Photo: Mary Jane “MJ” Watson (played by Kirsten Dunst) and Harry Osborn (played by James Franco) in Spiderman 3 (2007).
Traveling down the memory lane archives has taken me back to watching the Tobey Maguire Spiderman trilogy that was released during the early-2000s.
Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman was my masked ...

Mary Jane Had Options
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, Jan. 18, 2021Back From The Dead
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Jan. 2, 2021
So we've talked often about how letting a character die in a story is something that should be used very frugally, because once death occurs, it should be permanent. In most settings, death shouldn't be something that is reversible. If not, it will lose its impact, and the ...
Gimme Strength
Banes at 12:00AM, Nov. 19, 2020
Plenty has been said about giving characters flaws - we've talked about it around the site, on the Quackcast and out loud, to ourselves, on the bus and in the park.
Characters gotta have flaws!
But something I've thought about more lately, in the years well after starting my ...
Evolving Tools of the Trade
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, Nov. 16, 2020
The chances are high that creating comics was something worthwhile after reading the daily newspaper “funnies” section; or reading a few panels of the Sunday comics after it had been used as gift wrap for a birthday present; or it could have been as simple as reading a printed comic ...
Nostalgia for a Time Never Experienced
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, Nov. 9, 2020
Anemoia describes the feeling of missing a time never experienced personally. Movies know how to inspire this feeling whenever a particular orchestra song from the previous century is played during a period piece of a Miami nightclub from the 1950s or whenever synthesizer pop and electric guitar solos transports people ...
Uncompressed Storytelling
Banes at 12:00AM, Nov. 5, 2020
stretchin' out them stories!
I think I first heard the phrase “uncompressed storytelling” via the great John Byrne, comic artist and writer, and man of very strong opinions. He was criticizing some other writer or comic series (I don't remember which one) about hinting at stories that wouldn't ...
The Walking Dead
Banes at 12:00AM, Oct. 29, 2020
The Walking Dead has been a successful comic-to-screen adaptation. Back when the show started, in 2010, the comics-on-film trend had not hit high gear.
High gear wasn't far off, though. Iron Man had already come out and was huge, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe was soon going to take ...
Upgrading the Machine
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, Oct. 12, 2020
There are a lot of discussions pertaining to the idea that artificial intelligence and brain implants will be a huge part of the future. Cyborgs are a topic demonstrated in science fiction, such as when the Borg assimilated Captain Picard and seduced Data in Star Trek. It is argued that ...