Just as with the Twilight Zone, I have a favorite Star Trek: Next Generation episode that’s stuck with me for years. It’s called "Darmok," wherein Picard & co. attempt to communicate with the Tamarians, a people with an incomprehensible language. Blogger Barbara O’Brien picks up the plot synopsis: "Captain Picard and Dathon the Tamarian have…
There’s been a flurry of posts lately in the comics blogosphere, including Glenn Hauman’s last column here, about perceived value for money (let’s just call it PVFM) when it comes to comics. The consensus seems to be, American comics periodicals from the Big Two are usually about 22 pages long and take mere minutes to…
I’m sure most readers will agree that we all bring our own unique views to our entertainment experiences, our own desires and prejudices and lifetimes of baggage. And many of us try to partake of those experiences bearing that baggage in mind, allowing for it or disclaiming it or even using it to enhance our…
Galaxy Quest is one of my favorite movies. I mean, go wrong with Alan Rickman and Tony Shalhoub, you know? And even the nominal stars of the ensemble, Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver, go down pretty easily in this brilliant vehicle. But there’s one scene that makes me cringe every time I see it. The…
One of the side effects of "the internets" making the world a more accessible place for many of us is how it’s fueled my desire for travel. But in truth, that was probably kindled when I was but a wee babe and my parents decided to drive across the country and back — pretty ambitious…
Everyone around my age seems to have a Twilight Zone episode that sticks with them the most. For me, it’s the Burgess Meredith-starring "Time Enough At Last," which title I always misremember as World Enough and Time. (Just my luck I’m about to become even more confused as that’s also the title of the new…
White Rabbits! (Sorry, that supersition is how I start every month.) So Robin and I were watching Godspell on TV the other day. Yeah, every now and then I like to revel in the best of ’70s kitsch. Godspell reminds me a lot of Finian’s Rainbow. They’re both earnest, so very very earnest, in their…
It’s the day before the biggest convention in an American comic fan’s year — the San Diego Comic-Con International. Just about every one of my ComicMix colleagues is heading out there. (Don’t ask me how they got hotel rooms, it’s still a mystery to me.) I’m not. My boss told me a long time ago…
The older I get, the more Einsteinian I become in my concept of time. It’s like I’m watching a vehicle moving at light-speed, Dopplering like crazy, when it’s all I can do sometimes to make it from point A to point B. I’m just a 20th century gal in a 21st century world. Which isn’t…
It’s said that there are only a few established art and entertainment forms that America can truly call its own — baseball, jazz music and comic books. It’s a bit of a hubristic statement, not surprising coming from a country as relatively young yet as vast as our own. It almost sounds as if we’re…
“We’re never gonna beat this if belief is what we’re fighting for.” – John Mayer As Americans gather today to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence 231 years ago, many of us find ourselves in quite a different place than we believe our founders envisioned for this country. Each day brings more tragic…
In entertainment, as with so many other subjective phenomena, many of the old clichés come into play, the main ones being “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” While one purpose of entertainment may be to seize on the universal in…
