An Open Letter to Jon Stewart as He Begins His New Life

Dear Jon Stewart,

I write this with the full knowledge that you will most likely never see it. Admittedly, this isn’t a typical fan letter but nonetheless, since I have survived roughly three weeks with you or The Daily Show, I felt I deserved to reach out to you.

First of all, congratulations on a job exceptionally well done and best of wishes on your future plans. I just wanted to take the time to personally thank you for 16 years of incredible work at Comedy Central. I’ve no doubt you’ve heard compliment after compliment (and angry diatribes from your critics, which also count as compliments) over the years and especially in recent months. So I’m sure you realize you've bowed out with a bang.

Still, it would feel wrong for me to not at least attempt to explain how important your time at The Daily Show has been to me and my family.

I’ll try not bog this down with rambling details so long story short, my dad is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s. I’m sure that was a twist you didn’t see coming in this, right? Sadly, we all saw it coming and now that it’s full blown, it’s getting scarily easy to reminisce about the past. I was never one for nostalgia but when the man you know as your father has been replaced with an entirely different, weaker, more vulnerable individual who can no longer communicate, it becomes one of your favorite pastimes.

Happy anniversary, Batman.

I could write about how no fictional character has so quickly and irrevocably changed my life like Batman has. I could write that it's only been about six years since I read my first Batman comic and since then, I've started my own comic book blog, worked in the comic book industry, got paid to go to San Diego Comic-Con, and met my own personal heroes and icons of the industry. I could even write about the fact that it's because of Batman that I truly became a gamer, that I learned to love comic books, animated series, and to find inspiration in characters as varied as Oracle, Huntress, Supergirl, Nightwing, and more.

I could talk about how thoroughly important this man is to me and how his Rogues Gallery is a safe source of excitement and suspense for me. I could even talk about the Joker and how he has fired my creativity and imagination more than any other fictional characters has in ages.

But all of this would take far too long.

Instead, I just want to take a moment to celebrate the character who changed my life, who opened my eyes to an entirely new culture, and who makes me laugh, angry, and inspires me to keep going.

I love Batman.

And today, on his 75th birthday, I want to say thank you to a character who has given me and countless others so much since 1939.

The Gender Trouble and “Homophobic Nightmare” of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Source: Wikipedia

It's been entirely too long that I've neglected my personal blog. Forgive me, little blog. I still love you.

In order to celebrate my return to Fangirling Daily, I wanted to show that yes, you can actually write about comic books, fandom, and Batman in a scholarly setting. Comic books aren't just for recreation but academia, too!

To prove it, I wanted to share a selection of a paper I wrote back when I was a graduate student studying English. The course I was taking was called "Gender Trouble" so of course, being a feminist, I enjoyed researching and writing this paper. Being a Batman fan, I loved it even more.

I don't want to post all of it because a) it's entirely too long b) that would be self-indulgent of me and c) as someone who hopes to be a professor someday, I am always nervous about and against plagiarism. Nonetheless, I felt it was too good to hoard to myself, so enjoy my self-important and critical look at Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

The Gender Trouble and “Homophobic Nightmare” of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Working in Hollywood recently I’ve come to realize how many prohibitions there really are against even touching one group or another, to a point where the villain can’t be female, can’t be gay, can’t be black. …Anyway, yeah, the homophobic nightmare is very much part of the Batman/Joker mythos. It’s always been there, I just spelled it out a little more plainly.

Frank Miller, 1987 (Sharrett 37)

Top 5 Best Episodes of 2013: Episode #1...

Adventure Time - Season Five

It’s New Year’s Eve so I’m going to cheat a little for my final entry in my Top 5 Favorite Episodes of 2013.

For my #1 spot, I’ve chosen Adventure Time as it has spent 2013 consistently improving and becoming one of the best science fiction and animated shows on American television.

It’s nearly impossible to choose one episode as the best of the year since 2013 gave us “Jake the Dad,” “Mystery Dungeon,” “Bad Little Boy,” “The Party's Over, Isla de Señorita,” “Time Sandwich,” “Love Games,” “Dungeon Train,” “The Pit,” “Root Beer Guy,” and the amazing and moving “Simon & Marcy.”

Top 5 Best Episodes of 2013: Episode #2...

Elementary 1.12 – “M.”

I’m a huge fan of Elementary and could probably write essays on multiple episodes’ sheer amazingness. From Lucy Liu’s pitch perfect portrayal of Joan Watson and Jonny Lee Miller’s eerily canonically accurate Sherlock Holmes to the awesome diversity of the cast and sets and Sherlock and Joan’s partnership of mutual respect, Elementary has become the best version of the Sherlock Holmes canon in years and one of the best dramas on network television right now.

But it was “M.” that demonstrated the dark side to Elementary and opened up Joan and Sherlock’s universe beyond the brownstone.