It could be a Stan Lee comic. Tragic origin, raised in a nearly-hostile orphanage, forced to learn the world's ropes on her own, and constantly fighting off the effects of tranquilizers, Beth Harmon discovers that she has a superpower: she's REALLY good at chess.

The Queen's Gambit tees up tons of great themes about a young woman in the 1950's and 60's making her way in a man's world, navigating relationships, and wrestling with addiction. Is she more than her analytical powers? Can she stand against a Russian grandmaster backed by a chess establishment that has the advantage of decades of experience over her? And along the way, is romance a game she's fated to lose?

Gambits are a kind of offer in chess: lots of excitement and the possibility of victory, but with a lot more risk along the way, if you dare to take them on instead of playing it safe in the duller, familiar lines. Turns out that Beth Harmon has a chance to play the Gambit we all get offered: to love and be loved in the broken world, and find patterns of victory in its midst nonetheless.

Take our love, take our land,Podcast work is back at hand,Here's a fresh new mp3You can hear Comic Belief!Shiny, friends!Brand new track!Comin' from a different tack:Buckle up and listen freeYou might watch it differently ...Welcome back, friends! Megan and Ben are swinging in to Season 3 of Comic Belief with a dive into the cult classic Firefly, with a lot of what we love about it on display. But this isn't just a lovefest -- turns out "take my land" gets a bit awkward when you took it from someone else first and forgot to mention that.

We dig into some of the bones of the show that lie in the storytelling of the Civil War novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, and where we see Firefly inheriting some of Shaara's limitations along the way. We dive into whether the metaphor gets better or does more damage when Joss Whedon takes some of the sins of history out of it. And we take a pass through how the characters model faith, and where some of Whedon's own suspicions about it might be showing through in a way that stops the show from really giving an earnest voice to people who add a bit of, shall we say, belief to their comics. But is there maybe a saint hidden in there after all?

All that and more, polished up and edited for the ride to your next job with your pals. Shiny!

Get ready, Comic Believers!We've taken a good long summer break, and we're ready to get back in the podcasting saddle! Here's a quick reflection on Season Two, and a look ahead at Season Three so you can begin to prepare yourself to wield the incredible force that is upcoming releases from Comic Belief!

We keep it short and sweet for you, but the big reveal? On Monday, September 13th, you can't take the sky from us!

Thanks for all the support, Believers, and talk to you soon!

Go up to an Episcopalian and say "May the Force Be With You," and we're gonna respond, "And also with you!"

We're between seasons 2 and 3, here at Comic Belief, but we didn't want May the Fourth to go by unobserved. We sat down and used this tool to sort out which movies we'd prefer to watch (and you can too!): https://sorta.app/q/1023 and then we sat down to share them and record it live.

This is a quicker and lighter romp through a lot of Star Wars memories, with us going over what we think makes the films in our list good, bad, and ugly, with a healthy dash of where the spirituality of the films seems to come out. Because, even on a break, we ARE Comic Belief, after all!

The Fourth will be with you. Always. Well. Today.

If you thought the Hulk had it rough, wait til you hear about this guy! All the pressure of restoring balance to his entire metaphysical universe, and they won't let him go on a date with the girl they assign him to protect in a secluded private paradise!

Star Wars has a ton to say with Darth Vader, from his first moments as a terrifying obstacle to Luke, through his redemption as a fallen father in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and later (or earlier, from a certain point of view) as a young man who grows up SO CLOSE to the path of all things good and right, only to face a wall of suspicion and rejection there that pushes him into the accepting arms of a terrible corrupter.

What's a guy with a tormented free will to do? Come find out as we wrap up Season 2 of Comic Belief!To quote the man himself: "We would be honored if you would join us."

Don't make us angry, Comic Believers! You wouldn't like us when we're ... Well. Actually, we stay pretty pleasant when we're angry. A bit of passive aggression? A dash of frustrated sighing? Sitting up in the middle of the night with the perfect biting retort that we couldn't quite think of in the heat of the moment? Sure!

But what we DON'T do is abandon all restraint and release our raging pain upon the world around us!

What does it mean to get mad? Who gets to do it? What's "righteous anger," really, and why is it a dangerous idea for the powerful to co-opt?

Join us for some Jekyll and Hyde, Plato's version of the reckless soul, Brené Brown's differences between shame, guilt, humiliation, and embarassment, and more! Soothe your own inner angry toddler with the restful reflections of Comic Belief!

Turns out life in TV makes for great TV! Join Megan and Ben as we talk through some of how WandaVision fits together, and some of the great stuff it puts on the table!

We assume you've watched the show, so spoilers abound, but we go over some of the comic book origins of the characters AND the storylines that get adapted into the MCU and WandaVision. Want to know where [spoiler] comes from? Or why they brought in [spoilers], and where that might point after that post-credits scene? We've collected some of the big clues!

But more than that, we talk through how this stands in as a meditation on grief, faith, and heroic freedom, with just a dash of Plato's idea of the souls of lovers thrown in. We talk about how episode 8 ties things together, and what it has to teach us about life in our real world -- a great example of our core Comic Belief idea that the stories we tell matter and talk back to us.

Plus, we wrap up by talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly of having such a polished and planned interconnected MCU. Check it out, Believers!

Wakanda has given some real heart to the MCU. Why did a superhero blockbuster get nominated for best picture? Because it draws us into some really powerful and joyful human storytelling. Come listen along and help us connect the dots between Black Panther and ideas of liberation, baptism, rebirth, and communities where everyone has a place. And let's just talk about how cool this movie is. Plus, our thoughts on how T'Challa wins the spiritual contest in Captain America: Civil War.

 

Also, give yourself a serious treat and go back and listen to This Week in Dystopia's podcast on Black Panther from back in 2018 with Dr Leah Wright Rigeur -- we make a ton of references to it in this episode! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/black-panther/id1295862352?i=1000404153997

Today is a good day to die ... of laughter with Comic Belief! We're joined by fellow Episcopal priest, the Reverend Stacy Alan, and her husband, the irreverent John Poole (who takes a break from his own podcast, The Hidden Groove), to do a deep dive on a Star Trek episode. John suggested we talk together about everything that gets put on the table in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Rightful Heir, in which Worf experiences a crisis of faith ... and then has to decide how much truth the Klingon people can handle! Beware, friends: spoilers await!

We talk pretty freely about how the Klingon messiah Kahless returns, and what it would be like for this to happen in our own faith traditions (including John reflecting some on the differences in Buddhism). We spend time talking about different kinds of truth. After all, the first duty of podcasters is to the truth! Plus Megan shares her vision of what God's work life and personal life break down to.

So tune in to boldly go where thousands of Trek convention panels has gone before ... but never with Comic Belief, friends!

Friends, this episode is a love letter. We should have waited until February and Valentine's Day, but something we've been doing for our own mental health (see! there's a psychology-season tie-in!) is watching our way through a K-Drama. Korean tv shows are making a splash on Netflix, and Megan got hooked when she realized that watching something with subtitles meant time she really wasn't on her phone. We spent our free hours in the last few weeks watching the 1-season run of Romance is a Bonus Book about old friends thrown together by fate and job prospects into the world of book publishing. Office romances! Secret mysteries! But really, this episode is mostly the two of us talking about how much we loved this, and enjoying a chance to take up something completely different.

We avoid spoilers through the first 25 minutes or so, and then give you, dear listener, a stern warning to go watch the show! Even so, if you want to hear us laugh at some favorite things and talk about missing these friends already, listen on!