1973’s Soylent Green may be best known for a forty-year-old plot twist, but this masterpiece of dystopian science fiction represents so much more than what first meets the eye. An adaptation of Harry Harrison’s 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room!, Soylent Green is more than simple pulp fiction. It addresses important issues like environmentalism, population…
Mom’N’Pop Culture: Gamification vs. Standardized Testing in Elementary Education
There have been some noticeable changes in my daughter’s behavior now that her third grade teachers are powering into the second half of the school year and preparing students for the state assessment exams. She’s stressed. My little person of independence asks to spend more time cuddling in the evenings before bed. She has the…
Comics Academe: Teaching Ms. Marvel – Part One
Last semester I taught the first volume of Ms. Marvel in my honor’s multicultural literature class. Ms. Marvel was perfect for my class, which centered on how minorities used fantastic fiction to show disfranchisement and how old tropes become new when filtered through a different perspective. Superman and Batman are iconic, and that’s a lot…
Taboo Connection and Comics as Relics: The Staring Contest, Issue #1
When desirous of a means of getting insight into a person’s mindset and where they are any given point in time, I’ve always thought it would be a good idea to go through their journal. The taboo nature of going through someone’s recounting of their day and their innermost thoughts and desires relative to it. The only electronic text…
I Am Curious (Publishers): Lois Lane, Reprints, and Unintentional Ignorance
The phrase “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” isn’t something that most people take literally, on their path to understanding the harsh realities of life that another person can face due to systematic oppression. Unfortunately, in November 1970, the creative team on Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane (writer Robert Kanigher, artist Werner Roth, and inker Vince…
Why I Game: I Tell You All The Time
Why do I game? The answer is basic. It’s because of my circumstances. I’m a human being. Therefore, I play.
Blood and Glitter: A Book of Art, Perspective, and Choices
“I don’t go into a session intending to make any kind of statement. I’m looking for the mysterious, how to explore the unique enigma of the situation. I think photography is as much about concealing as it is about revealing. The resolution lies in the art of freezing. The thrill is to seize the magic…
#WheresRey: Why Do We Still Need Fan Outcry to Get Hasbro to do What It Should Have Done in the First Place?
In a not so shocking sexist merchandising twist, fans learned that the latest edition of Star Wars Monopoly would not include Rey, the main character of The Force Awakens film. After the fan outcry, Hasbro announced that it would remedy this issue by including Rey in the updated version. In a statement to Entertainment Weekly…
2015 Games Send-offs, 2016 Predictions
Welcome to the 2015 Games Round-up Masterpost. This article will point you to articles you loved, the ones you should have read, and everything in-between. News in Review Our very own Brenda Noiseux kept us up-to-date with her weekly “Get Your Game on Wednesday” series. This was the year we lost gaming giant Satoru Iwata….
2014 Hugos Versus 2015 Sad Puppies: Novelettes
This is the second post in my series on the Sad Puppies controversy that rocked the Hugo awards in 2015. In the first, I took a look at the short stories on the campaign slate and compared them with the 2014 Hugo nominations in the same category. Now it is time to step up to the next bracket…
Fail Better: Remembering Instead of Resolutioning
Last year, instead of resolutions, I opted for rememberlutions. I got this idea from a Buzzfeed article and thought the idea was pretty neat: “New Year’s resolutions can be energizing and motivating, but they can also lead you to beat yourself up; focusing on the previous year’s failures to figure out where to do better…
The Capsule Corp Legacy: Technology and Women in Anime
In the year 2015, where technology is so pivotal and so advanced, the sad fact remains that women make up a small percentage of jobs in scientific fields. Only a few months ago, the Huffington Post reported that the number of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) careers is actually declining. Even Barbie,…
