It's just, like, my opinion, man



I've been rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation lately, and so much of what I loved about it on first viewing holds up beautifully.

Watching a series which is almost all standalone episodes is interesting, too. There's a basic premise of ...

We talk a lot about Franchises here because those have been the big, widely known movies/stories in the culture in recent years.

But it's not all about Franchises - one thing that a standalone story can do, and occasionally does, is have an ending that changes the world forever ...

And a One and a Two and a–


The third and possibly final volume of the Guardians of the Galaxy films is coming out later this year. Or next year. Or whatever.

I liked the first two a lot, and in an interview snippet, James Gunn mentioned how the third ...

Tony Stark is glib, arrogant, and a war profiteer. And the perfect Protagonist.

I don't believe stories should be written strictly according to formulas - but writing according to structures that have been established can be helpful to a script when needed.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let ...

Last week, over on the ole Twittersphere, we were asking the #quackchatters about creating cover art for their comics. It was an interesting discussion to go back and read as there were responses there that surprised me.

The first question of the QuackChat hour asked if creators draw some pages ...

“Get Back”, the new documentary about the Beatles has been released - I haven't seen the whole thing yet, and I'm a fairly casual fan of the Beatles, but I've seen the shorter version of these recording sessions that was released way back when. And I've seen ...

The moment of change in a character is not always crystal clear in a story. Very often the secret to good storytelling I think, is to understand all the structural elements in a story, and a character arc, and then to HIDE those elements so they feel realistic while they ...

I saw a smaller youtuber talking about movies and she mentioned her belief that “Hollywood movies” - like, normal movies I guess she meant - are destructive to our psyche. ‘Our’ referring to we the viewing audience and society at large. She didn't elaborate in the video I saw; I'm ...

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 idea of genre is somewhat obvious, and somewhat murky. It can be rigid for some fans, and irrelevant to others.

I was reading some thoughts from readers of various niches that were very particular about what belongs in them and what doesn't. There were some complaints there about ...