Welcome to our biweekly roundtable of Twin Peaks where we are working our way through every. Single. Episode. Some of us are regulars and some of us newbies, but none of our experiences are the same. So get yourself a damn fine cup of coffee, watch along with us, and feel free to chime in…
Tumblr Fandom Doesn’t Owe You Sales: The Fans Who Are Ruining Everything (This Week)
Tell us, oh Internet sages, about this new phenomenon they call Tumblr fandom: “I had a discussion at ECCC with someone in comics, I’m not going to mention who, about how busy the convention was, and they said that some of the attendees were probably just ‘Tumblr fans.’ I asked what she meant, and she said that…
Newspaper Comics: How We Met Them and Where We’d Like to See Them Go
For many of us Millennials and older, newspaper comics were our first experience with sequential art. But that may be changing. While school and alternative newspaper comics used to be a way for cartoonists to break into making comics professionally or to having a syndicated strip, these days, budding creators are more likely to start out on…
Where I Began: Kids’ Comics That Left Impressions
B & V & Lex Makes Three I read my first comic book when I was six or seven years old. It was a Betty & Veronica Double Digest, and I first noticed it sitting on a newsstand at the grocery store. I asked my Grandma if I could read it, thinking she would say…
Teenage Eternity: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Turns 18
This year, Buffy the Vampire Slayer turns eighteen. It’s finally graduated high school and has set off for UC Sunnydale to ultimately wash out and become a full time supernatural hero. Oh well, Buffy the College Years were never quite as fun as Buffy on the unlimited budget of adolescent emotion and parental distance. (See:…
Cinderella! It Can Do Magic, Believe It Or Not: Feminist Fominist Foo! [GIFS]
Disney’s live action reboot of Cinderella is being billed as a feminist retelling of the classic tale, where Ella “isn’t just waiting for her prince” and demands to be accepted on her own terms. However, the movie’s apparent message that soldiering through mistreatment with a stiff upper lip is a kind of ultimate heroism is…
The Twin Peaks Log: S.2 E.6
Annie It’s interesting to see Cooper upset with himself because his extra-jurisdictional adventures endangered Audrey, and of course got a bunch of people killed at One-Eyed Jack’s. He mentions that this isn’t the first time someone’s been hurt because he stepped outside his bounds. But hey, Ben Horne is happy-ish because he got his briefcase…
YA Bloggers Read Gotham Academy, A Roundtable
At the start of the year, I thought about the ways in which comics could market itself more successfully to a wider audience. More specifically, how can Marvel and DC Comics sell certain titles to an audience that isn’t already tapped into comics (or at least into their vast universes) but who would love some of their current…
March Roundtable: Kids and Games
Welcome to the next installment of the Game Section’s monthly roundtable! Growing up is weird. Gaming can be strange. The games children play? Often truly bizarre. This month we talked about games we played as children. Apparently we all know our way around a solo board game or two. What did you all play, readers?…
Compulsive Reading: Some Notes On How We Read Mental Health
Megan Purdy asks the questions in this round table discussion responding to several comics tackling mental illness, and its resultant behaviours. Sara Lautman’s comic Some Notes on Compulsive Hair Pulling is beautiful and affecting. The comic is about Lautman’s struggle with trichotillomania: how she got her diagnosis; how she deals with it; how she relates,…
Jem Jam: “Battle of the Bands” and “Starbright: Part 1”
2015 marks the 30th anniversary of Jem, the beloved 80s cartoon series. Jem and the Holograms have never been bigger, as 2015 will also see the release of a live action film based on the show, a new comic book series published by IDW, and a continuing line of collectible fashion dolls from Integrity Toys….
Life Geek: Bookshelfies Edition
Do you know exactly where all your books are located? When you go over to someone’s house for the first time, do you zero in on their book collection in order to determine if you are kindred spirits? Is loaning a book to someone a silent act of genuine trust for you? If you answered…
