Another year and a brand new Book Beat. It might only be January 7th but book news sleeps for no one! We started off the new year with sad news that George R.R. Martin missed his New Year’s Eve deadline for the Winds of Winter; the sixth book in the Game of Thrones series. This means the…
Interview with Grand Comics Database
Awhile back while researching for my first piece in my Red Sonja series, I found the Grand Comics Database (GCD) crucial to my research. GCD is a non-profit, international database for printed comics. The site’s goal is lofty – “the database will contain data for every comic book ever published in every country around the planet.”…
Navigating Jeanette Winterson’s The Gap of Time
The Gap of Time: a Novel Jeanette Winterson Hogarth, October 2015 The thing about submerging yourself into Jeanette Winterson’s prose is that you can’t just take the easy road through the story: Winterson demands active participation from her readers. She may cushion you with ethereal sentences and dazzling metaphors, but that doesn’t soften the landing…
Zine Review: British Values
British Values Editor: Kieran Yates Design Director: Amad Ilyas Designer: Tom Lloyd August 2015 Disclaimer: I worked with British Values editor Kieran Yates on Live Mag UK, a youth publication for 14 to 25 year olds from January 2014 to March 2015. Yates was the magazine’s mentor. Britain’s Home Secretary Theresa May is the perfect…
Trying Origami with the DC Superheroes
Disclaimer: A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review In the last few days of 2015, I was battling a terrible cold. The only thing I could do was binge watch Elementary and do some origami, but this wasn’t just any origami. It was John Montroll’s DC Super Heroes…
Art History Shipping: Who Should Get It On With Whom
Fandoms love to ship. And by that I mean, they imagine their favorite characters falling in love—whether or not that romance plays out in the story. Which character should be with which other character often leads to fond conglomerated names of the wished-for OTP (One True Pairing). Take “Korrasami” versus “Makorra” from Legend of Korra, for example. Shipping…
Get Your Game On Wednesday
Happy New Year, gaming lovelies! Hopefully you had a little R&R during your holidays to game away. Now that you’re fresh and aglow, here are some resolutions (inspired by last week’s news) to jumpstart your shiny new year.
Journey to the Mystery Shack: An Introduction to Gravity Falls
This month’s Cartoon Academy, we will be focusing on one of my favorites (besides Steven Universe): The weird, the wonderful, the odd and all too amazing town of Gravity Falls. Since season two has sadly come to an end, as well as the show itself, I wanted to give some of you new and inquisitive fans…
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…
Autobio Spotlight: Miranda Harmon
Seeing as Miranda Harmon recently knocked us all off our feet with with her deeply personal ode to the Harmontown podcast, this is an excellent time to remind everyone that she has been making autobiographical comics for a while now—and they are all great. Seriously, go read them now.
Incredible Indie Tuesday: Let 2016 Be the Year of the Queer Lady Protagonist
Welcome to the first Tuesday of 2016! Isn’t it thrilling? Are we all still elated by the possibility of the new year and a fresh start? Personally, I’ve spent most of 2016 battling off a hellish sinus infection, so I’m more congested than cheerful…but this week’s news has got me pretty pumped about what’s coming…
Death and the Family in Ace Attorney
Ace Attorney, a franchise revolving around murder mysteries and courtroom antics, may be best known for its name puns (“Oh really, Ms. Orly?”), shout-outs (“It’s only a flesh wound, Mr. Wright!”), and absurd gambits for catching murderers (“I would like to cross-examine the witness’s pet parrot!”). Yet the series still manages to deliver poignant commentary…
