Note: There are two versions of this: a shorter outline view and more detailed one describing my logic. This is the shorter version. I've determined there're two ways comics can approach a Big Narrative Change. There's the unexpected and the out of character. And this has nothing to do with fandom response or the quality… Continue reading Spectacular Spider-Man: The Hunger-A Case study in Major Narrative Shifts (Short Version)
Note: There are two versions of this: a shorter outline view and more detailed one describing my logic. This is the longer version. I've determined there're two ways comics can approach a Big Narrative Change. There's the unexpected and the out of character. And this has nothing to do with fandom response or the quality… Continue reading Spectacular Spider-Man: The Hunger-A Case study in Major Narrative Shifts (Long Version)
It’s Valentine’s Day this week. We’ll be spending it watching Korean horror movies. Because our first date by sheer happenstance was in February, my husband and I have also been together, officially, fifteen years (married eleven). We dated about a year before moving in together that next January, had ongoing conversations the whole time about… Continue reading The Agendas Hidden in the American Marriage
Childhood's End Arthur C. Clarke Science Fiction, 1953 From Storygraph: In the near future, enormous silver spaceships appear without warning over mankind’s largest cities. They belong to the Overlords, an alien race far superior to humanity in technological development. Their purpose is to dominate Earth. Their demands, however, are surprisingly benevolent: end war, poverty, and… Continue reading January Reads and Reviews
The Punisher, Frank Castle, began as a Spider-Man antagonist. I don’t think this is secret knowledge. If anything, it’s one of the key issues of Amazing Spider-Man. The kind that people slab and grade. The kind of issue whose cover gets homages in other comic runs twenty years down the line. This is not unknown… Continue reading The Failed Villain to Hero Pipeline as a Pop Culture Thermometer
There’s this extraordinarily silly thing that happens on TikTok every year like clockwork. One batch of users talks about the one- tw0- three- hundred books they read that year. Another batch is utterly baffled at these numbers to the point of conniption. “How is it possible?” is the cry they lift to the heavens. “Don’t… Continue reading High Volume Reading as a Moral Imperative
Check the end for promos, free books, and special sales. Landscape with Invisible HandM. T. AndersonScience Fiction2017 From Storygraph: When the vuvv first landed, it came as a surprise to aspiring artist Adam and the rest of planet Earth -- but not necessarily an unwelcome one. Can it really be called an invasion when the… Continue reading December 2024 Reads and Reviews
I spent some time in a lot of new pop media forums this year. This is what I observed. In comic book circles, it's a very difficult time to be someone who actually liked the movie Madame Web. Who didn't think Morbius was "that bad, damn, y'all need to calm down." Some of the Spider-Man… Continue reading A Year in Forums: Fake Fans and the Proliferation of Non-Analysis
I spent some time in a lot of new pop media forums this year. This is what I observed. So I’ve always been the collectory sort. Snow globes and statuettes from around the country. We’ve got magnets from each installation of our favorite art exhibit. I like picking up cool, pulp covers of my favorite… Continue reading A Year in Forums: I Don’t Know How Collecting Works Now
The Mimicking of Known SuccessesMalka OlderCozy Science Fiction-2023 From Storygraph: "On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. The enigmatic Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s erudite university—and Mossa’s former girlfriend, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems. Pleiti has dedicated her research and… Continue reading November Reads and Reviews
Pixels and Pins Studio 