Happy Halloween!!! Or I guess, happy a couple days after Halloween. Whatever, as far as we’re concerned we’re still squarely in the domain of “spooky season” and one of the spookiest things we could think to talk about was Stephen King. Actually, we’ve done this once before. Way back on show #81, we talked about…
Category: Literature
e441. In Blackest Night: a Deep Dive into the World of Lanterns
Are you watching Lanterns? Ratings and critical response imply that you very well might be. Which is why we’re talking about ti again. If you’re wondering “wait, didn’t you do this before?” Well, yes and no! We did have an episode about the Green Lanterns a few weeks ago where we talked about the history…
e437. In Brightest Day: The History and Popularity of Green Lantern
Every once in a while an adaptation property really surprises us by capturing the cultural zeitgeist far more than its source material would imply that it should. That seems to be the case with the TV show Lanterns. For comic book fans, this always looked interesting — an unlikely buddy cop period drama in the…
e436. Robotic Dreams and Digital Nightmares: Is A.I the Monster… or the Mirror?
Obviously, Artificial Intelligence has been a big topic in the news of late. But in the world of pop culture, it really isn’t anything new. A.I. has been a huge theme in literature in one way or another for essentially the last century if not longer. As long as we have dreamed of creating life,…
e435. Zines! Where Art Meets Activism
Let’s talk about zines! Why? Because in many ways, they are one of the oldest and most revered artifacts of grassroots pop culture. Also, it turns out that pretty much the entire cadre of VoxPopcast hosts has a history with them. So, on this week’s episode, Mav, Hannah, Wayne, Katya and Maybe get together to…
e433. Spider-Man: Masks, Myths, and Media
Spider-Man, Spider-Man does whatever a spider can… So if you’re the kind of person who listens to this show, you no doubt know that a new Spider-man movie, Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Probably many of the podcasts you listen to are even talking about it. Well, we don’t want to spoil it, so rather than…
e432. The Odyssey and Greek Myth: The Enduring Legacy of Ancient Classics
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that the biggest movie in the world for the last week has been Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Despite a concerted right-wing campaign to pretend that no one is interested in the film, it appears to be wildly successful. This is hardly a surprise; Nolan is…
e431. Henchmen, Heavies, Minions & Muscle: Narrative Dynamics of the Hired Goon
Behind every great villain is… frankly, well, often there’s another bigger villain pulling the strings. But the truth is, while we often celebrate “the big bad” some of the most interesting villainy comes from the lieutenants that the hero meets along the way to facing the big bad. Sometimes, these henchmen might even eclipse the…
e430. Tyrant: Dinosaurs and the Evolution of Indie Comics
To a lot of people “comics” seems to mean superheroes. So much that “comic book movies” is the term that we sometimes use for what should properly be called “superhero movies”. This makes sense, given the stranglehold that DC and Marvel comics have had over the American comic publishing industry for nearly a century. However,…
e429. Out of this World: Alien Archetypes in Pop Culture
Aliens are one of the most enduring concepts in popular culture. It makes sense really. If we know there are other planets then it stands to reason that we might wonder what’s on them. There’s no shortage of books, films, TV shows and video games that explore this. So it’s kind of weird that we…