It’s a very weird time to be a Venom fan with the current All-New Venom run. I’m genuinely enjoying it, curious to see where it goes, and think there’s some very clever use of language. Two of my favorite symbiotes, Toxin and Sleeper, got some panel time, and there’s clearly something happening there with SCAR.… Continue reading Media is More Fun When You Don’t Waste Time Hating It
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
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
Thanksgiving is coming up next week. We’re going to be stuck with a lot of family members having weird conversations that none of us want to have. So I’m going to tell you a story about my mom.My mom is smart, college-educated, and generally a good person. We have had our issues, not gonna lie,… Continue reading External Challenge at the Holiday Table
Recently I’ve been spending a lot more time in comic book and super hero spaces. Despite being a low-key (and occasionally high-key) fan of a few different franchises for years, those kinds of spaces were not great to navigate as a kid or teen femme-presenting person. As an adult, I don’t give as many shits,… Continue reading How Comics Expose Our Expectations Around Critical Analysis
Last week, the next installment in the Dragon Age franchise released, Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I'm a huge fan of the series and the studio that makes the franchise. Now the video game community, as a whole, has a really high capacity for what really comes down to just…idiocy, honestly. It's been a problem pretty… Continue reading Cultural Conservatism and the Collapse of Media Critique
We’re at a stage in the media landscape where I sometimes wonder if we should ever so slightly gatekeep the word camp, if only to preserve some sense of meaning. For the sake of this thought experiment, imagine camp in your head. Further imagine camp horror, specifically. Because we do this thing where we’ll say… Continue reading The Application of Camp in Horror Media
For horror movies, I love a good paranormal story. Something with demons or ghosts that present this sort of otherworldly threat. Mostly because I have the audacity to think I could take out a slasher, alien, monster, or otherwise corporeal menace. So I like a real threat.It's also one of the very few genres where… Continue reading Deconstructing Genre Expectations Through the Lens of Horror
About a decade ago, I had this online gaming pal who was only getting into Harry Potter as an adult via the movies and some of the games. They knew I had not only read the books but knew them in pretty intricate detail. It was one of my primary fandoms as a kid well… Continue reading When Canon Gets Remolded in Our Image
Pixels and Pins Studio 