I like Lara Croft. I have always liked Lara Croft. The Lara Croft that I understand—which is not always the Lara Croft described by her production companies, or her fans, or commentators. I look at Lara Croft and see: a woman in her thirties of independent means who does what she most wants to: running…
Get Your Game on Wednesday
September is here, gaming lovelies, and I’m wondering where the summer went. Fortunately fall in the Northeast is breathtaking and we have some fun gaming conventions like Boston Indie Fig and Topatocon to boot. This week’s game round up has some beautiful art, an indie Amiibo and a fan cautionary tale. Grab your beverage of…
By Banning Books Do We Challenge Parental Rights?
For the purposes of this essay, I’m going to keep the conversation of challenging books, also called banning books, at my local level. I agree there are much larger discussions to be had on freedom of speech and parental rights, but I want this conversation to have a lighter tone, if possible. These are my personal thoughts as…
Playing Off Nostalgia and First Love in Fuku Mizutani’s Love at Fourteen
Love at Fourteen, Vol. 1 and 2 Fuka Mizutani Yen Press 2015 I don’t know about you, but my middle school years weren’t half as dream-like as Love at Fourteen envisions. Fuka Mizutani takes a simple love story between two middle-schoolers and splits it into interludes, operating under the assumption that the reader will go along…
Incredible Indie Tuesday: Comixology Digital Domination Expands
Comixology’s digital marketplace got a little larger this week with Black Mask Studios and Weekly Shonen Jump comics coming to the site. I’m particularly excited to start picking up We Can Never Go Home from Black Mask Studios which has been getting tons of critical acclaim. For manga fans, the Weekly Shonen Jump anthology is…
Zine Review: Sawdust Press’ Blood Root: Issue Three
Blood Root: Issue Three Canaries by Haan Lee, Jezinkas by Noel Franklin (Writer and Artist) and CB Webb (Letterer), Dead Rain by Ram V (Writer and Letterer), Kishore Mohan (Artist), and Merryn John (Letterer), Cover Art by Aatmaja Pandya and Interior Cover Art by Shing Yin Khor Sawdust Press Limits are good. Limits are also bad. These are contradictory truths with which…
Twisty Plots and Real Relationships: An Interview with Jeremy Whitley
Jeremy Whitley, writer of the Eisner-nominated series Princeless has been an awfully busy bee as of late! With the release of Raven: Pirate Princess #2, a short comic in Marvel’s Secret Wars: Secret Loves, and Princeless Be Yourself #3 all happening almost at once, we thought we’d sit down with Jeremy again and talk about…
Magic and Monsters: Sing Me Your Scars
Sing Me Your Scars Damien Angelica Walters Apex Publications March 9, 2015 This collection of short stories is creepy, weird, heartbreaking, and lovely. It’s broken into three parts: Here, And the Now, and And Away. There is a sense of travel as you move through the parts, and I’ll be highlighting one story from each.
The Blacklist in Print: An interview with Writer Nicole Phillips on Blacklist Comics
Fans of the critically-acclaimed crime drama, The Blacklist, can now immerse themselves into the backstories of their favorite characters. After reading the first issue, it did feel like an extension on the show, rather than a separate dimension. Show scriptwriter, and now writer for The Blacklist comics, Nicole Phillips, took time out to answer a few…
Television Comes to TIFF: TV at Film Festivals and the Possibility of a TV Festival That’s Good
This year the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) will include a block of television programming and I think that’s weird. Its TV programming, Primetime, includes screenings of Casual (USA) from Jason Reitman, CROMO (Argentina) from Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo, Keith Richards: Under the Influence (USA) from Morgan Neville, The Returned (France) from Fabrice Gobert,…
Self-Identity and Self-Confidence: Lessons Learned from a Foolish Replica
SPOILER WARNING: This essay contains spoilers for the entirety of Tales of the Abyss. Since 1995, one of the most iconic RPG franchises in Japan—and, increasingly, with western audiences—is the Tales series. Each installment boasts high fantasy settings that dabble in magitech, references (if in-name-only) to mythologies from around the globe, and parties made up…
Mighty Marvel Monday: Bits & Bobs
Welcome to another Mighty Marvel Monday: Bits & Bobs Edition. I have to start off this week with an apology. I spend a good amount of time each Sunday night sorting through the Marvel news for things that I find interesting or that I hope other people will find interesting, and some weeks I just…
