Episode 8: Academia & Viral Social Justice

Earlier this month Duke University appeared in the news amid a minor controversy where a school administrator was offended by the rap music playing in a campus coffee shop and complained resulting in the employees (an African American woman and a Caucasian man) on duty getting fired. Later in the same month an African American…

Call for Comments: Biography, History, Memoir, and Chutz-POW

Wayne Here: This week we’re going to engage in a little shameless self-promotion, or at least I am. A few years ago I was asked to participate in a comic book project. The Pittsburgh Holocaust Center was looking for a new way to teach Holocaust studies. Rather than talk about the horror and tragedy they…

Episode 7: Comic Con Culture

Live from 3 Rivers Comicon! Comic book conventions began in 1960s as small specialized gatherings of science fiction fans clubs who met to trade magazines. Over the past several decades they have grown to become a staple of the the media landscape with their unique own culture: vendors, media releases, artist signings, cosplay contests, panels…

Call for Comments: Hegemony, Gatekeeping and Ivory Towers

From Katya: On May 4th, the Vice President of Student Affairs at Duke University, Larry Moneta, walked into a coffee shop. Unfortunately, this is not the beginning of a mediocre joke but a chain of unacceptable decisions resulting in the mistreatment of campus workers. [caption id="attachment_428" align="alignright" width="300"] Young Dolph[/caption] Inside the shop, Joe Van…

Episode 6: Sex & Drugs & Riverdale

When we started this podcast, one of our first goals was to make sure we did and episode about the CW reboot of Archie comics, Riverdale. The show reimagines the classic Archie characters in a adolescent soap opera world of mixed genres: hardboiled detective, film noir, goth horror, teen romance, erotic thriller. To us it is…

Call For Comments: The Long Con

Comic Book conventions began as small gatherings of fans in the days before comic book stores and the internet provided a community for those in the hobby. The earliest shows were mainly places to find back issues to buy and trade. Professional writers and artists began to be featured as guests and many people wore…

Episode 5: Infinity Franchises & Cinematic Universes

It’s the obligatory Avengers: Infinity War episode! Well, sort of. Infinity War is, as one might expect, the biggest movie in the world right now… and by certain metrics, the biggest movie of all time. So of course, every podcast has to talk about it. This week, Mav and Wayne are joined by Nicole Freim…

Call For Comments: Teenage Wasteland: the adolescent sex narrative

I love the show Riverdale. I didn’t think I would. By all rights it should be absolutely horrible. I imagine that the pitch for the show went something like this… there where was a meeting where a 90 year old executive called in a producer and said: CW Exec: So all these comic book properties…

Episode 4: Losing My Religiosity?

Never argue about politics or religion on the internet! Well, really, they’re the same thing. But so are arguments about atheism. And comics. And sports. And movies. And unix text editors. It’s not really religion; it’s religiosity! Wayne and Mav are joined by Danny Anderson of The Sectarian Review Podcast to discuss the way in…