“Kuhns is one of the best informed scholars on McLuhan, if not the best.”
- Professor Francesco Guardiani, University of Toronto
Kuhns: “We are fish in a sea of media and its unseen currents are driving us apart. McLuhan warned us of exactly this danger. He said, examine the actions of those currents, then escape into understanding.”
From the Prologue of Kuhns's current graphic novel in progress,
The Bio-GRAPHIC Marshall McLuhan…
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Introducing a work-in-progress, a graphic novel of the life and thought of Marshall McLuhan. Hey. Isn’t it time? |
McLuhan is asked: "What does it feel like, to go from being an anonymous English professor in Toronto, Canada, to having your name as widely known as any rock or film star?
McLuhan says, “We’re in a comic, right? In a comic, anything goes.”
He then projects a parade made up of figures from the 1960s...
...and he steps in front of that parade.
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He becomes its band leader.
And he sings his Anthem... |
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"What we western minded find it Such a pain to understand Is how our eyes can mesmerize us And hypnotically demand That the first thing we attend to Is the energy we expend to Snap to the clap of the Gutenberg Marching Band!" "Why should it be such a choke And a challenge to see How printing has stampered its Clampers on you and on me? S'all so connected, so perspected So sequentially inflected You'd be correct to expect to Connect all things logically!" |
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"Any new medium steps in
With equal surprise What it does, it is doing in front Of our wide-open eyes Yet we are sorely inattentive To all but content's "Come and get 'em!" The thing to deflect us is What we expect is The prize!" |
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So when we gripe about
The tripe we see on TV We are nonetheless succumbing And succumbing quite numbingly Which I've said-with such futility! It's our touch-it's sheer tactility! Putting us deep in the tribalized Keep of mythology. |
From The Bio-GRAPHIC Marshall McLuhan
Sample Cartoon Snapshots of McLuhan’s Thought
"We live habitually in a state of information overload.
There's always more than you can cope with."
There's always more than you can cope with."
"The specialist is one who never makes small mistakes while moving toward the grand fallacy."
"The more you know about the public, the more they take over the show."
"We are the primitives of an unknown civilization."
- You heard her! The lady in the map app said, go right! -
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"We use the new to do the old, even if it doesn't need doing at all."
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"We use the new to do the old, even if it doesn't need doing at all."
"With the latest technology we encounter the most primitive forms of human association,
part of our own unconscious life."
part of our own unconscious life."
As of Thursday, July 21, 2026
In celebration of Marshall McLuhan's 115 birthday. |
“To give both sides tends to ignore the possibility that there may be more sides than two.”
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Open and Freely Available • July 21, 2026
Thirty-nine years in the making.
The McLuhan Marshalling Machine
The McLuhan Marshalling Machine (MMM) is a searchable public archive of Marshall McLuhan's books, letters, articles, lectures and interviews, assembled over nearly four decades and now freely available through the official website of the McLuhan Estate.
7,534Quotes
246Chapters
100%Attributed
FullySearchable
Books • Letters • Articles • Lectures • Interviews
What McLuhan scholars have said of the MMM
“The ultimate resource.”
“Kinesthetic learning on overdrive.”
“A continuous and cascading probe into the McLuhan Mosaic Mind.”
“The McLuhan archival work and treasury we've been waiting for.”
“A masterwork every bit as useful as anticipated.”
“Globes make my head spin. By the time I’ve located the place, they’ve changed the boundaries.”