e62. Comics! You know… for the Kids!

Did you know comic books used to be produced almost entirely for children? Yeah! It’s true. Ok, maybe you did know that, but there was a time in America where given the popular idea of what a comic book was, that was hard to believe. Of course, there was also a time in America where…

e61. Narrative REMIX!

We seem to like stories we already know. Not just rereading or rewatching an old favorite. We seem to derive some sort of pleasure in seeing a new version of an old story… a version with a “twist.” What if Superman was a horror story? Well, lets explore that in Brightburn! What if Lizzie Bennet…

Call for Comments: Jigglypuff is Still Hanging out in my Yard, Pokemon and AR Three Years In

From Katya: One of the weirdest gaming experiences I have ever had was the release of Pokemon GO in the summer of 2016. I downloaded the game like a good game studies human and messed around with it (until I caught a Jigglypuff, the best Pokemon and decided my career had peaked.) Much of the…

e60. Poverty Shaming

Have you ever been perusing Facebook or Twitter and run across a meme that maybe seemed a little funny at first, but when you thought about it, you just thought “hey, isn’t that just making fun of people for being poor?” Maybe the meme wasn’t funny at all…. maybe it was just a forward from…

e59. Game of Finales

Well, the Game of Thrones finale has come and gone and of course we have to talk about it. The internet had opinions and so do we. But this is this show so we’re not going to just stop there. Mav, Hannah and Wayne are joined by returning friend of the show, Michael Chemers, to…

e58. Gaming an Empire

History does not look upon tyranny with favor. The Persian Empire, The Mongol Empire, the Roman Empire, The Qing Dynasty, The British Empire. In our modern contemporary moment we tend to think of all of these as affronts to freedom and democracy… and with good reason. That said, there are a surprising number of games…

Call for Comments: Great Expectations for Disappointing Endings to the Game of Thrones

From Hannah: Game of Thrones ends Sunday and, based solely on audience opinion of the last two-to-three seasons (particularly the penultimate episode ever), it’s going to be bad. Depending on who you ask, it may be the worst finale of a television show ever (except maybe Dexter). There are a lot of reasons people are…

e57. You Kant Like That!

If you’ve listened to the show before you know that Hannah and Mav have an ongoing argument about how Riverdale is the best show on television and Hannah is incorrect in thinking that The Good Place is instead (and you can probably tell which one of us wrote the copy for this episode from that).…

Call for Comments: Poverty Shaming

From Hannah: According to a new Bankrate Survey, just over a quarter of Americans will not being going on summer vacation this year (while twenty-two percent are on the fence). Sixty percent of those respondents are forgoing vacation because they can’t afford it. Those who are going on vacation are spending an average of $1,979…

Call for Comments: Gaming an Empire

From Katya: Previously, we’ve have gaming episodes on direct violence in video games (I stab/shoot/punch/explode/magic the enemy.) This time we want to turn to another common theme in gaming: empire. Civilization VI Risk, Command and Conquer, Axis and Allies and other strategy games— analog and digital — allow players to command armies waging war, claiming/reclaiming…