Tag: 1930s

“Which is Better: Marvel or DC?”

Friend of the Gutter Colin Smith ponders the eternal question, “Which is better: Marvel or DC?” “It really did matter once, Marvel or DC? But that was decades ago, when the differences between the two publishers’ comics were obvious and consequential. When editor/writer Stan Lee and plotter/artist Jack […]

Bengali Noir

“Looking for film noir in India is to miss the point of Indian cinema altogether.”–Lalitha Gopalan, “Bombay Noir,” A Companion to Film Noir. (Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2013). There’s a lot about Calcutta—the center of the Bengali film industry, metropolitan capital of the state of West Bengal, […]

A Very Modern Coyote

“Bugs Bunny is an inspiration. How could I fail to admire a character who is equal parts Rex Harrison, D’Artagnan, and Dorothy Parker, packed into a graceful rabbit skin? Daffy is recognition, as is the Coyote.” “Human beings, of course, in even their most grandiloquent plans, often resemble […]

“Beautiful Books, Terrible Times”

Hyperallergic has a piece on Soviet children’s books between 1920 and 1935, with images from Inside the Rainbow: Russian Children’s Literature 1920-35: Beautiful Books, Terrible Times. “The 1920s in Russia weren’t exactly what people had hoped they would be. After the 1917 Russian Revolution brought down the old regime […]

NY Mag on Shirley Jackson

New York Magazine has a piece on novelist and essayist Shirley Jackson life as author, mother and homemaker: “In June 1948, Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery” — a dark fable about a ritual stoning conducted in an apparently ordinary village — roiled the readers of The New Yorker, generating more mail than […]