In this week’s installment of Karl Wolff’s essay series, “On Being Human,” he explores the comic book series “Hellboy,” and a how a cigar-chomping hell demon, who also happens to be a practicing Catholic, works to save the world for Rasputin, Nazis, and all manner of Lovecraftian nightmarish entities. Continue reading CCLaP Fridays: On Being Human: Hellboy, by Mike Mignola
Announcing Podcast Dreadful, brought to you by CCLaP, a series of podcasts inspired by the penny dreadfuls of the Victorian era. Continue reading CCLaP Fridays Wednesday: Podcast Dreadful
A limited-run series where I review three books about the Supreme Court of the United States, exploring its historical and ideological conflicts, and the transformations it wrought upon law and society. This week, I examine the Justices who hold the “swing vote.” Continue reading MONDAYS WITH THE SUPREMES: PART V: SUPREME COURT SWINGERS
A balding conservatively dressed Investigator comes to an unnamed town to investigate a series of suicides on the grounds of the Enterprise. What follows is an odyssey of frustration, bureaucracy, and confusion. Continue reading Translation Tuesdays: The Investigation, by Philippe Claudel
This week, Karl Wolff continues his ongoing series “On Being Human” with “Battlestar Galactica” and “Caprica,” two Syfy TV series that explored the struggles between humanity and the machines that rebelled. Continue reading CCLaP Fridays: On Being Human: Battlestar Galactica and Caprica
The new Akashic anthology “Venice Noir,” edited by Maxim Jakubowski. Says reviewer Karl Wolff, “There is something for everyone in this [book], a delicious sampling of tastes, styles, and stories.” Continue reading CCLaP Fridays: Venice Noir, edited by Maxim Jakubowski
A Cultural History of the Chinese Language by Sharron Gu attempts to provide a means for non-specialists to approach Chinese, not from the technical and scientific discipline of linguistics, but from the discipline of literary history. Continue reading A Cultural History of the Chinese Language, by Sharron Gu
Today in Karl Wolff’s CCLaP essay series “On Being Human,” it’s ‘The Culture’ novels by Iain Banks, in which humans, aliens, and machines all live in a post-scarcity utopia. Banks’s novels follow eccentrics and troublemakers in a society where humans can switch gender, become aliens, and even become machines. Continue reading CCLaP Fridays: On Being Human: the Culture
After an overlong hiatus, “The Art of Reviewing” returns with a profile of Roland Barthes, exploring his the French semiotician and literary critic expanded the subject matter for reviewers, his influence of pop culture studies, and his usefulness in curatorial practice. Continue reading The Art of Reviewing: Roland Barthes
I continue my essay series “On Being Human”, this week exploring the dark world of Warhammer 40K and the Space Marines. Continue reading CCLAP Fridays: On Being Human: Warhammer 40K Space Marines
The Driftless Area Review 