As a comic critic, at a certain point, it’s hard to keep up with the sheer volume of unjustified, shoot-from-the-hip, self-interested hot takes about the alleged piss poor quality of the average comic book review. With the amount of noise that’s been made, you would think someone would link a review or two, or at […]
Comics (Critics) Should Be Decent: Yet Another Discourse About Discourse
Last year, Kim O’Connor and I teamed up to dig into some of the reasons why a lot of people in comics get so burned out on the medium. We called it a “discourse about discourse” and now here we are again, still feeling burned out and having yet another discourse about discourse, except this […]
On Elaine Welteroth, Teen Vogue and Editorial Voice in New Media
Even if you’ve never picked up a single issue of Teen Vogue in your life, chances are you’ve recently seen its content getting shared around, usually in juxtaposition to immature content from a more “reputable” publication, like this: The first time you encounter Teen Vogue in this way, it’s hard not to go along, to turn […]
Speak On, Not Over: Strange Fruit and Critical Dilemmas
In 1773, when an 18-year-old Phillis Wheatley attempted to publish her first collection of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious, and Moral, she was interviewed by a panel of 18 men who sought to verify whether or not the poems were actually written by Wheatley. The reasoning was that a black woman was simply incapable […]
Double Consciousness: Better Than Nuts
Here’s a trick: Find a person you love and offer them something no one has ever seen, that no one will ever see again. Admire their astonishment. Then, produce a peanut. It could be anything in a shell—an oyster, say, but that’s messier to share. Crack it open, and each eat one of the nuts. […]
Bonus Content: Interview with Charles Webb
We spoke with Charles Webb, a pop culture critic for outlets as diverse as Paste, MTV Geek and his own FreakSugar (as well as his peer Rowan Kaiser) for a piece on games journalism at large, and we felt it was an interesting discussion, which is why we’ve included it as bonus content here. Jake (Loser […]
How the Sausage Gets Made: A Look Inside the Sometimes Ugly World of Games Journalism
A few weeks ago, John Oliver ran a piece about FIFA on his new show, This Week Tonight. In it, he aired FIFA’s dirty laundry, invoking by way of warning what he called “the sausage principle”: if you love something, never learn how it’s made. In matters regarding hot dogs and Taco Bell, I tend […]