e171. Summertime! Time to Kick Back and Unwind
Somehow, summertime media is special. Or at least, we seem to think it is. We have summertime blockbusters. We have summertime beach reads. We have summer TV specials and songs of the summer. It definitely FEELS like there is something that makes pop culture media “summery.” But we’re hard pressed to say exactly what it…
Excalibur #20: “The Eye of the Beholder”
Excalibur #20 “The Eye of the Beholder” Writer: Michael Higgins Pencils: Ron Lim Inks: Joe Rubinstein Colours: Glynis Oliver Letters: Augustin Mas Editor: Terry Kavanagh It’s out with the Claremont/Davis, in with the Higgins/Lim with Excalibur #20, “The Eye of the Beholder,” a flashback issue we’re charitably describing as “What If Excalibur was Set in…
e170. What is Serialization? Tune in next week!
In today’s pop culture landscape, serialization is everything. TV, movies, novels, comics. Addict people to your ongoing series and hope they keep paying for another installment. Somehow, despite the fact that we are 170 episodes into a podcast SERIES about pop culture media, much of which is SERIALIZED, hosted by people who literally study SERIALIZATION…
Excalibur #19: “Madripoor Knights”
Excalibur #19 “Madripoor Knights” Writer: Chris Claremont Pencils: Rick Leonardi Inks: Terry Austin and Al Milgrom Colours: Bran Vancata Letters: Tom Orzechowski and Brad Joyce Editor: Terry Kavanagh Original publication date: February 1990 We’ve pulled the strings of reality to create another epic podcast team-up as Justin and Alicia of The X-Wife Podcast join Anna, Mav, and…
Call for Comments: Summer ____, Had Me a Blast!
From Hannah: There’s this odd category of media that is seasonally appropriate: Summer ___. We have summer movies, summer television, songs of the summer, summer beach reads … But what makes a piece of media a good “summer movie” or “song of the summer?” When I proposed this topic, Mav asked if I meant blockbusters…
Call For Comments: Serialization Technology
From Katya: It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a game scholar, comics scholar, and Victorianist walk into a bar, they must instantly bond over their shared study of serialization. Except… we never recorded it. It’s rather astounding that we haven’t already; serialization cuts across all of our fields from comics to games and…
e169. The Subtle & Sophisticated Highbrow Culture of The Fast & The Furious
Movies are back! After a year and a half of almost total dormancy, movies came back to the American box office, and filmgoers were welcome with the very sophisticated and cultured experience of F9: The Fast Saga, the latest installment of Fast & Furious franchise. Many are joking about it, but many others are just…

Call for Comments: Podcasting Yankees in King Arthur’s Court
July 20, 2021
From Hannah: I can trace my first encounters with the King Arthur mythology to two (very different) Disney adaptations: The Sword and the Stone (1963) and A Kid in King Arthur’s Court (1995). That my interest in King Arthur began with these, er, interpretations of their source material (not to mention the earlier texts) is…