I have come across many awe-inspiring sights Along my Summer travels across the Eastern Coast of the United States. I have walked inside grand mansions decorated with Victorian-era Second Empire, French Rococo Revival, and Aesthetic movements on Newport, Rhode Island; I touched a replica of the Caves of Lascaux in ...

In an attempt to cool down during the heatwave that has taken over two-thirds of the country, all Saturday was spent at the movie theater watching Toy Story 4 and the new Iive-action Lion King movie on IMAX. Toy Story 4 picked up where Toy Story 3 left off and ...

So I watched Hacksaw Ridge the other day (okay it was yesterday) and it was impressive.

Not so much as a movie (though that was quite decent) but the story. The story was amazing.

It's about a man named Desmond Doss who enlists in the army during WWII to ...

Recently I saw a performance of the Muppets' band “The Electric Mayhem” from 2009. Pretty great!

It occurred to me how many years have passed since the heyday of the Muppet Show in the late 1970's. The fact that this young-ish audience was so excited about this show said ...

San Diego Comic Con comes to town in a few days to begin a new Hotelacolypse, or when hotels run out of space in downtown San Diego. The line ups are going to range from new film and series announcements with the casts of Game of Thrones, IT 2, and ...

The Mysterious Stranger


This is about ‘the mysterious stranger’ in fiction. Well, one of the variations of that, at least. I'm not talking about the mysterious stranger who becomes the MC's lover in a romance novel, or the mysterious stranger who knocks on the door or gets into ...

Last week, I posted an article about what you would do in a year if all your financial obligations were looked after and you could dedicate your time to making comics. We also opened this question up to the #quackchat on Twitter. So here are some of the responses we ...

Lately more and more comics and animated features seem to consciously, and more importantly loudly, incorporate political messages in their stories. From feminism to social stratification and discrimination, to racism and xenophobia or even depression and psychological trauma.

This is by no means a new thing, to incorporate themes and ...

Writing Timeclocks


Timeclocks are one of those elements of fiction that usually shows up in the middle or just before the final act, to give things a little boost in the adrenaline department, and make the drama more urgent. Not only are your characters facing big problems, but suddenly their ...

There is a general idea that cliches, when they surface in the narrative of a story, be it movie, tv or webcomics or anything else, is a sign of bad writing.

There is of course a good basis for this presumption, because usually a cliche is a plot device, or ...