Three years before Batman donned his cape and cowl, and two before Superman crashed into a field in Smallville, there was another hero who would leave an indelible mark on the history of pop culture.
He wore a skin tight costume and a black mask. He left his symbol upon those he vanquished; a permanent skull-shaped brand so that all would know these were evil men. He may not have been a superhero as we know them today, but he taught those who were to come a thing or two.
Debuting as a newspaper strip on February 17th, 1936, American…
With every generation, a new kind of media comes along that “threatens to destroy the moral fibre of the youth”. Today, it is social media. In the mid-’90s to early 2000s, it was video games and before that, rock music and television. In the 1940’s it was comic books.
During the late 1930s and into the ’40s and ’50s, the comic book medium was at its height. Due to the Great Depression, cheap entertainment for children was in demand. Comics provided that. …
In the 90’s Sega was the king of video games in Australia. The Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog played on Saturday mornings and the coolest of the cool owned a Mega Drive. However, things were about to get much cooler still. Sega was going to open a theme park!
Sega World Sydney was not actually a Sega initiative, but rather the brainchild of Kevin Bermeister who ran Sega Ozisoft, the Australian distributor for Sega products. With Ozisoft conquering video game sales in Australia (yes, even beating out that plumber fellow) Bermeister decided it was time to take things to the…
This month I earnt the most I ever have on Medium since starting here six-odd months ago. After conversion from $US to £UK, that’s roughly £4.80! Finally, after six months, I’ve earnt enough on Medium to buy myself a coffee. (But I don’t actually drink coffee, so it’ll be tea or hot chocolate.)
It wasn’t easy to do however, let me tell you! Never fear though, as I’m going to let you in on my money making secrets and soon you too will be making enough to afford one hot beverage a month!
Stock Images Be Damned!
You’ll see lots of people on Medium…
Thanks to the brilliance of the X-Box One’s backwards compatibility service I’ve been able to experience some wonderful games that I missed on original release due to bowing out of the console gaming arena for a few years.
The most recent of these I’ve enjoyed is Dante’s Inferno, a graphic, brutal and incredibly fun interpretation of the first part of Italian poet Dante Alighieri‘s epic poem The Divine Comedy.
If you are not aware, Inferno tells the story of Dante’s journey through the Nine Circles of Hell. On his way he witnesses all kinds of demons, devils and torments. …
In one of my previous articles I discussed how The Phantom became — and remains — one of the most popular adventure comic strips in the world and yet is all but ignored by the American comics industry. In this follow up article, I’ll be looking at how the character has influenced cultures around the world.
What the very first comic book (as in a magazine-style publication of 20 pages or more focusing on the one character) featuring The Phantom was is something that was up for debate until recently. Originally, it was thought that the honour went to the…
Among all the epidemics and crazy world “leaders” being deposed, you could be forgiven for having missed the news that Google is currently swinging its proverbial wang around, trying to bully the Australian government.
If you’re not aware, the tl;dr version is this; Last year the Aussie government passed a law that would require major online news vendors — in particular news sites and aggregators — to pay a fee for linking to stories posted on sites from Australian media companies, although not for the content itself. Any site not following the new rule would incur millions in fines. …
I’ve never quite fit the stereotype.
Growing up in the town I did, boys were expected to be into sports and cars. Neither of these things interested me. My reaction to sport was basically the same as Moss from IT Crowd (see below) and, unless you were talking about the Ecto-1, the Batmobile or Doc Brown’s DeLorian, cars were just practical tools to get you places. Oh, and I’m into art which, in that town, made you something of a leper.
Now at 35, those opinions have not changed. In fact I’ve realised that even within the less mainstream interests and sub cultures I’ve been a…
Obviously 2020 wasn’t the best year. I’m not going to go into all that, because we all know it. Instead, here I’m going to focus on the things I liked the most in 2020, particularly my favourite movies, games, books and graphic novels.
A quick note; some of the following may not have been released in 2020, but 2020 was the year I saw/read/played them. Also, these are my opinions, which generally tend to differ from the popular.
Films
In 2020 I watched 58 movies (although this number is probably out a little bit as I only started using Letterboxd late…
Rumours are starting to swirl that the first female Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, may be regenerating by the end of the 2021 season of the BBC’s popular sci-fi series. The timing would not be out of the ordinary as many past Doctors have only stayed for three years (there was no 2019 season); David Tennant, Matt Smith and even Second and Fifth Doctors Patrick Throughton and Peter Davidson left the TARDIS after their third seasons. So if Jodie was to leave at the end of 2021 it would have precedent.
Also, I kind of wouldn’t blame her. Her tenure as the…
Joe Douglas
Collector. Writer. Artist. Geek. I write mostly about the hobby of collecting. Check out my full portfolio at JMDWorks.org.
