Recently, I've had several conversations with different people about franchise fiction, why it becomes popular, and why so many franchises develop followings and fandoms far out of proportion to their literary merit (at least as perceived by the arbiters of such intangibles ( Read more... )

Given:

Conservation of Surnames: If two people in a comic book setting share a surname, they must be related, no more distantly than first cousins.

The Arkham Hypothesis: Gotham City is smack in the middle of Lovecraft's New England. Arkham Asylum really is in the Gotham suburb of Arkham.

Then:

Iris and Wally West are therefore close relatives ( Read more... )

The Legacies premise is pretty straightforward:

LIFE:

• They Began When They Began. The characters of the DC Universe each started their active adventuring career on or about the same time as their first appearance on the comics stands in our world.1
  
• Life Happens. They aged normally2 from that point, and had full lives. Many of them married and had ( Read more... )

What happens if the Doctor picks up a party of first-edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons player characters? It's guaranteed that at least one will have a Bag of Holding, and there might be a Portable Hole in the party, as well.

By the Narrative Causality Conventions of AD&D1*, bringing either of those into the TARDIS will result in some kind of ( Read more... )

J.K. Rowling is getting sued by the clueless again. Yes, yet another plagiarism accusation. Making Light goes into great detail about the spuriousness of the claim, and the wretched quality of the claimant's allegedly-plagiarized work ( Read more... )

The news in my last post has a lot of people worried about Marvel getting "Disneyfied". Funny, that hadn't really occurred to me.

I'd hate to see the intelligent, thoughtful storytelling of recent years compromised by a company who didn't respect the years of development and history of these characters. I'm not sure the store where I work could ( Read more... )

That headline again:
Disney. Buys. Marvel.

Tempting as it is to just follow that with "'Nuff said", I have to wonder....

• How will this affect Marvel Sudios and their ambitious "Avengers Cycle" movie plans?
  
• Will Disney cancel the Gemstone Comics license, and start releasing Disney titles using Marvel's production and banner?
  
• Conversely, will that ( Read more... )

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