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Magazine Archives for:
2017
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Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 6: Saul
New realities hit Jimmy McGill hard in “Off Brand”, the sixth episode of this season of Better Call Saul. After the previous episode’s explosive climax, which saw Chuck McGill finally “outed” as deeply mentally ill… [more]
Smorgasbord #65: The Allred Family Tree
The highs and lows of media adaptation are explored as we face future TV adaptations of Judge Dredd and Wayward, plus a Hellboy movie reboot by some guys Tom’s rather excited about. In the wild… [more]
Neil Gaiman: Dream Dangerously Now Available on STARZ On Demand
Sequart Organization and Respect Films are proud to announce that Neil Gaiman: Dream Dangerously is now available to watch on STARZ On Demand. (Once you’ve gotten your fill of STARZ’s American Gods, watch the documentary… [more]
Until the End of the World – A Guide to Garth Ennis’s Comics: Battlefields: The Night Witches
The war story is one of the most convenient nationally defining narratives because it relies on an immediate opposition between nations: Nation A sends its soldiers to destroy those of Nation B, with the success… [more]
Mythic World Rewriting: Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows’ Providence
“All countries and all cultures, in the first few centuries that follow their inception, seem to naturally produce their individual supernatural mythologies and webs of folkloric belief. This much we can deduce by looking at… [more]
Samurai Jack: Can He Go Back?
It’s always a challenge writing about a series in progress, especially when you know that by the time your article comes out, it may already be a fairly moot point or some development occurs that… [more]
Smorgasbord #64: The Dangers of Chris Inflation
The Eisner Awards (A.K.A. Brian K. Vaughan’s shelf holders) season is upon us, as well as a new Marvel movie, the first trailer for The Defenders, a TV show being cancelled with no one noticing,… [more]
Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 5: Hermanos
The reference is so obvious that it must be an influence, but it’s worth mentioning: this week’s Better Call Saul (“Chicanery”) borrows heavily from another text about feuding brothers, namely The Godfather, Part II. In… [more]
Colossal: A Strikingly Original and Fresh Film
(This review is spoiler-free.) Colossal is not a perfect film, and it won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it has several very important virtues that allow it to stand apart from most of the film… [more]
Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 4: Damaged or Destroyed?
Those of us who were (and are) rabid fans of Breaking Bad will no doubt enjoy the latest Better Call Saul, “Sabrosito”, even more than usual. Just about half this instalment is essentially an episode… [more]
The Framework in Agents of HYDRA
Where do we even begin? This is yet another article that I hadn’t been planning. Well, I’m sorry: that is just an alternative fact. You see, I had been thinking of writing about this arc… [more]
Where’s Our Moon Over Soho in Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Part 2
In Part I of “Where’s Our Moon Over Soho in Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” I talked about The League and three major characters in its story line and some… [more]
Where’s Our Moon Over Soho in Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Part 1
I’m not really sure how to start this one. I feel like I might be writing about this subject a few years too late, but it’s taken just as long to get to the point… [more]
Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 3: Sunk Costs
The latest episode of Better Call Saul is the closest the series has come yet to feeling like Breaking Bad. The cold, meditative opening that’s paid off at the end, the long sequences set in… [more]
Smorgasbord #63: Khatz in the Khradle
In which Shawn learns that Marvel’s definitions of “ongoing” and “miniseries” are more interchangeable than they should be; a Warren Ellis Plot Generator would inevitably become sentient and attack the United Nations while chain-smoking; Meredith… [more]
I’m Afraid I Must Apologize: The Matrix Rebooted
There has been talk about a reboot of The Matrix. In 1999, I didn’t really know what that was. The Matrix was created by the Wachowski sisters that took me a while to see. All… [more]
Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 2: Witnesses
The title of this episode of Better Call Saul is “Witness”, which is very fitting, since this episode in particular is about the act of watching and being watched. This is rich material, cinematically speaking… [more]
Star Wars Legacy: Young Jedi Knights When The Force Awakens
I remember watching Star Wars for the first time. My parents rented them from the now defunct-Hollywood Movies video store before we got our own VHS collection set. We got one movie a week and… [more]
We Are All Children of the Atom: Marvel’s X-Men Gold Controversy, the Qur??n, and the Problem of Diversity
[Note: This article originally appeared on Mizan Pop on the 10th of April, 2017. Since its publication, Marvel has terminated Syaf’s contract.] The recent launch of the new comic series X-Men Gold has generated international controversy… [more]
Godshaper #1 from Boom! Studios Divinely Blurs the Lines
In some cases, the divide between religion and magic, between the divine and the supernatural, is a narrow one. In BOOM! Studios new series Godshaper, that distinction is blurred further with the addition to commerce.… [more]
Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 1: “Victory”
The first image we see in the third season opener of Better Call Saul is the word “Victory”. This is such a literate show, so profoundly aware of the visual language of cinema and its… [more]
Samurai Jack: Aku’s Folly
I knew about Samurai Jack for a long time, but I never really got into it. It was just another cartoon that my brother and some friends were into that I just, at the time,… [more]
Smorgasbord #62: Shawn & Tom Kill the Marvel Universe
Go for broke! The news from the Marvel Retailer Summit have forced Shawn & Tom to discuss at length about all myriad problems Marvel actually have, as opposed to the problems they think they have.… [more]
Why APB’s Revision of the Lessons of RoboCop Should Disturb You
APB is a new FOX series that focuses on Gideon Reeves, a Tony Stark character whose best friend is killed in a bodega hold up and as a result Reeves decides to use his maverick… [more]
4 3 2 1: Paul Auster’s New Postmodern Masterpiece
First, turn off your computer or smart phone—yes, right now—grab 4 3 2 1, and plow straight through it. True, it’s almost 900 pages long, but trust me, you won’t want it to end. I’ll… [more]