Hello readers! Summer is here, if the ridiculous humidity is any indication, and I’m starting to dive into some fun light reading to usher in the season. If you’re doing the same, let me know what you’re reading! I also want to extend congratulations to everyone who’s graduating, and wish you lots of lovely books…
Zine Review: Abstract Door #6/Let it Sink #9
Abstract Door #6: Gargoyles & Garbage/Let it Sink #9: The Tears of Jim Joyce Jim Joyce and Vicky Lim Anything could be behind a door. I assume this is why my cat is fascinated by closed-off rooms, but for Vicky Lim, doors are an opportunity for both a writer and a reader to open themselves…
Mom’N’Pop Culture: An App for the Mom-Beast
The other day I caught a rerun of Supernanny, a how-to reality television show hosted by a child rearing professional who teaches parents to deal with out-of-control children. Mostly, I can’t relate to the extreme issues suffered by these parents. When it comes to kids, I have really lucked out, but kids will be kids….
Get Your Game on Wednesday
Howdy, gaming lovelies! Origins is right around the corner, so I’ve been browsing BoardGameGeek’s Origin Game Fair preview and dreaming about all the board games I hope to play. Fandom is broken… when harassment sucks the fun out of it Another week, another set of stories about harassment in our fandom. This week’s gem? Death…
What Devin Faraci Gets Wrong About Audience, Ownership and Power
Earlier this week, Devin Faraci of Birth Movies Death, wrote that fandom was broken. Out of control and on the attack, wild elements of the audience had broken free from their assigned role of mild adoration and GIFpreciation to wage war against creators. Hashtag campaigns, calls to action, death threats — described in one long…
The Sharon Carter Problem: How Marvel Keeps Failing Female Characters
Marvel movies are, by and large, not romances. And that’s okay. When I go to the theater to see a superhero movie, I don’t need to see anyone falling in love. If a romance can be played well within the confines of a rich and compelling superhero story, I’m not going to complain—I’m a sucker…
Reel Geek Girl: X-Men: Apocalypse Doesn’t Know What to Do With Women
X-Men: Apocalypse Directed by Brian Singer Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Alex Shipp, 20th Century Fox PG-13 147 minutes May 2016 Full Disclosure: I really didn’t like X-Men: Days of Future Past. At all. So I was not eager to see X-Men: Apocalypse. But when the editor asks, the writer does. I came out of…
Oh the Places We’ll Go: Books About Time Travel
This past week I discovered there was not one, not two, but three upcoming time travel television shows. NBC, ABC, and Fox have all green-lit shows the center around time travel—although all three come at it from a different angle. Fox’s Making History looks like a comedy, where three friends, from two centuries try to…
Toxic Lake Fish Mongers: Discount Salmon Review
Welcome to the first installment of Homegrown Guild, Chachi Bobinks’s new column about family-friendly gaming. This month she takes a look at Discount Salmon, an all-ages card game. Sometimes the only thing I want in life is a fun game I can play with my kids.
Petticoats, Bloomers, Stockings, Oh My!: On Lolita Fashion & Subculture
In Café Princess, at the Yonge and Finch intersection, there are four Lolitas sitting together, remembering stories, and enjoying delicious-looking slices of coffee chocolate flavoured cake. Meagan Wilcox, 20, relaxes on a red couch; she’s a lifestyle Lolita and has been wearing Lolita for six years. She started dressing in Lolita when she was in…
A Texas Broad Reads Preacher in 2016
This past March and April, I read Preacher for the first time, which feels like comics sacrilege in 2016. Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s seminal late 90s creation about a man from East Texas who is burdened with glorious purpose—or, more accurately, the spawn of an angel and a demon—is held up alongside The Watchmen…
Mighty Marvel Monday: Marvel is Bad at Math
It’s Memorial Day here in the United States, and that’s important context for Marvel’s latest SNAFU. And so even though there are other Marvel things to talk about, like X-Men: Apocalypse, which just came out, and #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend, which has produced both amusing and important discussion and fanart, I need to take today to write about…
