Stickhandlers

For many of us, the first thing we learned to draw was Homo Anorexia: the Stick Figure. A circle, a few straight lines, and there it was: a shaky but recognizable approximation of the human body. The Stick waltzed into our games (hangman), the surreptitious notes we passed […]

Blow Em Up Real Good

Clive Thompson decides to raise hell: “Let us talk openly about how just totally awesome it is to grab a fully loaded railgun in Quake 4 and wade into a mass of gibbering Strogg aliens and kill and kill and kill again, until there are guts on, like, […]

Turok Comic

A scathing/affectionate look back at some insanely cheesy Turok comics from the 1990s: “They crash-land in the Lost Land, naturally. There the survivors are attacked by dinosaurs, kidnapped by telepathic aliens with sharp sticks, and menaced by a huge shapeshifting monster made of flesh-melting goo. It is awesome.”

Tundra Horror

I see writing for kids as one of the most difficult creative tasks to do well. How to judge what might appeal to a younger audience? How to make the tone convincing yet not condescending? The difficulties seem multiplied when you add horror to the mix. It intensifies […]