“I always loved, most of all with doing comics, the fact that I knew I was in the gutter. I kind of miss that, even these days, whenever people come up and inform me, oh, you do graphic novels. No. I wrote comic books, for heaven’s sake. They’re […]
Most people know Marshall McLuhan for a handful of catchphrases. Slogans like “the medium is the message” still tumble from the lips of zealous freshmen, even if they’re not quite sure what it means. Yet there’s more to his legacy than a few choice sound bites and a […]
The history of smut has as many unbelievably odd characters as it has movies, and it seems one who takes an active interest in this sordid cinema is always uncovering a quirky previously unknown filmmaker or performer worth obsessing over. The cool thing is that it’s nearly always […]
John Brunner’s The Shockwave Rider has a fantastic ending: an unstoppable computer virus reveals all secret information. If you’ve bribed the food inspectors to ignore mad cow disease in your factory farm, now the whole world knows about it. Gone to war under false pretences? Selling designer clothes […]
This week’s piece on a maligned artform is by Chris Szego. I read, on average, ten books a week. Seriously. In fact, I consider reading a physiological necessity like sleep, or chocolate: you can skimp on the proper amount for a while, but sooner or later, you have […]
Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash is a book that requires some warning for unsuspecting readers: it’s so wacked out and demented that it’s beyond over-the-top and way beyond anything you can take seriously. The book works because you eventually realize that Stephenson’s approach suits the future that he is […]
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The Cultural Gutter 