Yes, that's right: hu-MONS. Because, for reasons you and I will never understand, the only one the vampires trust to tell their story is ... a Ferengi.

Here I figured Wally Wood's Iron Maiden, from THUNDER Agents, was the female Doom. Based on absoutely nothing but the cape-and-gray-armor combo.

You think that's rough? You should have heard what H. Rider Haggard said about Walter Besant and Marie Corelli. (Not to mention his disdain for Phileas Fogg cosplay).

#9 includes an ad for a story that is legendary in our home. My 5-year-old is obsessed with "The Fattest Girl in Metropolis." He's made me read it to him a hundred times, and then branch off into stories about most of the DC universe turning inexplicably obese. (That's right: Dr. Fate, Sugar and Spike. Everybody…

I live in Transylvania. The real one. In fact, when people come to town and ask where to stay, I recommend a place called the Hotel Transylvania, which is right by where I work. Nice little hotel, recently renovated, nothing fancy. But you know what? I walk past it about 50 times each week, and on at lest ten of…

I read a novel a few years back, the name and author of which I have forgotten, about American electoral politics in a future where America is a cultural and economic backwater. The backstory is that one day China decided to ignore every intellectual-property treaty it had ever signed, and the next day America's…

Hey scientists: don't feel so bad about yourselves! I read poorly-written articles in the humanities all the time. Good ideas are often buried under bad prose, and the absence of ideas is often disguised by it.

It's the plume sent up when "John Carter" crashed and burned.

Over the last few years, I've been more and more put off by the generic spandex costumes on superheroes, whether male or female. Once it dawned on me that no actual spandex exists which can reveal the minute striations of, say, a pectoral muscle that we have grown to expect from the likes of Jim Lee (and a thousand…

As a teenager pretty well prepped by John Barth's metafiction, not to mention lots of old-fashioned adventure stories, I loved the book. As a snooty college kid, I found the movie a letdown.

Wow. The staircase in limbo sounds sort of interesting, in a Steve Ditko-Dr. Strange way. The voice in the ear is just scary. is there anything you can do for it?

Of course, "God Particle" is censor-speak for "Goddamned particle," so called by Leon Ledermann, and many people say that without any particular belief at all. (Not that I recommend it.) So we could start calling it the Goddamned Particle, or for more sensitive ears, the Blasphemy Particle or Second Commandment…

I'm guessing you're a bit younger than I am.

I dunno. it seems to me that the more obscure the source material is, the less risk there is in pissing off its fans. Take a few liberties with, say, "Looking Backward," and nobody cares; get Spock's hand salute wrong, and the Internet descends like an avalanche.

Barnabas Collins: International Man of Mystery.

What, you don't like it? Then brace yourselves, because once he wraps this up, the guy's moving on to "Tarnsman of Gor."

Great summary, and thanks.

The Montauk Monster sure gets around ....

Actually, I'm hoping for MORE hamfisted political humor. I'm past the point in life where I can really enjoy a movie that asks me to take ideas like this at face value, and worse yet to distract me with special effects. But I'm well into the phase where I can enjoy a picture that mocks bad political ideas, even if…

How can Louisiana come out ahead of Minnesota? It defies all my precious prejudices and preconceptions.