Novelist Samuel Youd, who wrote as John Christopher, has died. Gutter readers might remember him best for his science fiction series, The Tripods, which was adapted for television by the BBC and Australia’s Seven Networks in the 1980s. The Guardian has an overview of his life and career.
It’s the 50th anniversary of Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day. All Things Considered looks back on the classic picturebook about a boy named Peter encountering snow and interviews Deborah Pope, the executive director of the Ezra Keats’ Foundation about the implications of quietly introducing a non-stereotypical African-American […]
Part 1 of Stephen Colbert’s interview with Maurice Sendak. And here’s part 2, in which Colbert teaches Sendak to huff markers.
I remember seeing Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away in the theatre, and I think it holds the record, in my experience, for the fastest time in making a small child cry. I have no idea what movie the child’s parents thought they were taking her to, but I don’t […]
Videogame developer Ross Mills was concerned that a British educational toy store was selling Anakin Skywalker toys figures, given that Anakin had massacred a village of sand people, tried to kill his teacher and slaughtered a school of Jedi younglings. The Early Learning Centre responded with an excellent […]
Cartoonist Bil Keane has passed away. He was most famous for his long-running comic strip, The Family Circus. Lynda Barry movingly remembers Keane. The AV Club has an overview of Keane’s career. The Belated Nerd has posted panels from Keane’s less well-known Channel Chuckles gag strip.