Refractory Volume 8, 2005

Aug 22, 2008 | Comics, Film, Other, Sound, Television, Urban Space, Volume 08

Edited by Angela Ndalianis and Wendy Haslem Some of the essays in this special bumper issue were presented as papers at the Men in Tights! Superheroes Conference, which was held at Melbourne University, June 2005. Contents 1. True Lies: Do We Really Want Our Icons to...

True Lies: Do We Really Want Our Icons to Come to Life – Louise Krasniewicz

Aug 22, 2008 | Comics, Film, Volume 08

Louise Krasniewicz takes a comic book journey into the life and times of Arnold Schwarzenegger… Writing an academic paper as if it were a comic book goes against everything we are taught about what makes for a good argument, a coherent theoretical stance, or a...

The Comicbook Superhero: Myth For Our Times – Nigel Kaw

Oct 14, 2005 | Volume 08

Comicbook Superheroes as Mythology The story of Moses, David’s slaying of Goliath, the labours of Hercules, Gilgamesh’s battle against mortality itself, ‘all resonate with what would later become the stuff of superhero legend’[1]. C.G. Jung and others[2] have written...

Toys and Grrls: Comparing Figures in the Merchandising of Television’s Action Heroine – Miranda J. Banks

Oct 14, 2005 | Volume 08

In 2003, just before the U.K. Toy Fair, toy manufacturing company FEVA secured the rights to license the Totally Spies “action dolls.” [1] This acquisition was a coup for the small English company, which sold out its first run of the figures based on the three teen...

What the *Hezmanah* are you talking about?: Alien Discourses in ‘Farscape.’ – Jes Battis

Oct 14, 2005 | Volume 08

There is neither a first word nor a last word. The contexts of dialogue are without limit. They extend into the deepest past and the most distant future…at any present moment of the dialogue there are great masses of forgotten meanings, but these will be...

Xena’s Double-Edged Sword: Sapphic Love & the Judaeo-Christian tradition – Ivar Kvistad

Oct 14, 2005 | Volume 08

  Do I really have hands like a sailor? – Gabrielle to Xena in ‘Paradise Found,’ XWP In one episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, ‘The Cradle of Hope,’ Pandora tells Xena that her box is ‘the most important thing in [her] life.’  While seemingly innocent, the...