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.
Posted in art, business, design, Fame Day, internet, money, morality, writing, Youth
Tagged artists, compensation, design, disclosure, exposure, Fame Day, freelancing, jo, job listing, pay, professional, Twitter, unpaid, work, writing
Culture War Reporters, since its inception, has never been a place for fiction of any kind. As a result, when both Gordon and I hang out we often find our discussions centre around stretching our creative muscles, asking questions like: “If you had to come up with a team of mercenaries, with a minimum of five members, what would it look like?”
The issue with all questions like this is that we run into a little something King Solomon said, way back in the day [emphasis added]:
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
How do you come up with something original, something that truly hasn’t been done before? Continue reading
Posted in feminism, film, literature, media, race, television, writing
Tagged archetypes, Asians, Badass Adorable, Battle Royale, characters, Cute But Psycho, expectations, film, Hanna, Hit-Girl, Kick-Ass, Kill Bill, Little Miss Badass, media, race, tropes, TV Tropes, writing
In 2011 I wrote about rape as a term not to be used casually out of context. In 2012 I wrote about rape as a subject for comedy. In 2013, and in light of a few recent events, I am writing about rape as a storytelling device.
Mark Millar is famous for books such as Superman: Red Son, and Jupiter’s
Legacy, but probably most well-known to the non-comic-book-reading-public as the man responsible for Kick-Ass and its sequels. He is also a writer who has featured rape in a number of his works. I’m not going to go through the process of listing them all, but instead am going to present a quote he gave regarding his opinion on using rape in writing:
The ultimate [act] that would be the taboo, to show how bad some villain is, was to have somebody being raped, you know? I don’t really think it matters. It’s the same as, like, a decapitation. It’s just a horrible act to show that somebody’s a bad guy.
Now I could begin quoting a number of very smart people who responded to Millar’s words, but this isn’t that kind of post. If a list of that sort is what you’re into, I’d like to direct you to this article on the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex. A better compilation of tweets and quotes about this specific subject would be difficult to find. Continue reading
Posted in comics, feminism, morality, sex, writing
Tagged comics, decapitation, Gail Simone, horrible act, Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, Mark Millar, murder, rape, taboo, Women in Refrigerators, writing
I say with complete honesty that I there are times that I feel genuine pity for those of you who don’t live in Toronto. I mean, sure, there’s the fact that it’s one of the most diverse cities in the world, is home of the 3rd highest tower in the world [underneath which is brewed some pretty decent beer], and is the setting for pretty much the entirety of the Scott Pilgrim series-
You can click the image above to check out a whole bunch more.
No, the reason for that, dear readers, is The Grid. A weekly publication, this newspaper describes itself on its website as:
…a weekly city magazine and daily website providing a fresh, accessible voice for Toronto. Our goal is to capture the vibe and energy of a city in ascendance, largely by rejecting the glossy, doggedly aspirational vision of it you see in so many other publications. Continue reading
Posted in advertisement, advertising, Canada, design, food, media, news, writing
Tagged ads, advertisements, articles, award-winning, best design, Canada, city, drama, Fame Day, food, interesting, media, newspaper, NOW, periodical, publication, reviews, The Grid, Toronto, writing
Turning the clock back to this past Tuesday, days before I fell down with this cold and what feels like years ago, I saw Pacific Rim with a friend and then got steak. When it comes down to pure quality alone I may shock you by saying that the steak was much, much better than the film. I wanted to hold every bite of that steak in my mouth for an eternity.
My love for food aside, there was something that I really, really enjoyed about Pacific Rim, and to set aside the obvious it was not robots and giant monsters throwing down.
I’m not gonna lie, I did enjoy that immensely.
Reading on will spoil parts of this movie, which I actually think you should go out and see. It also spoils parts of Man of Steel, which you know my opinion of. Continue reading
Posted in bizarreness, film, media, sex, writing
Tagged Clark Kent, fighting, film, forced, giant monsters, giant robots, Guillermo del Toro, hugs, Jaegers, Kaiju, kiss, kisses, kissing, lois lane, love, Mako Mori, Man of Steel, Pacific Rim, Raleigh Becket, romance, romantic subplot, writing
Now I know that there’s a certain degree of irony attached to this post. Just now you read my question on why people don’t read anymore. I’m not really talking about reading in the the sense of skimming the occasional article online, though. Before anyone tries to point it out- yeah, I’m aware that the medium for communication has shifted a lot since video is now accessible to pretty much everyone.
I’m talking about books, people. When did we stop reading books?
I would go bankrupt buying books with gifs for illustrations…
I can’t count how many times I’ve been reading a book in public and people act as if I’ve started cleaning a black-powder musket.
Posted in America, art, literature, media, writing, Youth
Tagged 80s, a wrinkle in time, adult, age, beowulf, black books, book, book entertainment, book store, books, buying books, chuck palahniuk, classic, Cost, decade, entertainment, Era, GIF, hatchet, high school, jeoffry, kids, literary, literature, maus, media, medium, music, occasional article, old yeller, oliver twist, paperback, price, pride and prejudice, reading, reading a book, scrubs, shows, shut up and take my money, slap, society, store, superfudge, technology, the adventures of tom sawyer, the giver, the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, the hobbit, the toothpaste millionaire, the witch of blackbird pond, TV, video, work, writer, writers, writing, Youth
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