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.
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
Alan Moore Knows The Score
“It's nice to hear all the old songs,
isn't it?” --the Devil, The Black Rider
I was surprised to hear the old songs
in Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen Century: 1910 (Top
Shelf, 2009). I probably shouldn't have been. The chapter title, “What Keeps Mankind Alive”
distracted me, but I kept
reading my water-damaged copy and ran smack into, “Mack
the Knife.” Like the chapter title, it's a song from Bertolt
Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera.
Breaking into the Business by Being Really, Really Disturbing
Disturbing as hell, an elegantly constructed first-person plunge into the mind of a maniac, a teenager who murdered kids when he was a kid (and got away with it), and now has elaborate rituals that mostly involve killing small mammals. As a first novel, that's one way to make a splash - The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks is a debut from 1984, famous for its controversial events and intense narration. I'm always a little suspicious of controversy though - is the book worth anything outside of the scandal associated with its "shocking" content?
Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan occupy some interesting real estate in the romance world; a previously untenanted corner of Innernet and
Romancelandia. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is a different sort of headspace when it comes to a website about Romance novels. It's frank, forthright, and not above fart jokes.
Wendell and Tan don't just review novels, they also subject them to analysis, and praise or pan them as the situation requires. They demonstrate an unquenchable and
exuberant love for the entire genre, while acknowledging - and even celebrating - its most ridiculous excesses. They've amassed an interesting and intelligent readership who tune in for the commentary and stay for fun. They even popularized the ever-useful phrase ‘man-titty’ as a descriptive aid in the discussion of cover art. And now the original Smart Bitches have written a book of their own: Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels
Tears of the Black Tiger, Sukiyaki Western Django and now Kim Jee-woon's The Good, the Bad and the Weird, starring Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun and Jung Woo-sung. Asian Westerns are where it's at.
"Geisha is Robot." Geisha fight samurai, giant temples and lady tengu. Geisha also transform.
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Mladen Sekulovich, aka Karl Malden, has died at 96. He was in many, many entertainments, including Meteor, the legendary 1970s cop show The Streets of San Francisco, some veryrespectablefilms and many, many Westerns like How The West Was Won, Nevada Smith and One-Eyed Jacks. Obituaries here, here and here.
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In support of my latest Screen article, there's nothing disappointing about these re-imagined posters by Olly Moss. Or x-factor-e's De Niro stream. Or the endlessly entertaining Film the blanks (Sudoku for film geeks).
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Champion Mojo storyteller Joe Lansdale talks about what makes him a champion: a crazy number of upcoming stories, a Jonah Hex animated short and his mighty understanding of the publishing industry.(Thanks, Chuck!)
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"If the post-"Crouching Tiger" boom in Asian cinema was an irrational,
Dutch-tulip-style bubble, then the virtual disappearance of Asian films
from American screens is an equally irrational overcorrection." Andrew O'Herir interviews Grady Hendrix (NYAFF and formerly Kaiju Shakedown), Keith Allison (Teleport City) and Todd Stadtman (4DK) about corrections, industry incompetence and piracy.
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View all Notes here. Seen something shiny? Gutter-talk worth hearing? Let us know!
“It's nice to hear all the old songs,
isn't it?”
Disturbing as hell, an elegantly constructed first-person plunge into the mind of a maniac, a teenager who murdered kids when he was a kid (and got away with it), and now has elaborate rituals that mostly involve killing small mammals. As a first novel, that's one way to make a splash - The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks is a debut from 1984, famous for its controversial events and intense narration. I'm always a little suspicious of controversy though - is the book worth anything outside of the scandal associated with its "shocking" content?
Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan occupy some interesting real estate in the romance world; a previously untenanted corner of Innernet and
Romancelandia.