e74. Harry Potter and the Politics of Wizardry

At this point it’s pretty safe to say that the Harry Potter book series is one of the most defining pieces of literature in a generation. Love it or hate it (and if you actually hate it, what’s wrong with you?) you absolutely know what it is… especially if you’re a millennial. But like all…

e73. Reading Practices

How do you read? Do you do it on a computer or a tablet or do you prefer good old fashioned paper texts? Do you listen to books on tape or use an audible subscription? Do you prefer to watch movies or videos? Do you like audiobooks? Do those even count as books? What about…

Call for Comments: Harry Potter and the Strangeness of Wizarding Politics

From Hannah: Like a large majority of nineties kids, I have a fondness for Harry Potter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read the original series because I’ve revisited them so many times (but I’ve only read Cursed Child once). Honestly, I prefer the Fantastic Beast movies to the Harry Potter series. The…

Call for Comments: Kickstarter and Popular Culture

Hannah: Kickstarter, the crowdfunding site whose “mission is to help bring creative projects to life,” turned ten in April. You may know Kickstarter for enabling the Veronica Mars movie to happen. Or you may know it if you’ve played games one of the many Jane Austen games it helped launch (Marrying Mr. Darcy, Polite Society,…

e70. Does Pop Culture Matter?

Live from Wizard World Pittsburgh! Shows like ours and… well, a lot of the rest of the internet are hopelessly devoted to popular culture: Comic books, movies, music, video games, sports, TV. All of the stuff that sophisticated people will tell you is rotting your brain and wasting your life. We like to think we’re…

Call for Comments: How do you read?

From Wayne: I’m a reader. I read a lot. I learned to read early from comics and children’s books and have never really stopped. Books have been my most constant companions and best friends. I grew up in a very rural place, with few opportunities. We never lived in poverty, but we also never really…

e68. Parallel Media

You ever notice that thing that happens when a movie studio releases a movie and then another studio releases a movie with pretty much the exact same premise at the same time and they’re so close to each other that it seems like neither could have copied from the other? It happens a lot! What…

Call For Comments: Does Pop Culture Matter? (LIVE show at Wizard World Pittsburgh)

From Mav: Well, this is kind of exciting. We’ve been invited to do a live panel at Wizard World Pittsburgh this week. We’ll be joining together with our good friend Danny Anderson of the Sectarian Review to talk about why pop culture matters on Sunday, July 28th at 12:30 in room 315 at the Wizard…

Call for Comments: Cuteness and Popular Culture

From Hannah: Happily, we’re surrounded by cute things. The Internet was made for photos of cute cats (and hedgehogs and teacup pigs and otters and puppies and wombats and foxes and all the baby animals). How many people have gone to see films like How to Train Your Dragon or The Secret Life of Pets…

Call For Comments: Parallel Media

From Mav: To me, one of the most fascinating things that happens in Hollywood is when two different movies with essentially the same plot come out at roughly the same time. I don’t mean one movie that is a remake of another movie. I mean when two studios come up with essentially the idea as…