ITEM #1: I really wish this column didn’t so often become an obituary, but it seems one of the sad realities of pop culture – as with life in general – is that we often lose things we care deeply about, and that loss is at least an opportunity to reflect on why they mattered [...]

Providing a little heads-up that the next in our GEM Lecture series is coming up in a couple weeks, but we’ve tweaked things and we hope you’ll enjoy the changes. We’ve decided to reshape the whole series into something that’s more inviting for people getting off work and eager to decompress with some coffee and [...]

[This is an excerpt from the recent GEM lecture, “Goin’ Green with Pop Culture”] The original plan for this presentation was to discuss the many ways in which our stronger focus on ecological concerns, renewable energy (Dr. Manhattan, anyone?) and the decline of physical print in favor of digital media might affect our cherished world [...]

I haven’t mentioned it in a while, but I’m a big LEGO fan. A short while ago, I came back to LEGO with a vengeance – well, a moderate vengeance – after years of wandering in what AFOLs (Adult Fans of LEGO) call their “Dark Age.” It was the Café Corner set that brought me [...]

So let’s talk about Watchmen. I saw it last weekend and plan to see it at least once more in the theater, which is unusual these days. But that’s only because it was a beautiful piece of work. It was an almost unqualified triumph when you consider that for so many years, the graphic novel [...]