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Capital Thoughts: Captain America #24
Superhero families have always been something of a mystery. As most serious readers of comics know, the 1955 Comics Authority banned virtually all sexual activity from comics, and even within the bounds of marriage, sex… [more]
Hell and Tragedy: on the Cult Classic Jigoku
I just know you guys are into genre-busting Japanese horror films! This film is equal parts tragedy and horror. It’s weird, poetic, and occasionally kind of gross. By the standards of the time anyways… [more]
A Leap Forward: The Flash Pilot Review
One of the smartest things The Flash manages to do in its first full episode as a TV series is establish just about everything it needs to hum along as both a show and as… [more]
Truth, Justice, and Ferguson
The story of Ferguson, an image of small town USA torn apart, unfolded through the media in increasing complexity. First, there were the tragic reports of a black, unarmed teenager shot six times, twice in… [more]
The New Batgirl: An Interview with Babs Tarr and Cameron Stewart
Nick Ford: Please tell us who you are and what you’re most known for. Babs Tarr: Besides BATGIRL I’m probably best know for my Bosozoku Sailor Scouts piece that kind of went viral a couple… [more]
Rubber on Planes: Gamera vs. Gyaos
Aerial battles you guys! Because flying turtles are cool looking. Right? Right?! This is actually a solid and enjoyable kaiju film with a cool villain. [more]
The Politics of Batman, Part 5: Batman Returns, Enron, and the Buying of American Democracy
I first saw the film Batman Returns when it was released in 1992. I was young and didn’t understand it. I found the Penguin disgusting. I had a sense that the movie was condemning American… [more]
Discovering Black Jesus, Episode 5 “Fried Green Tomatoes”
Boonie: Man, God ain’t good man. God sucks right now. Black Jesus: Oh negro of little faith, isn’t the miracle of the forgivin’ cholos enough proof to let yo’ disbelievin’ ass know that God want… [more]
Smorgasbord #3: Sad Goat
For the third episode of Smorgasbord, Shawn and Tom try to to untangle the mess DC made with their recent bad shirt designs, tackle the end of the Kirby lawsuit, and try to be hopeful… [more]
“Why d’You Think God Created Abortion Clinics?”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 38
Continued from last week. After abortion as a vehicle for laddish jokes and abortion as a means for evoking terror, Millar turned to abortion as a symbol of crass irresponsibility. (ST: 147/152/157) In Sink Or… [more]
Could Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam Contribute to Orientalism?
Dwayne Johnson will play DC heavy-hitter Black Adam in an upcoming Shazam film. Fans were either reviled or revitalized, but what has been rarely discussed is how exactly Black Adam should be adapted to the big screen. We just need to be careful. [more]
The Shatner News No One Covered: Scenes from a Comics Convention, Part 1
Recently, Denise Dorman, the wife of the great Star Wars artist, Dave Dorman, posted a blog where she described the financial difficulties faced by many of the comics creators who attend conventions. Hers was a… [more]
Is Cromagnon’s Orgasm Worth Your Time?
Austin Grasmere and Brian Elliot were successful pop producers in the mid 1960s. Despite their eminent reputations in the popular music industry, they wished to create a more experimental album, as a sort of hobby… [more]
True Detective Explores the Roots and Branches of Southern Gothic
Set on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, and filled with images of hurricane-wrought destruction, the first season of True Detective uses many Southern Gothic visual elements. Physical decay evokes themes of moral decay, which are… [more]
The Second Coming of Television
The Beast -with sincere apologies to W.B Yeats. Blogging and blogging in widening participation The ‘twoten to’ cannot follow the timeline; Schedules fall apart; the box-set cannot hold; Cyber-anarchy is loosed upon the world, The… [more]
A Sarcastic Review of Videodrome
Just to be clear: sarcastic. I liked this movie. Don’t get that mixed up, guys. Hopefully this is funny. [more]
ZomBeing and Nothingness: Part 2
Previously: Being faithful to your genre, monsters as liminal beings, and horror as fascination. Beyond Thunderdome If the archetypal zombie story is apocalyptic, it’s worth considering what apocalyptic stories actually are. Chandra Phelan notes that… [more]
Rat Queens #8: Violet Rebels Against Expectations
After the dark twists and turns and plot developments that featured so prominently in issue #7 of Rat Queens, ending in an attack on the town of Palisade by the tentacled god himself, issue #8… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: The Man Called A-X Volume 1 #3
On Christmas Day 2013, my brother gave me a booster pack of random, non-sequential issues from a variety of popular comic book titles that syndicated in the late eighties to mid nineties. The nineties was… [more]
Sword of Doom: So Close
I feel like this may be the start of many samurai reviews I do. This one was good, but also not? [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium! : Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Five
Hey, look! It’s our “girl” from the cover—and apparently she’s got a name and everything! Dear readers, allow me—by way of Jack Kirby, of course—to introduce you to Lila, a manufactured “Build-A-Friend” that comes our… [more]
A Voice in the Dark, “Get Your Gun” #1: A Review
A Voice in the Dark was easily one of the best reviewed and most talked about titles published by Image Comics and Top Cow last year. The story of Zoe Aarons and her life of… [more]
“Terminate This Pregnancy”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 37
Continued from last week. Millar makes more use of the topic of abortion in Swamp Thing than most superhero writers do in a lifetime. In each case, abortion is used either as a symbol of… [more]
The Last Temptation of Supe: Christian Overtones in “For the Man Who Has Everything”
On those rare occasions when I teach students about superhero comics, one question that always comes up is what defines a “hero”. Is, for example, a hero simply an individual who does heroic things? Or… [more]