One thing you have to admire about gerrymandering: It’s got some wicked slang. Gerrymandering is, of course, the dark art of drawing a legislative map that favors your political party. That involves “packing”—taking all the neighborhoods with voters who hate you and cramming them into one district. (You’ll lose that district by a landslide but […]
Once upon a time, I spent a heady childhood summer driving my parents insane with my Smurf obsession. I devoured the original Belgian comics in English translation (along with the adventures of Asterix and Tintin), but my main affliction was collecting those damn little blue figurines. I begged my poor mom and dad to take […]
Summer is almost over. And while that means you probably won’t get to hear "Despacito" 100 times a day, it also means a new wave of music is headed to your ears. (Also, LOL, you’re still going to hear "Despacito" 100 times a day.) But with so many tracks ready to populate your Spotify playlists, […]
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets flopped. At least that’s the way things look after the opening weekend of the Luc Besson-written and -directed sci-fi film: It headed into Monday with just about $17 million in receipts and a splattery 54 percent on Rotten Tomatoes (and a better audience score of 60 percent, […]
Persona 5 is, in many ways, the opposite of an accessible videogame. Melodramatic and demanding of both time and patience, it will not accommodate you, your life, or your precious time. You have to accommodate it. The latest in a long-running and cultishly beloved series of Japanese role-playing games, Persona 5 is obsessed with the […]
Multiple times each day, Dylan Marron opens his phone and reads a hate message. It might be about his voice, or his support for Black Lives Matter, or his sexual orientation. No matter the subject, a personal attack from a stranger always feels terrible. “You feel like total shit, that a human thinks this about […]
Early on a steamy June morning in Plantation, Florida, Matt Steiner sits working at his parents’ 10-person dining room table. It’s the start of summer vacation, and he is joined by his buddy Chris, who is freshly home from his first year at college. Between yawns the two send tweets and check emails, but mostly […]
Perhaps the most unlikely thing about *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, *a movie already packed with oddball shout-outs to comic book ephemera, is the character for which it will be remembered: Ego, the "living planet." No one should be surprised that Kurt Russell, himself a living planet of sorts, managed to swagger into the […]
Thor: Ragnarok has it all: sibling rivalry, superhero battles, the final fate of mythical realms, and the Hulk dressed up like a gladiator. It's the kind of movie designed to have you exiting the theater wanting more—and that’s where we come in. Or, more accurately, that’s where the following five comic runs come in. Each […]
No Man's Sky promised infinity, and that's a promise nothing can ever keep. You may remember that Hello Games' epic space exploration opus landed one year ago. In the months preceding its release, the game became a sensation based solely on word of mouth. Studio lead Sean Murray appeared on Late Night With Stephen Colbert. […]