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.

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.

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Hammering Away at the Here and Now

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?

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Pilgrim's Progress

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.

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Hi Chris,
I enjoyed your review and I like me some Smart Bitches! The issues you bring up regarding plagiarism seem to reflect a larger cultural argument beyond the romance genre or even literature in general: which is worse, doing something wrong or having the audacity to point out that someone has done something wrong? I know where I stand, but it never fails to perplex me that calling out bad behavior is, apparently in other quarters, worse than the bad behavior itself. So weird. Any thoughts?

—weed

2 comments below.
Pitch in yours.

Brian at Shelf Life Clothing Company has put together an awesome display of "The Greatest Movie Stunts of All Time." As well as, the first volume of "The Greatest Movie Soundtrack Composers."

~Slick, coldblooded action in "10 Photos Capturing Moments of Spontaneous Badassery!"
~Akira Ifukube conducts the Osaka Symphony in a selection of his Godzilla works.
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