I’ve been in Toronto for the last week visiting some old friends. Most of these friends happen to be current or former humanities scholars so it was a rare time that I could talk about pop media without taking an hour to justify why it matters. So when we found the bottom of the third pitcher and the X-Men/Captain … Continue reading Criticism and the Individual
When I was 12 my family drove south through Atlanta, Georgia. We never stopped, we just drove right through to see some family friends in Orlando. But of that week vacation what I remember most vividly is passing through Atlanta and looking up from the freeway at the myriad of lit up skyscrapers and just … Continue reading On Cities
Superheroes are cool. I only read the occasional comic book and usually only if it’s a self-contained story because that’s a deep (and expensive) rabbit hole to fall into but I still love movies based on superhero comics and I especially enjoy reading about the history and mythos from more knowledgeable writers. There are several … Continue reading “The sole ray of hope” and Other Platitudes
[Originally posted on PopMatters] I’m really rooting for Always Sometimes Monsters. I want people to play it and talk about it because it tries very, very hard to be a part of a conversation. Sometimes it tries too hard, but in the current videogame climate, where “being political” is an assumed sickness (Harper, Todd. “Erasing your audience … Continue reading A Cat in a Box: Procedural Storytelling in Always Sometimes Monsters
Somewhere right now there’s a guest author at some university telling an enthralled gathering of undergrad wannabes “all stories are conflicts.” That isn’t true, but fiction in European, expansionist traditions treats conflict as the foundation of storytelling. Of course stories can and do exist without conflict, especially outside the aforementioned traditions,1 but the assumed truism … Continue reading Invasion Tactics
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