e81. Stephen King and Horror

It’s Halloween. And in classic podcast fashion that means it’s time to do a theme episode. Halloween is about many things, but one thing it’s about is horror. Horror movies. Horror books. And the master of horror, is Stephen King. Or at least that’s what everyone says… for some reason… But why? What makes Stephen…

Call For Comments: Watching Watchmen

From Mav: When I was a kid a very special comic came out. Something that immediately seemed different from everything else before. Something that seemed to change the whole game. That comic was Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen. Everyone felt it. Every comic fan knew that it was something special. It became a New…

e80. Irredeemable Characters

A couple of weeks ago, the movie Joker was released in cinemas. Even before it came out, there was a lot of concern and controversy about the tone and message behind the movie. Would it cause violence from copycats? Isn’t it just an homage to classic films by Martin Scorsese? Are those problematic too? Does…

e79. Crowdfunding Creative Culture

Technology has allowed us to live in the future. We live in a future where creators and artists can market their product directly to their fans, cutting out the middle man, by using innovative online software to… ummm… be a different middle man?!?! That can’t be right? But it sort of is. Between crowdfunding sites…

e78: Monster Studies-201: Course Syllabus

Happy October! it’s the beginning of Halloween month so we have something a little special. Just over a year ago, we had a show where we invited a bunch of academic friends who teach comics and we developed a course syllabus for a theoretical comics studies course on the air. It was a lot of…

Call For Comments: Joker and Irredeemable Protagonists

From Mav: As I write this, we are about two days away from one of the most highly anticipated comic book movies of all time being released, Todd Phillips’s Joker. I admit that I am very curious about it. Even though I haven’t seen it yet (though I will have by the time we record…

e77. Pop Culture Etiquette

We live in a society and there are rules of polite behavior. But what are those rules? Well, that’s not exactly clear. For the most part the basic ones like saying please and thank you, most of us know. And then there are others like where do you put the forks when setting the table…

Call For Comments: King of Horror

From Wayne: Halloween is sneaking up on us so we want to record some appropriately themed episodes. It is impossible to discuss the modern horror genre without addressing Stephen King, so we’re going to dedicate an entire episode to him. Stephenking.com I’ve been a fan of King’s work since the early 80s. I read most…

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…

Call For Comments: Digital Performances and Deep Fakery

From Mav: There’s been a weird thought running through my head on and off for the last few years. How much of an actor has to be present in order for a performance to count as the actor acting? As CGI enhanced performances get more and more common what “counts”? Do we have to rethink…