“It can’t be that scary,” I told myself as I slid the DVD into my beat-up player and turned on the TV. I was 14, we’d just moved to a new country, and with the school year still a few days from officially starting, I was desperate for something to do that didn’t involve unpacking…
Shocking Twist: Data Show #GamerGate Is About Harassing Women
According to objective data, #GamerGate is not about journalistic ethics. Colour me surprised Newsweek had Brandwatch analyze 25% of tweets to the GamerGate hashtag. The social media analytics firm looked at 500,000 tweets, going back to the inception of the hashtag. They found that the vast majority of tweets were directed to female developers and game critics, not journalists: GamerGaters…
R/W: Flimflam, Fonts… Flaubert?
Welcome back to R/W, our weekend collaborative linkblog about language, literacy, and learning! Steven Pinker has a new book out, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, and Mother Jones likes it a lot. They’re geeking out over it and Pinker’s revelation that according to science, blah-de-blah grammar…
Comic Fan Cocktails: Megg’s Molten Tears for Megahex by Simon Hanselmann
As a fan of Simon Hanselmann’s comics, creating a cocktail based on Megg is a sort of wacky indulgence of mine. I imagine Megg would prefer a simpler drink that doesn’t involve making a pepper simple syrup, but if the mood struck her I think she would love this drink. Megg’s Molten Tears is a mutated margarita of…
Kickstarter of the Week: Final Empire
Arena Mode and Assault or Attrition were the top funded books in the Kickstarter: fiction category. Now the science fiction superhero series comes to its epic conclusion in Blake Northcott‘s Final Empire. “It’s intimidating to throw your heart and soul into an idea and then release it out of ‘the bubble,’” says Northcott of her Kickstarter experience. “All…
Scariest Movie of My Life: Uzumaki
I love me some horror movies. At parties or family gatherings, start talking to me about the latest rom-com and you will see my eyes glaze over. But mention the latest slasher flick, and I will immediately jump to attention. I will also be the first to admit that I don’t have the highest standards…
Spiritual Gender-Bending in Solanin
SPOILER WARNING: This essay contains spoilers pertaining to Inio Asano’s Solanin
Laila & Luther: If You Go Down To The Woods Today, You’re Sure of a Big Surprise
Here are some important things in the world of sex: arousal, desire, active consent, i.e. the decision to get fucky made by all, appreciation of each body involved, a jolly good time, and positive interaction following the deed.
The DC Daily Planet: DC REPRESENT
Happy Friday, Gothamites! I’ve got a lot of news for you today, so let’s dive right in. This is the most important thing you will hear this week: Static Shock is getting a live-action series. While we were all been excited (wary? full of trepidition?) about the list of upcoming DC feature films, Warner Bros….
Review: Megahex by Simon Hanselmann
In a nondescript suburb lives Megg, a green-skinned witch, Mogg, her black cat familiar and lover, an enormous anthropomorphic Owl (named Owl) their unhinged cohort Werewolf Jones and other strange beings. Together, despite their otherworldly appearance, their activities revolve not around magic and the dark arts but around ingesting huge amounts of marijuana and making…
Kid Comics Go to Class: Physicists Teaching With Comic Books
The American Physical Society is a non-profit network of over 48,000 physicists working to educate the general public on physics. Their mission statement reads “In the firm belief that an understanding of the nature of the physical universe will be of benefit to all humanity, the Society shall have as its objective the advancement and…
Finding Feminism in Horror: Part I
Finding feminist ideology in the horror film genre can feel like searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore film. It can seem a futile effort considering the most popular horror tropes are particularly unflattering toward the female characters: the final virginal survivor, “ugly duckling” killer, the commonality of sexual assault as plot device, etc. Then…
