Weekend Reading: The crescent, The Texan, and The True Believer

While we at Kill Screen love to bring you our own crop of game critique and perspective, there are many articles on games, technology, and art around the web that are worth reading and sharing. So that is why this weekly reading list exists, bringing light to some of the articles that have captured our attention, and should also capture yours.

///

Why Is Stan Lee’s Legacy In Question?, Abraham Reisman, Vulture

To the general public, Stan Lee is the Uncle Sam of comic books, a mascot and creator to the biggest portfolio in pop culture. To comic fans and cartoonists, it’s more complicated. Lee’s “Marvel Method” screwed over many who brought these icons to life, and continues to complicate cartoonists trying to make a living to this very day. Abraham Reisman has written a good feature on why so many comic buffs can’t find it in themselves to become “true believers.”

Open Secrets, Amanda Hess, Slate

Nancy Jo Sales is a celeb within celeb culture. Her sharp profiles have meant never underestimating the lessons to be learned from the Hiltons or the teen bandits looting the Hollywood’s most famous. But as for Sales’ new book, American Girls, Amanda Hess finds herself underwhelmed at Sales’ surprisingly 2D takeaway from meeting with 200 American teenagers, and the media’s obsession with framing social media as some kind of secretive puzzlebox.

King of the Hill: The Last Bipartisan TV Comedy, Bert Clere, The Atlantic

Surveys say that America’s liberals and conservatives have equally splintered taste in television, but there was one considerable exception: a muted, animated sitcom about a propane salesman and his family living in the red state o’ Texas. In The Atlantic, Bert Clere breaks down where Mike Judge’s long running show may have struck that middle ground, highlighting a particularly rich episode where Hank Hill takes driving lessons from a black comic.

Straightened-Out Croissants and the Decline of Civilization, Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

We live in uncertain times. Technology is frightening. The climate is ever changing. Politics leave us sick. It is in days like these that we should be thankful Adam Gopnik has come to give us peace of mind on the most important dispute of our generation: croissants that are crescent shaped versus croissants that are not crescent shaped.

///

Header image: Front cover of ‘The Fantastic Four’ No. 49.