George Case's Blog

I grew up on the classic comic books of what are now known as the medium’s Silver and Bronze Ages, from the late 1960s through to the early 1980s. And from my youngest years I tried to replicate the work I found therein; at about age five I was even confident enough in my skills […]

Here are a number of propositions concerning a currently contentious issue in world affairs: Each of these statements may be contested; each may contain errors of fact or emphasis.  But none of them make reference to Jews, Jewishness, or the faith and culture of Judaism.  How is it, then, that so much of the criticism […]

Reposted, with revisions, from 2020: Here are some people who are likely to die within the next five, ten, or fifteen years: the two remaining Beatles, the four three original Rolling Stones, the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin, as well as Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson and Brian Wilson; Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, […]

Those of us who write professionally about popular culture have to balance the detached appraisal of the critic with the partisan appreciation of the consumer. After all, the movies, music, television and other media we review aren’t just artistic statements but leisure products as well, so they ought to be described with some of the […]

Blair and Gary MacLean were a Canadian comedy duo in the 1970s and 80s, whose taboo-busting career has been compared to Lenny Bruce’s and George Carlin’s. MacLean and MacLean also had a bit of Cheech & Chong’s countercultural irreverence, although their material was considerably cruder and more juvenile: among their best-known numbers were “Dolly Parton’s […]

While there’s already a decent biography of Charles Fort, Jim Steinmeyer’s The Man Who Invented the Supernatural (2008), Joshua Blu Buh’s 2024 book Think To New Worlds: The Cultural History of Charles Fort and His Followers extends the study past the individual to his long-term influence. Fort, who died in 1932, was a self-taught scholar […]

Just about every big-name artist of the Twentieth Century, at one time or another, has been paid homage (or imitated, or exploited, if you prefer) by sound- and/or lookalike acts called tribute bands; Elvis and the Beatles most often, but hundreds of other stars too. For fans, the appeal of classic songs and iconic images […]

One of my enduring pet peeves is the muddled language used by reporters and news outlets to describe military aircraft. Particular models deployed in war zones or crisis situations are often characterized under generic terms, like “jet fighters” or “military bomber planes,” that are at best vague and at worst flat-out inaccurate. For journalists, editors, […]

The short rejoinder to the title of Matt Singer’s 2023 book Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever is: Not in a good way. Singer charts a breezy and upbeat portrait of the two Chicago newspaper critics who became celebrity TV movie reviewers with a patented on- and (to a lesser extent) off-air […]

For me, the rewards of reading Phil Tinline’s Ghosts of Iron Mountain: The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today (2025) include its citation of my own Calling Dr. Strangelove in the bibliography and its quote from my contribution to the Encyclopedia of American Political Humor, but they […]