Catwoman: Silicon-Injected

In 2001, Catwoman was everything I ever wanted in a comic. I admit I was a sucker for her new look. A woman’s stompy black boots are her pride and Catwoman’s boots were stompy, black and flat after years of thigh high Pretty Woman stilettos. Not to mention […]

Breaking Taboos

Horror stories make people uncomfortable or scared in many ways. The most basic has always been fear of death and/or physical destruction. For example, I don’t want my body torn to shreds by zombies, so I’ll be scared if it happens to a character I empathize with. In […]

Click. Kill. Reward.

The mob of deranged and frothy beasts approaches quickly, my tower shield and fearsome-looking warhammer doing nothing to slow their approach. Blood is spilled as I dispatch the group quickly, their remains forming a pile at my feet. I loot the corpses, ignoring the broken weapons that were […]

Cultural Appropriation

Naomi Novik makes a stand: “I would rather take my characters to China and Istanbul and Africa and make mistakes and get corrected for them than confine myself to the safe Western European sandbox and pretend the problem doesn’t exist.” Her next Temeraire book is set in Africa, […]

The Love Blackmailer

A lot of trash cinema fans don’t realize that Canada has a long and sleazy history of sexploitation films. Until somewhat recently — despite being a Canadian citizen, as well as ‘60s filth-film booster, I didn’t either.