Cal
@cal-smith.bsky.social
I have a sleeping child on my chest and can’t move, so will start a list of the best comics I’ve read this year to stay awake!
Legend of Kamui by Sanpei Shirato! Holy moly, this is a revelation! So elegant and ambitious that reading it comes with a sense of discovery that I’ve not had in years!
Legend of Kamui by Sanpei Shirato! Holy moly, this is a revelation! So elegant and ambitious that reading it comes with a sense of discovery that I’ve not had in years!
November 28, 2025 at 7:48 AM
I have a sleeping child on my chest and can’t move, so will start a list of the best comics I’ve read this year to stay awake!
Legend of Kamui by Sanpei Shirato! Holy moly, this is a revelation! So elegant and ambitious that reading it comes with a sense of discovery that I’ve not had in years!
Legend of Kamui by Sanpei Shirato! Holy moly, this is a revelation! So elegant and ambitious that reading it comes with a sense of discovery that I’ve not had in years!
Reposted by Cal
The Guardian’s investigation into the Free Birth Society is a clear example of a closed, high-risk counterpublic. It can be examined directly through the lens of disordered discourse described in my work.
demos.co.uk/research/ver...
demos.co.uk/research/ver...
November 22, 2025 at 11:53 AM
The Guardian’s investigation into the Free Birth Society is a clear example of a closed, high-risk counterpublic. It can be examined directly through the lens of disordered discourse described in my work.
demos.co.uk/research/ver...
demos.co.uk/research/ver...
Reposted by Cal
We need your help.
@waterstones.bsky.social, without any direct communication with us, will be opening their 6th Edinburgh branch less than 100 metres from our front door at the Foot of the Walk in Leith.
Please read on for more information
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2562908...
(1/2)
@waterstones.bsky.social, without any direct communication with us, will be opening their 6th Edinburgh branch less than 100 metres from our front door at the Foot of the Walk in Leith.
Please read on for more information
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2562908...
(1/2)
Anger as Waterstones snaps up prime site on doorstep of independent bookshop
UK's biggest bookselling chain under fire over plans for new store beside Edinburgh tram line.
www.heraldscotland.com
November 18, 2025 at 11:28 AM
We need your help.
@waterstones.bsky.social, without any direct communication with us, will be opening their 6th Edinburgh branch less than 100 metres from our front door at the Foot of the Walk in Leith.
Please read on for more information
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2562908...
(1/2)
@waterstones.bsky.social, without any direct communication with us, will be opening their 6th Edinburgh branch less than 100 metres from our front door at the Foot of the Walk in Leith.
Please read on for more information
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2562908...
(1/2)
Reposted by Cal
At least Reform and the Conservatives don't try and pretend that attacking some of the most vulnerable and marginalised groups in society is "progressive", yet Labour does. The hypocrisy of Labour and those defending its policies is rage inducing and deserving of nothing but contempt. 3/
November 16, 2025 at 9:41 AM
At least Reform and the Conservatives don't try and pretend that attacking some of the most vulnerable and marginalised groups in society is "progressive", yet Labour does. The hypocrisy of Labour and those defending its policies is rage inducing and deserving of nothing but contempt. 3/
Reposted by Cal
This was fun to do, but, really, don't read before issue 1. Keep it saved until then.
For my latest @aiptcomics.com deep dive, I sat down with @kierongillen.bsky.social and @stephaniehans.bsky.social to talk all things ‘Die.’ Definitely one of my favorite chats of the year, and we get into so much about the book, their collaboration, storytelling, fantasy, etc. Enjoy!
Die (Re) Loaded: Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans talk gods, character arcs, and storytelling in sequel
'Die tests you — what do you want?'
aiptcomics.com
November 11, 2025 at 1:58 PM
This was fun to do, but, really, don't read before issue 1. Keep it saved until then.
Reposted by Cal
Another discussion of The Power Fantasy! Have a read before tomorrow’s new issue comes out and see if you can pinpoint the moment in the conversation where my new child was born and my mind disintegrates mattreadscomics.com/2025/11/11/t...
The Power Fantasy: Part Twelve
What is Etienne Lux’s end goal? That’s the big question Callum Smith and I were left with after finishing issue 12 of The Power Fantasy.
mattreadscomics.com
November 11, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Another discussion of The Power Fantasy! Have a read before tomorrow’s new issue comes out and see if you can pinpoint the moment in the conversation where my new child was born and my mind disintegrates mattreadscomics.com/2025/11/11/t...
Reposted by Cal
USING BULLETS TO CURE DEATH
November 7, 2025 at 11:00 AM
USING BULLETS TO CURE DEATH
Reposted by Cal
Many in politics and media are trapped on X/Twitter, a latter-day Plato's cave, mistaking projected shadows for reality.
No social media platform can be perfect - the 'social' bit ensures that - as people are also not perfect.
But some platforms are better than others.
No social media platform can be perfect - the 'social' bit ensures that - as people are also not perfect.
But some platforms are better than others.
Tonight's even more proof the mainstream reporters who are still on Twitter are suffering from a brain problem akin Havana Syndrome that is preventing them from accurately doing their jobs. They are being cooked alive by a snuff-focused apartheid algorithm.
November 5, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Many in politics and media are trapped on X/Twitter, a latter-day Plato's cave, mistaking projected shadows for reality.
No social media platform can be perfect - the 'social' bit ensures that - as people are also not perfect.
But some platforms are better than others.
No social media platform can be perfect - the 'social' bit ensures that - as people are also not perfect.
But some platforms are better than others.
Reposted by Cal
94. Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968) - Restored Japanese creature feature with some of the strangest creatures you'll find anywhere. There's a one-legged cyclops umbrella with a giant tongue, a Howard the Duck, and a lady with a snake neck battling an evil Babylonian vampire. Fun and silly.
November 1, 2025 at 5:08 AM
94. Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968) - Restored Japanese creature feature with some of the strangest creatures you'll find anywhere. There's a one-legged cyclops umbrella with a giant tongue, a Howard the Duck, and a lady with a snake neck battling an evil Babylonian vampire. Fun and silly.
Reposted by Cal
it is Done. too many comics
October 28, 2025 at 9:11 PM
it is Done. too many comics
Reposted by Cal
October 26, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by Cal
Reposted by Cal
In the mood for even more creepy cartoon viewings for Halloween? Here's my rundown on 24 animated shorts from the Fleischer studio. I have an immense love for the cartoons of Betty Boop, Bimbo and Koko, and ramble on for nearly 5000 words about it here.
Halloween Animation: Fleischer
Animators, filmmakers, inventors, producers, brothers Max and Dave Fleischer are best known for the animated works produced by the studio bearing their family name, but Fleischer Studios didn’…
strawberrypenguin.ca
October 25, 2025 at 2:00 PM
In the mood for even more creepy cartoon viewings for Halloween? Here's my rundown on 24 animated shorts from the Fleischer studio. I have an immense love for the cartoons of Betty Boop, Bimbo and Koko, and ramble on for nearly 5000 words about it here.
Reposted by Cal
‘The contrast of Roman portraiture and Egyptian mummification gives rise to a trickier question: were the subjects and makers of funerary portraits Egyptians, Greeks or Romans?’
Elisabeth R. O’Connell on the Fayum mummy portraits.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Elisabeth R. O’Connell on the Fayum mummy portraits.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Elisabeth R. O’Connell · In Her Green Necklace: Mummy Portraits
The mummy portraits are stunning. Their production began around 30-40 ce, sixty or so years after the defeat of Antony...
www.lrb.co.uk
October 25, 2025 at 11:08 AM
‘The contrast of Roman portraiture and Egyptian mummification gives rise to a trickier question: were the subjects and makers of funerary portraits Egyptians, Greeks or Romans?’
Elisabeth R. O’Connell on the Fayum mummy portraits.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Elisabeth R. O’Connell on the Fayum mummy portraits.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Reposted by Cal
I finished my write-up blog-gallery on Stardust the Super Wizard!
www.paultobin.net/public-domai...
www.paultobin.net/public-domai...
Stardust the Super Wizard — Paul Tobin
www.paultobin.net
October 11, 2025 at 10:58 PM
I finished my write-up blog-gallery on Stardust the Super Wizard!
www.paultobin.net/public-domai...
www.paultobin.net/public-domai...
Reposted by Cal
Always make sure to read the Letters to the Editor in @lrb.co.uk
October 11, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Always make sure to read the Letters to the Editor in @lrb.co.uk
Reposted by Cal
Ulysses 31
1981-1982 (26 eps)
A co-pro between TMS & DiC that turned the Odyssey into a space-based story. Wasn't aired in Japan until 1988 (after first being released as an OVA in 1986).
A few episodes came out on DVD here in 2008, while the UK & Australia got the whole show in 2004 & 2006.
1981-1982 (26 eps)
A co-pro between TMS & DiC that turned the Odyssey into a space-based story. Wasn't aired in Japan until 1988 (after first being released as an OVA in 1986).
A few episodes came out on DVD here in 2008, while the UK & Australia got the whole show in 2004 & 2006.
October 5, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Ulysses 31
1981-1982 (26 eps)
A co-pro between TMS & DiC that turned the Odyssey into a space-based story. Wasn't aired in Japan until 1988 (after first being released as an OVA in 1986).
A few episodes came out on DVD here in 2008, while the UK & Australia got the whole show in 2004 & 2006.
1981-1982 (26 eps)
A co-pro between TMS & DiC that turned the Odyssey into a space-based story. Wasn't aired in Japan until 1988 (after first being released as an OVA in 1986).
A few episodes came out on DVD here in 2008, while the UK & Australia got the whole show in 2004 & 2006.
Reposted by Cal
In case any cruciverbaliserators here haven't seen the 2008 BBC Timeshift documentary on cryptics, it's here on Vimeo:
vimeo.com/297517318
vimeo.com/297517318
How To Solve A Cryptic Crossword
How To Solve A Cryptic Crossword (2008)
vimeo.com
September 27, 2025 at 2:09 PM
In case any cruciverbaliserators here haven't seen the 2008 BBC Timeshift documentary on cryptics, it's here on Vimeo:
vimeo.com/297517318
vimeo.com/297517318
Reposted by Cal
Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay from September 23, 1906. One of his most impressive & famous pages.
September 23, 2025 at 4:01 AM
Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay from September 23, 1906. One of his most impressive & famous pages.
Reposted by Cal
This is a really good and probing listen about one of my favourite books of this year, Taiyo Matsumoto's Tokyo These Days. On creativity, burnout, crushed dreams and the meaning, and meaningless, of art.
Read a manga that blew me away right after closing my bookshop, & became disillusioned with publishing & creating.
@mangatakpod.bsky.social & I explore how this book hits so hard.
Creatives who work or want to work in making books should listen.
mangatakpod.buzzsprout.com
#manga #comics #books
@mangatakpod.bsky.social & I explore how this book hits so hard.
Creatives who work or want to work in making books should listen.
mangatakpod.buzzsprout.com
#manga #comics #books
September 21, 2025 at 10:44 AM
This is a really good and probing listen about one of my favourite books of this year, Taiyo Matsumoto's Tokyo These Days. On creativity, burnout, crushed dreams and the meaning, and meaningless, of art.
Reposted by Cal
I conned Heat Death into letting me write about Star Wars, costuming, textiles' intrinsic link to the history of Empires, Eurocentric fashion standards and why film fascists are always Nazis because we managed to beat those ones.
heat-death.ghost.io/decline-and-...
heat-death.ghost.io/decline-and-...
Decline and Fall: Dressing the Empire with Tansy Gardam
Going Rogue's Tansy Gardam on blue jeans, Star Wars costumes, and what clothes an empire.
heat-death.ghost.io
September 19, 2025 at 1:59 AM
I conned Heat Death into letting me write about Star Wars, costuming, textiles' intrinsic link to the history of Empires, Eurocentric fashion standards and why film fascists are always Nazis because we managed to beat those ones.
heat-death.ghost.io/decline-and-...
heat-death.ghost.io/decline-and-...
Reposted by Cal
A 2024 study found that 58 per cent of English majors at two Midwestern universities had so much trouble interpreting the opening paragraphs of “Bleak House” by Charles Dickens that “they would not be able to read the novel on their own.”
What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing?
The demise of the English paper will end a long intellectual tradition, but it’s also an opportunity to reëxamine the purpose of higher education.
www.newyorker.com
September 18, 2025 at 6:31 PM
A 2024 study found that 58 per cent of English majors at two Midwestern universities had so much trouble interpreting the opening paragraphs of “Bleak House” by Charles Dickens that “they would not be able to read the novel on their own.”
Reposted by Cal
The risk of nuclear war has only grown, yet the public and government officials are increasingly cavalier. Some experts are trying to change that.
Why Don’t We Take Nuclear Weapons Seriously?
The risk of nuclear war has only grown, yet the public and government officials are increasingly cavalier. Some experts are trying to change that.
www.newyorker.com
September 4, 2025 at 4:08 PM
The risk of nuclear war has only grown, yet the public and government officials are increasingly cavalier. Some experts are trying to change that.
Reposted by Cal
This is correct and applies beyond just HP.
Much of the modern IP obsession feels like a strange post-modern corporate religion of sorts, leading to often culty behavior and a 'culture' that is deeply rooted in fervent consumerism with no sense of self-control.
'Brand Capture' is exactly right.
Much of the modern IP obsession feels like a strange post-modern corporate religion of sorts, leading to often culty behavior and a 'culture' that is deeply rooted in fervent consumerism with no sense of self-control.
'Brand Capture' is exactly right.
It’s so embarrassing when ppl say HP was important to their childhood so they can’t let it go. Did it open a love of books & you went on to devour millions more books? Or is it just that you took one step into total brand capture before your brain was fully formed & even now you wish to remain
September 4, 2025 at 6:45 PM
This is correct and applies beyond just HP.
Much of the modern IP obsession feels like a strange post-modern corporate religion of sorts, leading to often culty behavior and a 'culture' that is deeply rooted in fervent consumerism with no sense of self-control.
'Brand Capture' is exactly right.
Much of the modern IP obsession feels like a strange post-modern corporate religion of sorts, leading to often culty behavior and a 'culture' that is deeply rooted in fervent consumerism with no sense of self-control.
'Brand Capture' is exactly right.