Be The Birdgirl
Nearly two decades (and 40 million viewers) after signal boosts from early adopters like yours truly, Adult Swim reboots Harvey Birdman’s postmodern satire for an intersectional epoch.
interviews
Cli-Fi: Avatar Studios Awakens
Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra finally arrive at a compromise, from opposite coordinates.
The Beatles Let It Get Back
Enjoy this holiday sneak peek of The Beatles: Get Back, knowing its reprogramming is all we have left of The Beatles, as the original fades.
Socially Distancing McCartney III
Fifty years after the passing of The Beatles, McCartney has again added his voice to our turbulent time.
Between Utopia and Armageddon: Matthew Rankin’s Transgressive Twentieth Century
“I see this 21st Century malaise reaching its snapping point,” Rankin explained. “Last century saw the rise of innumerable idealistic movements. This traumatized world is the one we inherited.”
Korra, Uncensored
The most powerful woman on television is back on television, where she belongs. We need her, more than ever.
Swervedriver’s Petroleum Daze
Three decades after its thunderous arrival, Swervedriver’s sonic legacy is in the history books. Unfortunately. It has to share space with climate crisis authoritarians
Goodbye, The Beatles (Again)
Fifty years ago, The Beatles tragically left us, after changing the world for almost a decade. And what they left us with, like much of what they made, sequenced the genes for the recombined culture to come.
Unhappy Anniversary, Deepwater Horizon
The bad news? A decade later, Deepwater Horizon remains one the worst environmental disasters in human history. The good news? A decade later, oil is dead.
Ten Years After: Earth Strikes Back
A decade ago, I wrote about the myriad ways our planet would refuse to put up with us. Today, I look back, during a global lockdown, as a zoonotic dystopia borne from our ceaseless invasion of Earth ravages so-called civilization.
Happy New Year, Sym-Bionic Titan!
What I wanted this year was one of the greatest animated series ever, created by one of the greatest animators ever, to blessedly return for a second chance at changing programming as usual.
The (Blessed) Return Of El-P
Correcting an historical injustice, El-P’s singular, relevant back catalogue will finally return to the land of material and digital reality.
Legend of Korra, Reanimated
Once upon a time, The Legend Of Korra’s feminist, elemental superhero was one of the most powerful on television. Male, or female, or other, and/or another.
Happy Birthday, The Iron Giant!
Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, director Brad Bird’s masterpiece of war and peace has only grown in legend and influence
Watching The Watchmen (Again)
Elite powers cashing in on actual historical crises whose failures literally led us to where we are today.
Ten Years After: Extinction
Captivated by global warming and shortly before I called it cli-fi, I researched and reported the myriad ways life on Earth could die. Few were more terrifying than hydrogen sulfide.
Free Energy, Courtesy of Tesla
Matthew Rankin’s surreal, synesthesic short film The Tesla World Light is finally free for all to see. Let us hope Nikola Tesla’s utopian hope for free energy isn’t far behind.
Happy Birthday, Batman
…the dark cipher who rises with our aspirations and sinks with our capitulations
Ten Years After: Grant Morrison
It’s amazing to think I’ve been interviewing Grant Morrison for over a decade now, having read his experimental comics masterpieces for much longer than that. It’s been deep.
The Big Bad Fox’s Hand-Drawn Laugh-Off
In our apocalyptic epoch, sometimes you need an old-school good time grounded in the natural world. Enter The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, from the directors of the wondrous Ernest and Celestine, who I interviewed ahead of their consecutive Academy Awards nod.
Birdboy’s Interconnected Pollution
Writing about animation provides me the opportunity to probe the minds of brave filmmakers working against stereotype and industry. That struggle found an apotheosis in the surreal fever dream of Birdboy.
Fox And The Whale’s Metafictional Immersion
Earth is inspiring, even in the midst of failure. This is an important lesson I learned after interviewing director Robin Joseph about his stunning animated short, Fox and the Whale, a homemade, hand-drawn cli-fi fable debuting, to Oscar acclaim, in a world on fire.
The Breadwinner’s Ultimate Expression Of Hope: Interview With Nora Twomey and Saara Chaudry
I’ve been looking forward to interviewing Nora Twomey, especially now that her empowering adaptation of The Breadwinner has arrived, with the aid of Angelina Jolie, to shine a light back on Afghanistan, still in the crosshairs of the longest war in American history.
We Can’t Separate Food From Politics
One of our most persistent fictions of climate change is that the food industry, whose waste and emissions must be brought under immediate control if we are to survive the Anthropocene, can live without immigrants, whose existence puts the lie to nations and nationalism.
Say It Loud and Proud: Animation Is Film
As the political and entertainment establishment continues to reject toxic masculinity and industry, the mounting movement to place our attention and investment on productions and issues truly worth the global public’s time and money is reaching critical mass