The Last Megastars

The Last Megastars

Reader Michael Gross chimes in on my post about the tragic death of Chris Cornell with comments on the music industry that are so incisive, they merit his own guest post: Music started to worsen in the 90s as the music industry sabotaged itself (so to speak) as sales declined…
May 19, 201710 Comments
Writing to Reflect

Writing to Reflect

In the comments to my post about the decline of American comics, JD Cowan weighs in on the two-headed snake of message fic and postmodernism that is poisoning pop culture. Postmodernism is a labyrinth of fun-house mirrors. No matter where you look, you see yourself distorted and in the center…
May 12, 20172 Comments
Why Comics Stopped Trying

Why Comics Stopped Trying

Under the able editorship of Jeffro Johnson, the Castalia House blog and the Google Plus account which he also curates have grown into an impressive meeting of the geek minds. Recently, the Supreme Nerd Intelligence deliberated the perennial topic of why American comics have lost their groove. We open with…
May 10, 201717 Comments
MILO Inc.

MILO Inc.

Less than three months after his #1 Amazon best seller Dangerous was cancelled by Simon & Schuster, free speech advocate Milo Yiannopoulos has announced a bold plan to hasten the demise of the Big Five publishers while building a new platform for authors who never would have made it past the…
May 9, 2017
May the Fork Be with Us

May the Fork Be with Us

Happy May the Fourth! No doubt Disney will be using Star Wars Day as a chance to parade the zombified corpse of their converged franchise before an increasingly resentful public. Well and good for them. This year, the cool kids will be cutting Intersectional Studies class to enjoy beers, smokes,…
May 4, 201726 Comments

Signs of Contradiction

Davis M.J. Aurini considers the six contradictions whose resolution will determine the future of the Alt-Media: For some time now, there have been tremors moving through the Alt Media; foreshocks of a coming seismic event.  Recently these shocks have been coming more frequently, and are increasingly evident to audiences, as…
May 3, 20174 Comments
They Hate Us a Lot

They Hate Us a Lot

The Zman takes his recent viewing of Casablanca as an occasion to meditate on a subject that I have often opined about myself. Here's the Zman: My generation was probably the last to grow up seeing these old films on television. They would turn up on the UHF channels at night or…
April 25, 20179 Comments
Cassandra Syndrome

Cassandra Syndrome

Reader Nate Winchester graciously concedes the point I made last year when I predicted the Star Wars franchise's decline. Nate comments: Brian, I'm returning a year later to say... Rogue 1 let us down. :(  More on my blog if you want to rap about it: https://natewinchester.wordpress.com/2017/04/11/sw-rogue-one-round-2/ Looks like I…
April 20, 20177 Comments
Is Star Wars Dead?

Is Star Wars Dead?

Has Disney already bastardized its newly acquired Star Wars franchise beyond saving? Prolific blogger Bradford C. Walker presents a well-sourced case for concern. One more big red flag keeps coming up in the new stuff for Star Wars: Moral Relativism. This keeps appearing. It started with all that "Grey Jedi"…
April 18, 201717 Comments

Christian Artists

Author Jon Del Arroz graciously includes me in his helpful list of Christian Artists Who Don't Suck. Whenever I talk about artist blackballing in the entertainment industry, almost invariably the first argument I come across is “well there aren’t any…” or “there are a low percentage of…” leading to believe…
March 30, 20178 Comments