Tag Archives: books

The poets, the celebs, the musicians all have large anti-war segments. Good for them – war in general is bad. But THIS SPECIFIC war isn’t a generic war, isn’t Vietnam or imperialism, or for the corporations, or some vague aggressive muscle-flexing. It’s proactive self-defense catalyzed by the hideous shock of …

Half Mast, the first novel from FilmCritic.com founder Christopher Null, is a stunning accomplishment, achieving several difficult tasks simultaneously: gripping caper yarn, perceptive coming of age story, keen observation and commentary on drastic Darwinian social stratification in school (with echoes of Columbine, et al), and a devastating look at the …

A look at the source for this season's big superhero pic. . .

Today is the day for Poetry Against the War, which grew out of Laura Bush’s misguided cancellation of a White House poetry event that the poets were planning to turn into an anti-war event – better to have let the poets had their say, then refuted them than to give …

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will have a first printing of 6.8 million copies in the US, the largest ever for a general interest hardcover: Rowling’s last installment, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” became the fastest-selling book in history, selling 3 million copies within 48 …

Spain's graphic adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham's dark carny classic.

Randon House decided it was time for a new Godfather novel, so it held a contest. Martha Stewart won – kidding: Mark Winegardner is joining the Corleone family business: He’s been selected to write the next “Godfather” novel. Winegardner, a fiction writer whose previous subjects include baseball, Cleveland and organized …

Hunter S. Thompson has joined the poets in opposing possible war against Iraq. Given his ethos of retribution and reckless love affair with guns, I am surprised by his anti-war stance this time around. I hope it isn’t that his hatred of the Republicans causes him to oppose ANYTHING that …

“Intellectual property law cannot be patched, retrofitted, or expanded to contain digitized expression any more than real estate law might be revised to cover the allocation of broadcasting spectrum…” John Perry Barlow The structure of the recording industry continues to crumble from within: this time we have an essay by …

Several weeks ago, I did a piece for my blog & Blogcritics, discussing some of my favorite ongoing genre comics. I received several responses (not to mention, a nice plug in Journalista!), but the most insistent comments came from a reader who thought I should’ve included Marvel’s The Ultimates in …