2024

The thing about escapism is it helps you escape. The thing about cultural analysis is that it draws maps for other people to follow. The amazing thing about people is that we all follow the map and all end up somewhere different. I’ve done a lot of cultural analysis this year. And to bring it

In an unnamed city, High Grey prowls the rooftops and the histories of his associates. Everything matters in High Grey’s world. The unnamed, spare desert city High Grey traverses feels warm and busy, vital and distant, as C. Kinney’s art embodies the precision of High Grey himself and the joyously untidy world he’s above. George Joy‘s lettering too is

Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) is a botanist aboard the Valley Forge, one of a fleet of vessels carrying biomes containing the last trees left alive, parked out beyond Saturn and ready to return when the planet’s climate is fixed. When the order comes in to destroy the forests and head home, Lowell snaps, kills his crewmates and

Horror wants us to believe it is a simple genre. Observable Radio shows us it’s lying. The bones of each episode, each world, are the same: a comet is passing overhead. It’s magnetic field is tearing holes between realities. And the Observer, played by Phil Van Hest, is listening. Contents Observing Observable Radio and It’s Not The End

I lived in York for a long time. One of the highlights of life in the Manhattan of the North was the daily billboards for the Yorkshire Evening Press: BABY JESUS STOLEN FROM YORK SHOPKIT-KAT SPARKS RIOT And a friend swears he once saw: MAN STUCK IN LIFT RECOVERS, PICTURES I did some work for the Press in the

I lived in York for a long time. One of the highlights of life in the Manhattan of the North was the daily billboards for the Yorkshire Evening Press: BABY JESUS STOLEN FROM YORK SHOPKIT-KAT SPARKS RIOT And a friend swears he once saw: MAN STUCK IN LIFT RECOVERS, PICTURES I did some work for the Press in the

All this week, I thought the one thing the guy in seat D4 at Mean Girls did right was give me the framework for this essay. He used his phone constantly, ignoring multiple staff members, audience complaints and signs saying TURN YOUR PHONE OFF, GUY IN SEAT D4 WE MEAN YOU. None of it stuck. I had

This is the story of how COVID lockdown led to me sitting in the back of an RV going eighty miles an hour down the interstate highway, writing a recipe for risotto. Contents Guest columnist Sarah Gailey talks about the creation of Have You Eaten?Interstitials: The music of Les Fo’PlafondsPlayout: Generator ^ First Floor by Freelance Whales Read

It’s easy to brace for disappointment in 2024. Milkshake Duck wanders the Earth, bellowing his dark quack upon the worst corners of the internet. Every single time a celebrity’s name appears on trending topic you play ‘Dead / Scandal / Birthday / Nostalgia’ roulette. It’s easy to look at the movie poster for Hundreds of Beavers and

‘Shit’s crazy, so we tell ourselves stories.’ Straight away, we’re right there, standing around the circle with the kids. We’re in the middle of a lot of stories, not an author to be found, and the only thing more frightening is the possibility there’s a blank page on the way. Everyone’s scared. Nothing makes sense.