someone else hits a home run or gets acknowledged for their contribution, then that diminishes your own standing. But that’s simply not true.
You and your colleagues are all on the same team. If a colleague gets a promotion, lands a big sale, or solves a huge problem, celebrate their efforts. Take pride in being on the team with other talented people. This shared joy in the successes of others creates a sense of camaraderie that brings satisfaction to your work. It also lays the groundwork for other people to share genuinely in your successes.
After all, the world could always use a little more celebration. Embrace every opportunity to share the joy of your community.
