Author Archives: Evan

Shame Day: Cigarette Butts

I wrote about this a long time ago on a vastly inferior blog, and I’m going to state it again here in the first sentence of this post: I don’t want to see people throwing their cigarette butts on the ground.

Two weeks ago the image below popped up on imgur, and being pretty interested in where this conversation could go I clicked to see what the discussion was on reddit.

A good portion consisted of people agreeing that having cigarette butts all over the ground is unsightly, disgusting, and can have a toxic environmental impact. On the other side, however, were smokers complaining that things just aren’t that easy. Continue reading

Mything The Point With Zack Snyder

I had wanted to write about Man of Steel once and once only, but just last Thursday director Zack Snyder had an interview with The Japan Times in which he had the following to say in regard to the massive collateral damage that takes place during the latter part of the film:

“I wanted the movie to have a mythological feeling. In ancient mythology, mass deaths are used to symbolize disasters. In other countries like Greece and Japan, myths were recounted through the generations, partly to answer unanswerable questions about death and violence. In America, we don’t have that legacy of ancient mythology. Superman (who first appeared in ‘Action Comics’ in 1938) is probably the closest we get. It’s a way of recounting the myth.”

That having been said, let’s talk about mythology. Continue reading

Fame Day: For Exposure

There are a number of Twitter pages I could have focused on today, from the subtly hilarious to the judiciously-minded, but none of those address a pretty hefty issue a lot of us young people find ourselves bumping into.

The page For Exposure, by comic artist and generally all-around cool guy Ryan Estrada, does.

GJFE Continue reading

It Is An Exciting Time To Be A Minority Canadian Comic Book Fan

As an Asian-Canadian who spends far more time on comic book news sites than actual news sites, this week has been all sorts of crazy. There’s been . . . a lot to take in.

Mighty Avengers

To begin with, next month heralds the first issue of Mighty Avengers. Take out the “gh” and add “nori” and you more or less have an understanding of what the book is all about.

I refuse to show any of the interior artwork, so this variant is all you’re going to get.

The fact that we have far too many titles featuring the word “Avengers” aside, this is a huge deal in that, of the nine heroes in the team, the majority are people of colour. Luke Cage, Falcon, Blue Marvel, and Monica Rambeau are African-American, White Tiger [Ava Alaya] is Hispanic, and Power Man [Victor Alvarez] is a mix of both. Rounding out the team are Spider-Man, She-Hulk, and a new Ronin whose identity is yet to be revealed.

With the very talented Al Ewing on writing, the only thing that would make this book perfect were if Ron Wimberly, who illustrated the variant cover on the left, were the actual artist on the book. Unfortunately, that job was given to Greg Land. I do not have anything civil to say about him. Just click the link. Continue reading

Fame Day: The Mako Mori Test

The Bechdel Test, a pass/fail method of determining how female-friendly a film is. Gordon and I discussed it a while back for our first E&GT ever, but to sum it up a movie can only pass the test if:

  1. it has at least two women in it,
  2. who talk to each other,
  3. about something besides a man

During our discussion we arrived at the conclusion that this is by no means a perfect test. There are instances of films that pass that still do a deplorable job of depicting women. On the other hand, take The Avengers, which features both Black Widow and Maria Hill, the former of whom is arguably one of the strongest, capable heroes in the entire thing. The two never interact, but that by no means reflects on their roles as female characters.

Really great at staring intensely, really bad at talking to one another.

Really great at staring intensely, really bad at talking to one another.

Continue reading

Evan and Gordon Talk: Vigilantes

GORDON: Look there! In the sky!

It’s a bird!

It’s a plane!

It’s your creepy neighbor stalking the streets in spandex carrying a metal baton!

EVAN: Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today Gordon and yours truly will be discussing the very-much-grounded real-life vigilantes out there, and without our dear friend Kat who has featured in our last three installments.

As her wedding nears ever closer she will be absent for the next few E&GTs, but never fear, she will be returning at some point.

GORDON: More powerful than ever. Or less.

I don’t know how marriage works.

But back to the topic at hand: vigilantes, good or evil? Continue reading