This site is updated Thursday afternoon with a new article about an artistic pursuit generally considered to be beneath consideration. James Schellenberg probes science-fiction, Carol Borden draws out the best in comics, Chris Szego dallies with romance and Ian Driscoll stares deeply into the screen. Click here for their bios and individual takes on the gutter. Our Guest Stars shine here
While the writers have considerable enthusiasm for their subjects, they don't let it numb their critical faculties. Tossing away the shield of journalistic objectivity and refusing the shovel of fannish boosterism, they write in the hopes of starting honest and intelligent discussions about these oft-enjoyed but rarely examined artforms. Contact us here.
Recent Features
Disconnected Viewing
I don't have cable right now so I'm rewatching old shows and movies. A lot of them are animated. Such is my way. I'd like to have a nobler reason for rewatching them--something like when James revisited his favorite childhood books. And it's true—he did inspire me. But it's also true that I don't have cable.
Let's say you're the newly-sentient internet. How would you decipher
the meaning of all the bits and bytes whizzing past you? And what about
the real world outside your electronic realm?
Former Comics Editor, Guy Leshinski
has very kindly given us permission to reprint a prophetic interview
with Bryan Lee O'Malley in 2005. Will Bryan Lee O'Malley attain the
Holy Grail of cartoonists? As Bryan says, "We'll see..."
There’s a girl sitting on the subway.
She’s 16 or so, in a brown corduroy jacket and a pair of faded
sneakers, her feet propped on the seat across from her. She’s
absently brushing on lipstick, absorbed by Bryan Lee O’Malley’s
graphic novel Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life: Volume 1.
Results tagged “Mare Sheppard” from The Cultural Gutter
The Power of N
N (MetaNet Software, 2004) is a perfect pop song of a videogame, an addictive platformer in which you use three keys to direct your ninja towards the gold and away from the robots. Its two-dimensional and mostly two-colour simplicity lure you into its cunning level designs and give you an appreciation for the subtle characterization of the ninja, more defined by grace than by gore. Game creators, Raigan Burns and Mare Sheppard, who met in a computer science class when they were at U of T, took some time to chat to myself and Marc Ngui about their new freeware game.
Mare and Raigan's game rocks! I've checked it out and given it to all my friends. It is so addictive! The tutorial is the best I've seen in a long time and the layouts for the game rule. I'd highly recommend it to absolutely everyone.