“[T]here is a sound narrative logic behind the sustained popularity of this impossible person in tights. There is one appeal whose effectiveness has remained operative since 1939.” Acephalous explains “[h]ow to teach the interrelatedness of historical context and audience via Warren Ellis’s Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth.” (via @aytiws)
“This, then, is the story of Maxwell Knight—the man called M—and a cuckoo called Goo. Knight was a tall, patrician British intelligence officer in charge of MI5 departments dealing with counter-subversion on home ground. And yes, as ‘M’ he was the inspiration for James Bond’s controller.” Helen MacDonald […]
“In essence what Fleming was proposing was a team of authorised thieves and looters – mavericks who would operate ahead of the forward troops and who were instructed to do whatever necessary to capture enemy intelligence, equipment or personnel.” James Bond creator, Ian Fleming also created a special […]
When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven insane by fear and horror, and when chaos has become supreme law, then the time will have come for the empire of crime.” —The Testament of Dr. Mabuse “[W]hatever factors come into play in the cases that […]
TVOntario interviews writer Nalo Hopkinson about utopian literature, the ancestral experience of slavery, “noticing race” and the ideals of Toronto’s Caribana festival.
Vintage Ninja offers, “A 1962 Point of View” on “ninjutsu”–including covers and pages from an out of print copy of Jay Gluck’s Zen Combat. My favorite line, “The ninja never swaggered.”