I’ve always liked big guys. Despite being a short lady (or perhaps because of it), some part of me is intrinsically drawn to tall, boorish, weirdly animal-like men. I’ve got a mental vault of inappropriate fantasies about characters like Killer Croc, Obadiah Horn, and zombie Gregor Clegane—fantasies that are probably rooted in my childhood love…
Die Like a Brogue
Every time I play Brian Walker’s roguelike PC video game Brogue, I die. Every. Time. I have never won. I never really have the time or mental space to devote to the game. Between the permadeath and increasing difficulty, I’m dead pretty quick. Permadeath sounds like a metal band, but it’s an important element to…
Suffering Sappho! The Role of Queer Coding in Wonder Woman
It’s a good time to be a Wonder Woman fan. Sure, it’s only taken seventy-five years, but the Amazon princess is finally beginning to receive a level of widespread respect equal to the other, mostly male, heroic icons venerated by popular culture. A vast amount of responsibility for this achievement lies with the relaunched Wonder…
Political Comics: Captain America Was Never Neutral
January has seen the writer of Captain America advocating for the bodily integrity of, and being retweeted by, neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. Like a lot of awful moments in the past year, there is a temptation to confuse our horror with shock. We want to ask, “How could this have happened?” But as many Cap fans…
LGBT Stands For Heroes
Queer, trans, and queer trans people have been leading the fights of activist movements for many, many years. Queer folks’ contributions are often overlooked, but from LGBT movements, like Stonewall, to modern movements, like Black Lives Matters, trans women of color, in particular, have been on the front line fighting for the advancement of society….
ESSAY: Food In Film: Finding Safe Spaces In Fiction
There has always been something incredibly magical and calming to me about food in fiction. As a child, often the moments I would return to were the ones in which royalty hosted extravagant feasts, tables bursting with meats, cakes, and more dishes than I could name. Families who ate small, intimate meals. Adventurers who packed…
It’s Not Heat Vision: Why Scott Summers Always Left Me Cold
Who is Scott Summers? It’s a question that until Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men I didn’t care to answer. Scott reminded me too much of the people who’d ignored me at school, never the bullies, but the ones complicit with their silence. The kind who see themselves as better than every other person in…
Comics and YA: How Shelving Creates Access
I think that I’ve got a pretty great job. On any given day I could be helping a teen find a read-a-like for her favorite fantasy series, telling another teen that no they can’t eat buffalo wings at the public computers, doing a Harry Potter-inspired craft program, or reminding someone that not everything you read…
Die Hard Is Not A Christmas Movie
Big news everybody. Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. If Die Hard is a Christmas movie, where do we draw the line? Is Iron Man 3 a Christmas movie? It takes place in December, and he gives that kid a bunch of presents at the end. Is Prometheus a Christmas movie? Idris Elba decorates…
Merry Scary Christmas: The Last Winter (Or How I Should Have Just Watched The Thing)
I am not a horror movie person. I’m a “hide behind a pillow until the monster is gone” kind of person. But when Merry Scary Christmas time rolled around again at WWAC, I decided to challenge myself a little and take part. Now, the one exception to my no-horror-movies rule is John Carpenter’s The Thing…
Merry Scary Christmas: Bob’s Burgers’ “Christmas in the Car”
“You know what? Who needs a nice cozy, warm, comfortable home? We can have our Christmas right here in the car!” “Yeah, until it runs out of gas and we freeze to death.” “Yeah.” It’s perhaps surprising that a show as gentle and warmhearted as Bob’s Burgers gives its holiday episodes a dark, maniacal edge. “Dawn…
Merry Scary Christmas: Masculinity In Jack Frost (and Jack Frost)
Trigger Warning: Please note that this article discusses a rape that occurs within one of the films.
