e154. Can We Cancel Cancel Culture Culture? (or can’t we?)

Every day another celebrity “is cancelled” for any number of problematic reasons. Typically, the celebrity responds by claiming they’ve done nothing wrong and blaming “cancel culture” gone wild. Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen not only politicians and actors supposedly cancelled as as well as children’s toys and books. Looking at the news,…

Excalibur #4: “Still Crazy After All These Years”

Excalibur #4 “Still Crazy After All These Years” Writer: Chris Claremont Pencils/Plotting: Alan Davis Inker: Paul Neary Colourist: Glynis Oliver Letterer: Tom Orzechowski Editor: Terry Kavanagh Publication Date: January 1989  In this episode, Anna, Mav, Andrew, and our special guest, romance comics expert Sydney Heifler (@romancecomicbks), discuss Excalibur #4, “Still Crazy After All These Years.” We barely…

Bad (?) Things We Love (or at least find interesting): Part II

From Hannah: Almost a year ago, the Voxpopcast team attempted to get you to see the inherent value of our …. questionable … entertainment choices in the episode we titled Bad Things We Love. We were perhaps a little Kantian in our notions of taste — at least at first. But the range of material…

Call for Comments: Stand Up, Sitting Down

Photo by Bogomil Mihaylov on Unsplash From Katya: We’ve talked at length about the ways that the current global pan pizza has changed the form, content, and consumption patterns of a lot of media. One we haven’t hit on, yet, is folks that perform live; what do you do when your career/hobby/calling in life is…

e153. Seeking a Game for the End of the World

Do you remember the before times? The long, long ago. Do you remember a time where you used to have real live friends that you used to be able to do stuff with? Maybe you held a weekly game night where you got together and… well, you mostly probably hung out and drank beer and…

Excalibur #3: “Moving Day”

Excalibur #3 “Moving Day” Writer: Chris Claremont Penciler: Alan Davis Inker: Paul Neary Colourist: Glynis Oliver Letterer: Lois Buhalis Editor: Terry Kavanagh  Publication date: December 1988      In this episode, Anna, Mav, Andrew, and special guest Brad Mendenhall of the Cosmic Geppetto Podcast discuss Excalibur #3, “Moving Day,” and fight about the Juggernaut (just kidding—everyone loves him).…

Call For Comments: Can We Cancel Cancel Culture Culture or Can’t We?

From Mav: So this is a weird one. We had this idea a few weeks ago that we would do a show on “cancel culture” after Gina Carano was publicly fired from The Mandalorian. But we didn’t get to it. For one thing, everyone else in the world was dumping think pieces left and right on her. For…

e152. Obviously it’s the WandaVision Show

Somethings are inevitable and predictable. Water is wet, gravity pulls us down, and this show was going to have to talk about WandaVision. That was clear even before the series premiered. However, we didn’t know just how big a cultural phenomenon it would become. Who could have expected while reading the 1982 Bill Mantlo comic…

Excalibur #2: “A Warwolf Possessed”

Excalibur #2 “A Warwolf Possessed” Writer: Chris Claremont Penciler: Alan Davis Inker: Paul Neary Colourist: Glynis Oliver Letterer: Tom Orzechowski Editor: Terry Kavanagh  Publication date: November 1988 In this episode, Anna, Mav, and Andrew discuss Excalibur #2, “A Warwolf Possessed.” Topics include how comics communicate agency within sexualization, the politics of retributive justice within fantasy…

Call for Comments: Gaming in the time of COVID

From Hannah: Fairly early into the pandemic last year, it felt like almost everyone was playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. (We actually did an entire episode on the relationship between cozy games and what was going on it the world.) In fact, the Nintendo Switch felt impossible to find for most of 2020. And the…