Pioneers of Animation: Winsor McCay

True Classics has a lovely retrospective of vaudevillian, cartoonist and animator, Winsor McCay.  “McCay got his start in entertainment doing “chalk talks” on the vaudeville circuit. Much like J. Stuart Blackton, a groundbreaking figure in early animation in his own right, McCay drew figures on a chalkboard and altered […]

The Unmasking of a Troll

In writing about–and exposing the identity of–Reddit moderator and troll, Violentacrez, Adrian Chen makes an interesting point, well, many interesting points in this excellent piece for The Gawker:   “When it comes to mods, the political model of Reddit is not so much a vast digital democracy, as […]

The Specter of Frankenstein

The specter of Victor Frankenstein’s creature has been haunting me, confronting me with the horror of his creation and inherent in his being. He stalks me, in his way, as surely as he stalked Victor. Perhaps he’s just been curiously peering at me, as the creature watched humans […]