This is, easily, the best marvel book out there right now. I love that the metaphor has become more overt — and that the centre of the struggle revolves around compassion rather than smashing the enemy into a fine red mist. Jean and Nightcrawler are the two kindest X-Men, the two most dedicated to Xavier’s dream of…

Methinks he missed the point of Fight Club. The novel was all about the perils of toxic masculinity...

While I absolutely agree that Wilson was being insufferably rude and self-centred by disrupting everyone else’s life for no reason, part of me also thinks that this story is hilarious because I’m currently teaching in a university in China and not only is there no minimum age for buying cigarettes, you can smoke them…

This seems like a good place to ask: Does anyone know how I can get physical comics while in China? I’m moving there for a year and I am going to need to keep up with the good stuff while I’m gone. I have a VPN, so I can get the digital comics from Amazon but I prefer hard copies. Thanks, fellow geek-people!

I think that some parents are more open with their children than others. For better or for worse.
For example, I know that after my mother dumped my father (but before they got back together and hoisted me onto an unsuspecting world) my mother briefly dated Andre the Giant. She was working as a model at the time and…

Nightcrawler from the X-Men. I really identified with the whole kind swashbuckler who everyone assumes is a monster thing - probably because my parents abandoned me when I was twelve. It was helpful to think that just because people treat you like a monster, you can choose to act with courage, nobility, and kindness.…

I thought that it had an almost profound ending. It examined the cost of living, how painful it is to keep on going in the face of so much loss, when escaping into fantasy is easier (a funny track for a comic, but that’s what fiction’s for) and what beauty comes when you are actually willing to throw your crutches (or…

Yeah, that was a great little detail. I don’t know if they had charity tins in American rental places.

This is an especially, specifically British take on the rental institution. They held on over here until the early 2000's. I remember, when I was a kid, there was one DVD rental place still trundling along in Aberystwyth. It closed in 2010 and it looked almost exactly like that. The fact that they had to specifically…

Longhorn cattle were always the worst, for me. They were so freaking aggressive. When my parents lived in Texas their neighbours had a longhorn cow in their yard. They had a ranch, but they didn’t live on it. She was their pet. She broke the fence trying to get at me, multiple times, when I was mowing the yard. We had…

Right? If it were a Jersey, I’d be worried. This girl will be the boss before she’s done.

Ah yes. Make a promise, make a start, then walk away and hope that nobody notices. That old scam. I know that it’s not in the interest of any of the higher-ups to implement these changes. All the more reason to insist on them right out the gate, starting now, and continue insisting on them until people stop…

I’m glad that WW is being used to blaze yet another trail, but I don’t understand why they don’t implement the new rules now, starting with the movies that are currently filming. Why put off until tomorrow, and whatnot. If they really want to put an end to sexual harassment in Hollywood, shouldn’t they just, ya know,…

I would, happily, give up one of my kidneys for a Kitty and Nightcrawler vehicle. Not one of my own, home-grown kidneys, mind you, but I’ve got plenty in storage.

Yes. That scene was just about perfect.

I didn’t mean to be at all insulting or demeaning and I’m sorry that I phrased it badly! You are yourself, totally and without qualm. I admire that. Deeply.

This was an amazing article, and a timely reminder of the consequences of our current, willfully-ignorant cultural hubris. But I have to say that the personalities and the coping strategies of these last survivors were absolutely fascinating to me. Lillard strikes me as someone who has clearly developed intellectually…

I bought my husband a mangagement ring. It’s silver, with ‘I am my beloved’s and she is mine’ written on it in Hebrew. I did not want an engagement ring. I have a lot of pretty rings already (some of them have wolves on them!) and I didn’t like the patriarchal connotations - though I was happy to reverse them and…

Yep. Strength+woman=evil in far too many stories. This anthology is still pretty great though.

Do not act out of desire for heaven, or fear of hell. Act because the action is right and will neither reduce your idea of yourself or impede you from becoming the person that you would like to become. I do know that when I am tempted to do something which is wrong (usually cruel. I am tempted by cruelty) I frame it…