The Cultural Gutter

dangerous because it has a philosophy

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -- Oscar Wilde

Orson Scott Card’s Hamlet

Oh my stars and garters, Orson Scott Card has rewritten Hamlet and called it, Hamlet’s Father. via @houseinrlyeh and @pornokitsch)

Cosplaying the Monarch, Dr. Girlfriend and Dr. Mrs. the Monarch

Adult Swim has a video interviewing a group of Venture Bros. cosplayers who attended San Diego Comic Con as The Monarch, Dr. Girlfriend and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch. There’s also a little bit of Rusty Venture.

Fandom is Magic

In the year 2001 I discovered a magical world. Not Harry Potter (that was a few years later) and not the Internet (although it was responsible), but a world that captured my attention and hasn’t let go ten years later. It has to do with fanfiction; unpaid fiction that is written by fans of a [...]

Superman’s Ex-Girlfriend, Lana Lang

Unofficial, Unsanctioned, Unsolicited–Colleen Coover’s “Superman’s Ex-Girlfriend Lana Lang!”

“Crisis in the 36th Chamber”

Chris Sims and Rusty Shackles bring you, “Great Comics That Never Were (But Shoulda Been)!”

VARIETY PAK

Variety 80.jpg

It’s been just over a year since I became a partner in the Mayfair Theatre, Ottawa’s oldest operating cinema. We’ve shown a lot of films in that time (we average about 40 a month), and I’ve written the synopsis for almost every one.

Gothtober 2009

It’s Gothtober Time, check out the screenings at this year’s Gothtober Drive-In!

Sexploitation that’s not Sexist?

The makers of Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys have made a sexploitation lesbian heist movie in homage to Russ Meyer: Bitch Slap. It’s no Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! but it’s the movie Quentin Tarantino wishes he could make with Zoe Bell doing the stunt choreography. 

Jenkins’ List

Henry Jenkins writes up a handy list of some comics he’s enjoyed recently, divvied into stories of everyday life, superheroes, science fiction/fantasy/horror, and some unclassifiable items.

Bringing Chris Ware Into It

“Chris Ware Can Show Video Games the Path to Manhood.”  There’s extensive quotation but there’s also thoughts, and a link to more thoughts, about games pubescing. Maybe when they’re all grown up, they’ll realize some of them aren’t men. (via Fantagraphics)

Tales from Ursula

Did you know Ursula Le Guin worked on an Earthsea screenplay with Peeping Tom and Black Narcissus‘ Michael Powell? I didn’t. There’s more in her Vice Magazine interview. (via Kaiju Shakedown)

Gothtober 2008

Explore the mysterious mission de las calaveras in Gothtober’s 2008 Halloween advent calendar.

Tammy Faye Bakker’s Puppet Songs

You knew evangelist and Queer icon Tammy Faye Bakker used to have a puppet show, right? And her puppets weren’t muppets, they were scary, shellac-headed hand puppets. Way Out Junk has Oops! There Comes a Smile, a collection of Tammy Faye’s puppet songs and stories.

Afrofuturism

Preserved from usenet, Mark Dery’s 1994 essay on Afrofuturism: “Hack this: Why do so few African-Americans write science fiction, a genre whose close encounters with the Other—the stranger in a strange land—would seem uniquely suited to the concerns of African-American novelists? …. This is especially perplexing in light of the fact that African-Americans are, in [...]

Gothtober

Gothtober is a sort of online Halloween advent calendar. Click on the S.S. Gothtober and see a new short everyday.

From the Mouths of Babes

Lessons learned from lesbian pulp.

Almost as if Mitch knew what would follow, she held the top of the sheet back while Leda moved down and lightly kissed Mitch’s breasts. A soft sigh broke free from Mitch’s throat and evolved into a plaintive cry. Leda pulled herself up and her lips found Mitch’s and crushed them, burning and moist. “Mitch.” [...]

Just Try and Stop the Music, I Dare You

Mmmm-hmmm...The Village People need love too

While the success of the average movie is certainly based upon inspiring in the viewer a suspension of disbelief, great works from the camp genre succeed in their suspension of other qualities. Namely, good taste (what ever the hell THAT is) and the rule that most films are nothing but ball-less scrotums that give you [...]

I Am Woman, Hear Me Purr

Daniel

When I got Sudeki for review, I sighed. An anime babe smiled out from the cover, her armoured boobs thrust forward and her arms upstretched as she cast a spell — presumably on the teenage-boy market. The following two strikes were the five-star recommendation from Maxim and the name of the game company (Climax). But [...]

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  • Of Note Elsewhere

    This tumblr collects many bad jokes kids have invented.

    ~

    “It’s easier to tell the same stories everyone else does. There’s no particular shame in it.

    It’s just that it’s lazy, which is just about the worst possible thing a spec fic writer can be.

    Oh, and it’s not true.”

    Kameron Hurley writes about lazy writing, cannibal llamas, female soldiers, and women here. (Thanks, James!)

    ~

    Patton Oswalt’s multi-franchise super-movie described in his Star Wars filibuster from Parks and Recreation, animated.

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    Corrigan Vaughan writes an open letter to “Fans of Geek Things“: “I appreciate that you think I have a nice rack and that some of you even find my friends and I to be pretty. That’s very kind. I’m not, however, super in love with the fact that having a rack at all seems to preclude me from being considered a ‘real’ fan.”

    ~

    The Black Girl Nerds Podcast discusses Black girls and women in the Heavy Metal industry with author and journalist Laina Dawes and Ursula “She-Wolf” Parson from Hear Evil News.

    ~

    The Hollywood Reporter interviews director Takashi Miike about his new film, Shield of Straw: ” In Japan now, films are very safe. When I was young and went to old cinemas, they had a distinctive feel, an adult smell about them. As you got in your seat and the lights went down, there was a feeling of excitement: What if the film is scarier than I thought it’s going to be? You’re taken into that world. Nowadays, you can sit in the theater and know it’s going to be safe. That’s good for business, but not for filmmaking.”

    ~

  • The Book!

    From ETC Press

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