e299. Things You Missed in 2023!

Happy New Year! If you listen to podcasts which you must if you’re listening to this, then you probably know by now that they way people end a year in their podcasts is typically to do a “best of the year” in whatever field or genre that they happen to cover. You’ve probably listened to…

e295. Superhero Fatigue & The Illusion of Change

An ongoing concern in the geekosphere world these days is the worry that “superhero fatigue” is setting in and the bubble is bursting. But the funny thing is, if you do a little bit of research, you’ll find that people have been complaining about “superhero fatigue coming soon” since before the MCU started. On this…

CFC: Superhero fatigue and the Illusion of Change

From Mav: If you’re the kinda person who reads pop culture think pieces on the internet (which, I assume you must be if you’re reading this) you’ve probably come across some that talk about the impending death of the MCU. In fact, if Tatiana Siegel of Variety is to be believed, even Marvel is a…

e292. Monstrous Women and the Horror Gaze

On this week’s not exactly Halloween special episode, Mav, Wayne and Monica are joined by returning guests Dr. Michael Chemers and Dr. Samantha Langsdale, two experts in the field of monster studies to talk about their recent conference at the Center for Monster Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz. Sam and Mike share…

e291. Fables, Fanfic and Fair Using the Public Domain

On this week’s episode we explore the complex topic of public domain publishing by tackling the recent controversy surrounding comic book author Bill Willingham, creator of Fables. After a long battle over ownership with DC Comics, Willingham recently announced that he was releasing the intellectual property of Fables into the public domain so that anyone…

Call For Comments: Publishing the Public Domain

From Mav: So if you don’t live in the tiny corner of the internet that follows creators rights within the comic book publishing world, you probably missed a story a couple weeks ago that few of us who do live in that corner were obsessed with. Bill Willingham, creator of the comic Fables, decided to…

e289. Superman in Cleveland

Did you know it’s Superman’s 85th Anniversary? You might have. Did you know that he was created in Cleveland? Maybe. And if you didn’t know these things, well, it is and he was. And in celebration, the city of Cleveland has been running a series of events for the last several weeks which led up…

e286. The Legend of Harley Quinn

On last week’s episode, we delved into the world of classic literary character Hercule Poirot and his cultural significance across multiple iterations. This week, we go in the exact opposite direction. Recorded at the exact same time as last week’s show, Wayne and Mav are joined by returning guest Andrew Deman and first time guest,…

Call For Comments: So How About That Harley Quinn?

From Mav: So I want to talk about Harley Quinn. Why? Because I think she has a very interesting and near unique (maybe along with Deadpool) place in current superhero fandom. I’ve had this ongoing conversation with Wayne about the difficulty in creating major new comic characters for the Big Two (Marvel and DC) in…

e283. Is Josie and the Pussycats a Bad Movie?

A few weeks ago when we did our episode saying goodbye to Riverdale, Monica made Mav promise that we could do an episode watching and analyzing one of her favorite nostalgic films, Josie and the Pussycats, a 2001 movie drawn from the same IP as Riverdale was. Mav agreed and so here we are. Was…