Valve Turns It Up Another Notch

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us..."

"...are looking at the stars."
-- Oscar Wilde

September 10, 2006

Price: Your 2¢

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

sita brahmin.jpeg 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.

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?

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.

Forgetful?

Valve Turns It Up Another Notch

by Jim Munroe

Portal is a thinkin' man's first person shooter coming out from Valve, the folks behind Half-Life 2. Talking about HL2, Episode 1 has exceedingly clever in-game commentary that is reviewed and excerpted at Waxy.org.

Tags: games , Half-Life , Half-Life 2 , Portal , shooters

Chuck your 2¢ into the Gutter

Valve Turns It Up Another Notch - The Cultural Gutter

Paw through our archives

Science Fiction ~ Videogames ~ Comics ~ Screen ~ Romance ~ Movies ~ Main ~

Pitch in yours.

Of Note Elsewhere

Wicked posters for Raleigh, North Carolina's Cinema Overdrive film series.
~Here are some pictures of the ladies reading comics for Read Comics in Public Day. As Gail Simone writes, "Take note everybody in comics!" (For the record, Carol read Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service 5 on a sidewalk bench, but there's no photo). ~48 vs. 61 in Rintaro and Katsushiro Otomo's excellent bicycle racing short where the racers look kinda like Rintaro and Otomo. Also, damn fine music and possible steampunkery.
~Klingon opera has finally happened. Get an earful at Cinematical. (The musical part begins at about 2:15).
~Makiko Itoh has translated Satoshi Kon's farewell.
~
View all Notes here.
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