e328. What’s the Deal with Presidential Assassinations?

It’s been a weird week of American politics. And we can’t really keep up. Yeah, we know something big happened this week (the whole shakeup of the democratic nomination) but we recorded this episode last week after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. It oddly feels like old news now. But the thing is, we’re…

e258. A Primer on the Ages of Disney

A few weeks ago we did a show all about the “Ages of Comics” and why comics scholars and fans broke things down the way they do. It was a lot of fun and it got us and got us thinking about how it isn’t quite as intuitive or even universally nailed down as people…

Call For Comments: The Ages of Disney

From Mav: A few weeks ago we did a whole show about he ages of superheroes and why that was different than the ages of comics. It was a show requested by friend of the show John Darowski because he suspected that, as much as comics scholars and fans use those terms, they’re not really…

Call For Comments: The Ages of Comics and Superheroes

From Mav: Several years ago when I was doing my oral comps (PhD exams) I was asked a question about the evolution of comics. I don’t remember the exact question anymore. What I do remember is that one of my committee members stopped me and said “you always say that… the ages of comics. What…

e223. The Cultural Impact of Ms. Marvel on Disney+

This Wednesday saw the season finale of Ms. Marvel on Disney+, a show that we have been thoroughly enjoying. However, there’s been a weird bit of reaction to Ms. Marvel and the MCU in general as of late. While the critical reviews of Ms. Marvel are overwhelmingly positive (it currently sits at a 98% on…

CFC: Cards, Baking, Music, Shelf Elves & Other Holiday Traditions

From Katya: Sometimes I think being a scholar of culture boils down to constantly recognizing that, actually, it absolutely is that deep. Pretty much all the time. We were talking about seasonal cultural practices that we found interesting. Mav brought up sending Christmas cards as a tradition that made him feel like he was celebrating…

CFC: Pop vs. Public History — Why Do We Love Nonfiction?

From Monica: I want to talk about Seabiscuit.  Being an archetypal precocious horse girl, at age 9 Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit (1999) was the first nonfiction book I remember reading. It was the first time I was conscious of the popular weight attributed to the New York Times bestseller list, and for once my childhood interests…

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…

e144. So, It’s Been a Week! (1/3/21 – 1/9/21)

We totally didn’t want to talk politics this week. And we certainly didn’t want to talk about the world being on fire. 2020 had enough of that. All we wanted to do this week was play our fun little box office game. Unfortunately, that went out the window the moment there was an attempted coup…

e123. Culture, Context, Protest, and Memefication

Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone on the Internet and they tried to prove their point by forwarding some meme that was a quote of a famous person for historical figure that seemed to vaguely relate to their point in the most perfunctory possible way? When this happened, did you think to…