Call For Comments: Minor Characters

From Wayne: Ostensibly, every story has a protagonist or two, those characters who we are meant to focus and root for, the focal point through which we experience the story. By definition, anyone else in the narrative is a minor character. So, what we want to talk about here is why do we care so…

e110. Comic Studies-350: X-Men Course Syllabus

Way back on episode 23 we did our first syllabus episode. We got a bunch of comic scholars together and asked the question “if we wanted to teach a class about comics and graphic novels, from scratch, what would be on it?” One of the ideas we had back then was “what if we wanted…

e109. Scores & Soundtracks

What makes a good soundtrack to a movie? What makes a good score? And actually, what is the difference between a score and a soundtrack anyway? The answer to that question may not be as clear as you think. Sometimes a great soundtrack is one that you find yourself singing for weeks after you see…

e108. Bad Things We Love

Way back on episode 86, our four hosts got together and talked about “Good Things We Hate” Hannah, Katya, Wayne and Mav discussed the idea of taste and high brow and low brow entertainment and talked about a selection of books, movies, TV shows, music and other media that is commonly accepted as great but…

e107. Senior Year in Quarantine

As we continue this never ending battle with COVID-19, a lot of our socializing takes place on the internet… even more than it already had been. As such, there’s been an uptick in memes as people grab on to … anything… just to have something to make a human connection. One of the memes you…

e106. COVID-19 & the Death of the Comic Shop

We live in strange times. Obviously, the number one problem right now is that we’re in the middle of a global pandemic that has ground the WHOLE DAMN PLANET to a halt. This is a big problem for everyone in and of itself. As the whole world is basically under “stay at home” orders (or…

Call For Comments: What’s Happening to Comics Retail (and most other retail), in a pandemic?

From Wayne: For awhile now we’ve talked about doing an episode where we discuss the changing face of comic book retail. I have believed for some time that the retail side industry has been going through a seismic change. The last change of any real magnitude was the introduction of the Direct Market in the…

e102. News by Meme

Newspapers are a dying breed in the twenty-first century. This isn’t a new thing; it’s been happening for a while. But at this point, more than just newspapers are dying. Even news programming is dying. Sure, cable news networks are huge. And sure… they’re on the internet as well. But, the problem is that on…

e101. Not the Next Big Thing

So first some notes… we’re in a weird place. As we recorded this episode, we were on the cusp of much of America (where all of our hosts are located) just beginning to prepare (too late frankly) for the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. Now, as we post this 4 days later, we are deep into it.…

e100. Hollywood vs. FanCasting

Think about your favorite book, video game, or comic. Who do you think should play the protagonist in the movie? Chances are you have a pretty good idea. Chances are also that if someone already has adapted your favorite character into a film, they didn’t pick your perfect choice. Maybe it turned out great, maybe…