Few literary friendships have been as influential as that between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Both were Oxford scholars. Both were devoted Christians. Both loved mythology, fairy tales, and medieval literature. Both helped shape modern fantasy. Yet when one compares their major works, The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, the differences are so striking that it is difficult to believe they emerged from the same intellectual circle. The contrast begins with the most obvious question: how does Christian belief appear in the fiction? For Lewis, the answer is straightforward. Christianity appears directly, almost openly. Narnia is
- The Longest Yard (Robert Aldrich, 1974)
- Everybody’s All American (Taylor Hackford, 1988)
- Any Given Sunday (Oliver Stone, 1999)
- Remember the Titans (Boaz Yakin, 2000)
- Friday Night Lights (Peter Berg, 2004)
In chronological order.
David Hare’s Worricker Trilogy, consisting of Page Eight (2011), Turks & Caicos (2014), and Salting the Battlefield (2014), occupies a curious place in modern British espionage fiction. Produced for television by the BBC but filmed and performed with the sophistication of high-end cinema, the trilogy feels like a deliberate attempt to create a contemporary counterpart to the moral and political spy stories associated with John le Carré. It succeeds not by imitating George Smiley, but by asking what a Smiley-like figure would look like in the twenty-first century. The answer is Johnny Worricker, played magnificently by Bill Nighy. The trilogy
- The Natural (Barry Levinson, 1984)
- Bull Durham (Ron Shelton, 1988)
- Eight Men Out (John Sayles, 1988)
- Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989)
- For Love of the Game (Sam Raimi, 1999)
- Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2011)
In chronological order.
Divinity: Original Sin (2014), the fourth main entry in the Divinity game series, sits in an interesting place in modern RPG history. It arrived at a time when the genre was leaning heavily toward cinematic presentation and streamlined mechanics, and instead pushed in almost the opposite direction: systemic depth, player freedom, and a willingness to be awkward if it meant being flexible. I did finish the game at the time of its launching, both with a party of four and with two lone wolves. This time I cheated a bit: I installed a mod that allows for a party of
- Tintin (Hergé)
- Spider Jerusalem (Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson)
- Ben Urich (Roger McKenzie & Gene Colan)
- Brenda Starr (Dale Messick)
Ted Lewis’s Jack’s Return Home (1970) occupies an interesting position in crime fiction history. It is not as famous as the film it inspired, yet it is arguably one of the foundational texts of modern British noir. Before Lewis, British crime fiction often retained traces of the gentleman detective, the police procedural, or the thriller. Lewis dragged the genre into something nastier, more provincial, and more psychologically damaged. His England is not the picturesque England of village mysteries but a decaying industrial landscape full of petty criminals, corruption, class resentment, and moral rot. It begins with the blunt, almost absurd
- Secret Agent X-9 (Dashiell Hammett & Alex Raymond)
- Denny Colt, aka The Spirit (Will Eisner)
- Dick Tracy (Chester Gould)
- Blacksad (Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido)
One of the most persistent questions in aesthetics is whether it is possible to appreciate a work of art created by someone whose actions or beliefs we find morally reprehensible. The debate is hardly new, but in the age of social media and cancel culture it has acquired renewed urgency. Every few months, a novelist, filmmaker, musician, philosopher, or painter becomes the subject of public controversy, and the same question returns: should their work still be read, watched, heard, or admired? The issue is often framed as a choice between two extremes. One side argues that art should be judged
- Conan the Barbarian (Robert E. Howard and Roy Thomas)
- Thorgal (Jean Van Hamme and Grzegorz Rosiński)
- Dax el Guerrero (Esteban Maroto)
- Groo the Wanderer (Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier)