Ok… So I walked through the room while Stephanie was watching the news and a commercial for Dupixent was on. Basically it’s a bunch of kids being embarrassed by their eczema and happy that there’s a treatment that helps so they’re not embarassed at the pool, a ballet recital or a concert. Conceptually, I get…
So, in a discussion with my cohosts on the Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow Podcast, and some of our fans, we came to the theory that most of us can’t conclusively gender cartoon characters UNLESS they have specific gender markers (skirts, boobs, etc). OR if we know from context (because we know the show…
Dear Lindsey Graham, While I continue to hate the usage (on both sides) of headlines like “_____ SLAMS _____” or “_____ DESTROYS _____” on pretty much anything… you’ll be happy to know that I actually agree with you on the importance of nurses working during this pandemic. Yay, common ground! HOWEVER!!! If you can stand…
I don’t think to post to my own blog that much lately. Actually, I do THINK about it, but I don’t get around to it as much. Mostly because any time I have a long form thinky pseudo academic thing to say, it ends up going into a VoxPopcast post/epsiode (so make sure you go…
(as the title says, herein be spoilers… you know… and dragons… though given the show, way less dragons than you might expect) So I’m having weird thoughts about the reaction I’m seeing online to last night’s Game of Thrones (s08e02). First of all, I want to point out that I really liked the episode. Some…
I haven’t seen the new Captain Marvel movie yet, so this is not my review… it’s more of a pre-review? I guess? Preview sounds weird. Anyway, I think one of my favorite things lately is reading the pre-release buzz about Captain Marvel. In particular, I’m loving the one very particular type of criticism. In the…
You know how you love nothing more than hearing me academically talk about comics and sex and gender and cultural theory and stuff? Shut up! You do! Anyway, I was asked to speak at Barnes and Noble’s Grand Reopening and Harry Potter event this Saturday at the Waterfront Barnes and Noble in Pittsburgh. They’re celebrating…
So weird question came up when I was having a discussion with a friend earlier. We were talking about giving HPV vaccinations to children and the concept of whether or not some parents are against because they think of it as giving their kids permission to have sex (similar reasoning to some parents being against…
Dear Performatively Evangelical Internet, Please kindly… fuck off. Seriously. -Love, Mav Ok, now that that’s out the way… I’m guessing most people don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. Ok. So earlier today the memorial service for Aretha Franklin, undisputed Queen of Soul, was held. This was a big enough deal that CNN cut…
As has been the standard for my summer of adjunct online teaching I’ve basically spent every waking moment this weekend grading papers. Wheee!!! So it’s possible that there’s been some erosion of my already tentative grasp on sanity. You know… it’s possible. So anyway, I was taking a break from grading to eat lunch with…
Ok, so through a completely unforeseen, unexpected and frankly rather chaotic set of circumstances, I am apparently now suddenly teaching my Sex, Violence and Comics class again this fall. Yay! This is non one hand awesome, because I love that class and teaching it was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. On…
(I’m about to get fairly geeky here and do some semiotics work.. I’m going to try to not be too academic, because I’m really interested in opinions from everyone) I’ve been pondering a weird thought experiment the last ten minutes or so. We tend to prefer single name signifiers for our political figures as a…
Last week I saw an image for a cover to a Popeye comic. This version, drawn by Steve Mannion featured Popeye and Bluto with exaggerated vein popping musculatures and Olive Oyl reimagined as a sexy femme fatale in the style that, at least to me, is most close evocative of Salma Hayek’s character from Deserpado. At…
I kind of wonder if anyone notices when I don’t update my blog. Most of my readers see it through the Facebook feed version, but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t even had a chance to go see a movie to review in the last couple weeks. If you follow me on twitter (@chrismaverick)…
I took the last couple of weeks off of blogging. For one I had a dissertation chapter to finish. And second, I just wanted to do a little bit of enjoying Christmas. Now that both of those things are behind me I figured it was time to write another rant. And what better to write…