Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie

Maggie is off-the-walls excited about these two books! Join her as she drags Cam along through the magical worlds that Erin Morgenstern and Susanna Clarke expertly created. Romanticism, atmosphere, b…

Discussion of The Witcher, Season 1, Episode 1: “The End’s Beginning”

Cam is sick this week, yet Maggie manages to be the whiny one (don’t worry, Maggie’s writing this description and she’s allowed t…

We're manifesting Halloween with a dive into this fantastic horror comic miniseries from Skottie Young and Jorge Corona. There's a painter, a haunted house, and a voice in the darkness - what more co…

“Destiny alone is insufficient, it’s too little. Something more is needed.” We spent this episode theorizing what this “something more” could be, and what destiny really means in Sapkowski’s world. H…

Developed by Andrew Shouldice and published by Finji, Tunic is a plucky, silent, Pixar-style little fantasy adventure that absolutely kicked Cam's ass. In our first ever discussion of fantasy games, …

By a country mile, this is the most philosophically / theologically nuanced and provocative piece of fantasy we've ever discussed. Sapkowski's grand introduction to Ciri and the dryads is genuinely s…

Recalibration is the name of the game in this third entry of the Fantastic Beasts series. From the very first scene, the film mercilessly redirects and refocuses the franchise, cutting and demoting m…

Mermaids and troubadours are on the menu this week, but the special ingredient is still Yennefer. Sapkowski continues to analyze our favorite mysterious and magical witch from afar, this time through…

It's been four years since this film came out, and rewatching it now - it's great? Our discussion runs through a dozen improvements and recalibrations that make this matured, focused sequel so much m…

Fascinating and frustrating - this first Fantastic Beasts movie is probably more fun to talk about than to actually watch. We discuss the tonal and stylistic discordance between the Newt half of the …

A magical creature means a new philosophical thought experiment! This week we're introduced to "mimics" and a fascinating exploration of personal identity and the concept of the soul - but it's Sapko…

Part two of our two-part exploration of Tolkien's appendices, this episode covers the rest of Appendix A as well as the entirety of Appendix B, C, D, E, and F. There are some fascinating revelations …

This story continues Sapkowski's discussion about free will, but he swaps out the mechanics of the story. Tolkien is out, replaced by relationships and humanity and messy, complicated emotions. Let's…

Holy great initial hook and compelling subsequent plot ramifications, Batman! Cam's taking a retrospective look at all the Batman stories that have really changed and interrogated an element of the c…

More curveballs, more fascinating evolutions of existing ideas, more genre pivots, more philosophy, more Tolkien remixes - Sapkowski's winning streak continues as we begin his second book of Witcher …

Bat-month continues with Darwyn Cooke's masterpiece, Batman: Ego, which launches us into a discussion about expressive character models and Hades from Disney's Hercules, color work as character comme…

"The Voice of Reason 6 & 7" & "The Last Wish"

The first Witcher book goes out with a bang! Sapkowski's dark, thoughtful fantasy world expands hugely with a short story about magic and love and a magi…

Holy source material for The Batman, Batman! Today we're looking at Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's four-issue masterpiece. Batman: Year One exploits all of the advantages of the comic book med…

"The Voice of Reason 5" & "The Edge of the World"

Sapkowski hits another home run this week with a story that is one half theological critique about the problem of evil and the Protestant Reformation…

Holy shit, Batman! This movie is thunderingly cool and grimy as hell. Strap in, because we’re spoiling all of it during this discussion. Topics include: Robert Pattison’s evolution of the character, …