welcome

New pop culture writing:

The War at Ellsmere — Send in the Tropes

Gimme an F! — A feminist reclaims the word

Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.14: My Bloody Valentine

Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.13: The Song Remains the Same

 

Recent pop culture writing:

Transformative Works and Cultures

TWC publishes articles about popular media, fan communities, and transformative works, including but not limited to fan fiction, fan vids, mashups, machinima, film, TV, anime, comic books, video games, and any and all aspects of the communities of practice that surround them. TWC's aim is twofold: to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes fan-related topics, and to promote dialogue between the academic community and the fan community.

Supernatural bodies: Writing subjugation and resistance onto Sam and Dean Winchester
(Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4.)
On Supernatural, cuts, bruises, and breaks are usually healed and forgotten by the next episode, while magical deaths are soon reversed. But many fan writers give the Winchester brothers bodies of consequence, creating opportunities for Sam and Dean to mark each other in defiance of the industrial and patriarchal forces acting upon them.

Sequential Tart

Sequential Tart is a Web Zine about the comics industry, published by an eclectic band of women. The publication is dedicated to providing exclusive interviews, in-depth articles and news, while working towards raising the awareness of women's influence in the comics industry and other realms.

Reviews
	All my Sequential Tart reviews are listed here.
Articles
Issue	Title	Section	Topic
Jan 11, 2010	5 Ways to Spend Your Gift Certificate	Features	Comics
Oct 5, 2009	9 Against the Machine — 9 as a secular (post-)humanist fable	Culture Vultures	Movies
Sep 14, 2009	A Knack for the Gorgeous and the Grotesque — Fiona Staples	Features	Comics
Apr 7, 2008	Beautie and the Beast — Comparing two genre-pushing post-humans	Features	Comics
Dec 3, 2007	Blood Ties vs Moonlight — It's Sensualist Versus Puritan in the Battle of Vampire Detective Shows	Culture Vultures	Television
May 4, 2009	Collecting the Collectors — Edmonton Collectible Toy and Comic Show, March 29, 2009	Culture Vultures	Pop Culture
Aug 3, 2009	Cresting the Wave — Dan Fogel Curates an Exhibit of San Francisco Comix	Features	Comics
Mar 22, 2010	Gimme an F! — A feminist reclaims the word	Culture Vultures	Feminism
Oct 22, 2007	Giselle Gives Me the Wilis — The Love Story Sells the Tickets, But the Ghost Story Carries the Meaning	Culture Vultures	Dance
May 12, 2008	Happy Harbor Volume 3, Edmonton, Alberta — From creating a niche to developing a comics community	Columns	Comics
Aug 6, 2007	Harry Potter and the Missed Opportunities — A Little Complexity Could Go a Long Way	Culture Vultures	Movies
Oct 1, 2007	I Want My Zombie TV — Why Zombies Aren't TV Stars — Yet	Culture Vultures	Movies/Television
Mar 2, 2009	Jason Voorhees, The Family Guy — Friday the 13th's family-friendly agenda	Culture Vultures	Movies
Jun 1, 2007	Math, Magic, and Comics: It All Adds Up! — James Davidge and Jesse Davidge	Features	Comics
Mar 1, 2007	Messing with Metanarratives — Part 1: It's All About the Stories	Features	Books
May 1, 2007	Messing with Metanarratives — Part 2: Fairy Tales and Fable Towns	Features	Books
Aug 13, 2007	Messing with Metanarratives — Part 3: The Text is Still Being Writting	Features	Books
Dec 28, 2009	Noir: Dark Stories from Dark Horse — Diana Schutz	Features	Comics
Apr 21, 2008	Our Theatre Town — Part 1 — Great White Way, Meet Great White North	Culture Vultures	Theatre
Apr 28, 2008	Our Theatre Town — Part 2 — The Neon Lights Are Bright ... in Edmonton!	Culture Vultures	Theatre
Oct 20, 2008	Pop Print 2008 - Part 1 — International Conference and Festival of Popular Print Culture, University of Alberta, Aug 27-30	Culture Vultures	Pop Culture
Oct 27, 2008	Pop Print 2008 - Part 2 — International Conference and Festival of Popular Print Culture, University of Alberta, Aug 27-30	Culture Vultures	Pop Culture
Nov 10, 2008	Pop Print 2008 - Part 3 — International Conference and Festival of Popular Print Culture, University of Alberta, Aug 27-30	Culture Vultures	Pop Culture
Apr 27, 2009	Prince of Tales — Denny O'Neil	Features	Comics
Apr 20, 2009	Recording the Modern Woman — Trina Robbins on Nell Brinkley	Features	Comics
Jun 1, 2006	Secret Origin of a Fangirl — Rocketed from Golden Age to Golden Age	Features	Biography
Feb 1, 2007	Sexy Blue Beasts — Cool Blue Characters Burn Red Hot	Features	Comics
Oct 26, 2009	Supernatural Halloween — The Thinnest Veils	Culture Vultures	Television
Sep 7, 2009	Supernatural Hindsight — Seasons 1 to 3, in light of 4	Culture Vultures	Television
Apr 6, 2009	Supernatural Love — Catherine Tosenberger on Sam and Dean's transformative love story	Culture Vultures	Television
Apr 20, 2009	Supernatural Noir — Part 2: Deconstructing Identity	Culture Vultures	Television
Mar 30, 2009	Supernatural Noir — Part 1: Notes on Film Noir	Culture Vultures	Television
Feb 8, 2010	Supernatural Romance — What's with Sam and monsters, Dean and ghosts?	Culture Vultures	Television
Jan 5, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts Talk about Supernatural Episodes 4.01 to 4.10	Culture Vultures	Television
Feb 23, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts Talk about Supernatural 4.11 Family Remains	Culture Vultures	Television
Mar 2, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.12 Criss Angel Is a Douche Bag	Culture Vultures	Television
Mar 9, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.13 After School Special	Culture Vultures	Television
Mar 16, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.14 Sex and Violence	Culture Vultures	Television
Apr 27, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.15 Death Takes a Holiday	Culture Vultures	Television
May 4, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.16 On the Head of a Pin	Culture Vultures	Television
May 11, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.17 It's a Terrible Life	Culture Vultures	Television
May 18, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.18 The Monster at the End of This Book	Culture Vultures	Television
Jun 1, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.19 Jump the Shark	Culture Vultures	Television
Jun 8, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.20 The Rapture	Culture Vultures	Television
Jun 15, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.21 When the Levee Breaks	Culture Vultures	Television
Jun 22, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 4.22 Lucifer Rising	Culture Vultures	Television
Oct 19, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.01, Sympathy for the Devil	Culture Vultures	Television
Nov 2, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.02 Good God, Y'All	Culture Vultures	Television
Nov 9, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.03 Free to Be You and Me	Culture Vultures	Television
Nov 16, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.04 The End	Culture Vultures	Television
Nov 23, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.05 Fallen Idols	Culture Vultures	Television
Dec 14, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.06 I Believe the Children Are Our Future	Culture Vultures	Television
Dec 21, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.07: The Curious Case of Dean Winchester	Culture Vultures	Television
Dec 28, 2009	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.08 Changing Channels	Culture Vultures	Television
Jan 4, 2010	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.09: The Real Ghostbusters	Culture Vultures	Television
Jan 11, 2010	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.10: Abandon All Hope...	Culture Vultures	Television
Mar 8, 2010	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.11: Sam, Interrupted	Culture Vultures	Television
Mar 15, 2010	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.12: Swap Meat	Culture Vultures	Television
Mar 22, 2010	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.13: The Song Remains the Same	Culture Vultures	Television
Mar 29, 2010	Supernatural Talk — Tarts talk about Supernatural 5.14: My Bloody Valentine	Culture Vultures	Television
Jan 26, 2009	The Dark Knight of Gotham — Batman, the Ultimate Superhero Homebody	Features	Comics
Jan 25, 2010	The Monster in the Title of This Book — The Monster Appeal of Jellaby and Bayou	Features	Comics
Aug 4, 2008	The Super Girls of Summer, Part 1 — Hellboy in the Old World: Chivalry vs Tyranny	Culture Vultures	Movies
Aug 11, 2008	The Super Girls of Summer, Part 2 — Hancock in the New World: Living the American Dream(s)	Culture Vultures	Movies
Aug 18, 2008	The Super Girls of Summer, Part 3 — Wanted: Closing the Circle	Culture Vultures	Movies
Feb 16, 2009	Thinking Tarts' Sex Symbols — Who's hot depends on what's hot	Culture Vultures	Pop Culture
Mar 29, 2009	The War at Ellsmere — Send in the Tropes	All Access	Pop Culture
Oct 12, 2009	Work Detail in District 9 and Final Destination — Workers of the world, off-world and underworld, unite!	Culture Vultures	Movies

previously for Sequential Tart

Articles

Brokeback Mountain and Tristan & Isolde — From Arcadia to Here, and All the Gaps Between (February 2006)
The greatest leap is not from thinking about an action and doing it, but the leap to thinking of it from not having had the thought at all. The gaps between acknowledgement and action are crucial elements in two seemingly disparate recent movies, Brokeback Mountain and Tristan & Isolde.

The Multiverse Is/Was Dead. Long Live the Multiverse! (December 2005)
Why many worlds are better than one.

Fictional Election Fever (December 2005)
TV ties the fictional to the fictitious.

This Is the Story of Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki. So Read On. (October 2005)
Skim Takota is a high school goth who is desperate to create a physical and narrative space for herself. Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki tell her story.

Haunted by Phantom Colonialism — The Phantom: The Ghost Killer (September 2005)
Starting as a comic strip in 1936, The Phantom diversified into a variety of comics series and other mediums over the years. But with the latest comics from Moonstone Books, Tart Suzette Chan asks a question of the Phanton legend as a whole: has it evolved with the times?

Joanne Woytysiak: Cultivating Comics (April 2005)
Gothbunnies is a flourishing new web comic about adventures in arcane gardening. Joanne Wojtysiak is the creator who nurtured it.

Chuck McKinney: He Loves the Nightlife (March 2005)
A new web comic set in a gay bar explores nightlife in all its infinite variety. Creator/writer Chuck McKinney explains.

Crossing Borders: Jessica Abel (February 2005)
La Perdida is the fictional story of a young American in Mexico who becomes entangled in relationships, politics, and intrigue. Jessica Abel talks about the long and rewarding artistic journey she undertook to tell the tale.

PowerPopCultureGirl: Emily Pohl-Weary (November 2004)
Rejecting mass market entertainment, Emily Pohl-Weary made a name for herself as a small press activist and co-author with her grandmother, of the Hugo Award-winning biography, Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril. Back in pop culture's thrall, Pohl-Weary now celebrates new possibilities for the superheroine trope with her anthology, Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks.

Reading Catwoman: One Icon's Leap from Cipher to Character (October 2004)
For such an iconic figure, Catwoman seemed to be little more than a cipher until recently. I follow her journey from villian to vigilante.

The World According to Jane (September 2004)
Paige Braddock, creator of the comic Jane's World, discusses the relationship between form and content.

Our Ripley, Our Selves (December 2003)
I recently revisited the Alien series of films. My conclusion? Aliens are scary. Creepy robots are scary. Work camps are scary. Ron Perlman is scary. But so are Other things.

Letter re: Jeepers Creepers 2 (December 2003)
A reader comment (scroll down to the last letter on the page) about Jeepers Creepers 2 begged a few questions which I considered at length:

	1.	Is there only one possible interpretation (or reading) of Jeepers Creepers 2?
	2.	Does biographical interpretation negate all other readings?
	3.	Is the threat or depiction of sexual violence toward adolescent males unique to work by child molesters?

Uncanny Movies: Shades of Scary! (October 2003)
Dirty Pretty Things and Jeepers Creepers 2 are two very different movies. You might call one a political film, the other a slasher flick. But if Freud were a movie critic, he might say they both expressed a particular shade of frightening: The Uncanny.

Hitting the mylar ceiling (August 2003)
People take film seriously. Why not comics?

Roundtables

The Best of Worlds, and the Worst (December 2005)
What is your ideal society? The worst possible society? Tarts discuss some memorable prose examples.

Back-to-School Time (September 2005)
Part the Sequential Tart mission is to highlight to our readers comics that have impressed us and that we believe are deserving of a wider audience. In honor of back-to-school time, we looked at educational comics. My recommendation was Louis Riel by Chester Brown.

Tart to Heart: Which comic book character is most like you? (September 2005)
What I have in common with Angry Little Girls.

Tart Tastes: Grant Morrison (August 2005)
With Tart Tastes, Sequential Tart focuses on great creators and topics within comics. My choice for signature Grant Morrison work: Sebastian O.

Other

Editorial: Possible Worlds (December 2005)
Special issue exploring how comics and other artforms can be powerful vehicles for exploring possible worlds.

Rant of the Month: Feeding Kate Moss to the Lions: A Slender Sacrifice (October 2005)
A supermodel's career goes up in flames while the fashion industry fiddles by a river called Denial.