Supercontext: an autopsy of media

This podcast ran independently from 2016 to 2020. We reflect on our goals in creating it and how successful those were while trying to be transparent about the ins and outs of podcast production, marketing, and monetization.

This graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell came out between 1989 and 1998, 100 years after the Jack the Ripper murders it's based on. We look at the meticulous research they put into this to try to understand how this story manages to be about true crime while indulging in deep themes like English identity, psychogeography, and the nature of time.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• From Hell

Additional Resources:

• A Look Back at ‘From Hell’ by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
• Delivering the Twentieth Century, Part 1: Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell
• Delivering the 20th Century, Part 2: Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell
• The Great Alan Moore Reread: From Hell, Part 1
• The Great Alan Moore Reread: From Hell, Part 2
• Eddie Campbell explains why he's coloring From Hell for the first time
• Michael J. Prince (2017) The magic of patriarchal oppression in Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 8:3, 252-263
• Vollmar, R. (2017). Northampton Calling. World Literature Today, 91(1), 28–34.
• The House That Jack Built – An Interview with Alan Moore (2002)
• From Hell And Back: The Eddie Campbell Interview
• Superhuman Cognitions, Fourth Dimension and Speculative Comics Narrative: Panel Repetition in Watchmen and From Hell
• Postimperial Landscapes "Psychogeography" and Englishness in Alan Moore's Graphic Novel"From Hell: A Melodrama in Sixteen Parts" Author(s): Elizabeth Ho Source: Cultural Critique, No. 63 (Spring, 2006), pp. 99-121 Published by: University of Minnesota Press

This 1995 film by Michael Mann is considered a quintessential cops-and-robbers epic. We look at Mann's attention to detail and his attempt at authenticity in light of the movie's influence on audiences, filmmakers, and real-life criminals.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• Heat

Additional Resources:

• Interview w/ Eliot Goldenthanl
• Michael Mann Launches Book Imprint; ‘Heat’ Prequel Novel A Priority
• Life imitates art in Colombia robbery
• The long warm-up to Heat
• Heat
• Crime in the emptiness of Los Angeles
• Why Is Heat So Great? Let’s Ask Michael Mann.
• What Michael Mann Changed, and What He Didn’t, for the Anniversary Edition of Heat
• Michael Mann’s ‘Heat’: A Complex, Stylistically Supreme Candidate for One of the Most Impressive Films of the Nineties
• The Loneliness Of Los Angeles In Michael Mann's 'Heat'
• 10 Intense Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Heat
• Michael Mann eyes 'Heat 2' film as book nears completion
• Decades Later, Viewers Still Feel The 'Heat' For Michael Mann's 1995 LA Crime Saga
• REVISITING THE L.A. OF ‘HEAT’ 24 YEARS LATER WITH THE ICONIC CRIME DRAMA’S LOCATION MANAGER
• La Story: The Making of Michael Mann’s “Heat” – by Tom Ambrose [Empire]
• Michael Mann on ‘Heat,’ 22 Years Later: What We’ve Learned from His Recent Interviews

This 1985 concept album by Kate Bush is split into pop songs and a suite of music about someone drowning. We look at Bush's career arc leading up to this record and how the support she received from those around her allowed to experiment and create this wholly unique music.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• Hounds of Love

Additional Resources:

• Kate Bush
• Kate Bush rules, OK?
• Hounds of Love
• Landmark Productions: Kate Bush – Hounds of Love
• Classic Album: Hounds Of Love – Kate Bush
• Cowley, J. (2005). The Wow factor. New Statesman, 134(4726), 38–39.
• Sinclair, D. (1994). Dear diary: The secret world of Kate Bush. Rolling Stone, 676, 13.
• Moy, R. (2007). Kate Bush and Hounds of Love. Ashgate.

Dan Simmon's 1989 science-fiction novel is acclaimed for its unique structure, references, and style. We take a closer look at how it interrogates our expectations of genre to explore a complex host of themes. Thank you to Chris Marlton for coproducing this episode.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• Hyperion

Additional Resources:

• Throwback Thursday: The Mind-Altering Scope of Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos
• Better to travel hopefully: Dan Simmons’s Hyperion
• Dan Simmons World-class maker of worlds
• Dan Simmons. By: Shindler, Dorman T., Writer (Kalmbach Publishing Co.), 00439517, Feb2001, Vol. 114, Issue 2
• THRALL, J. H. (2014). Authoring the Sacred: Humanism and Invented Scripture in Octavia Butler, Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Simmons. Implicit Religion, 17(4), 509.
• Shea, B. (2015). Evolution and Neuroethics in the Hyperion Cantos. Journal of Cognition & Neuroethics, 3(3), 139.
• The one huge problem with Dan Simmons’ sci-fi mystery Hyperion
• Eschatology and Pain in Dan Simmons’ Hyperion
• Senior, W. (2012). Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos: The Fantasy Within. Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies (HJEAS), 18(1/2), 213-226.

This 1987 film is celebrated as a cult classic for its depiction of self-destructive young Englishmen at the end of the 1960s. We discuss how creator Bruce Robinson got it made, and whether it congratulates its characters for their alcoholism or criticizes their generation and the end of that era of British culture.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• Withnail & I

Additional Resources:

• How "Withnail & I" Became a Cult
• Withnail and I
• BRUCE ROBINSON Interviewed by Peter Murphy
• The World According To Grant
• 13 Loaded Facts About Withnail and I
• Withnail & I Comes Of Age This Year - If Only The Fans Would Too
• Withnail and I Facts and Trivia
• The Cult of Richard E. Grant’s Withnail and I Is Finally Having Its Moment
• We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful: “Withnail & I”
• Withnail and Brexit: Why the cult classic is the perfect movie for our troubled times
• https://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2020/03/09/withnail-and-i-fans-prepare-for-lakeland-alfresco-screening-of-cult-film

This 1962 novel is being reappraised by critics and fans as a creeping meditation on 1950s housewives, agoraphobia, and good old-fashioned New England persecution.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Additional Resources:

• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson – a house of ordinary horror
• The Witchcraft of Shirley Jackson
• Flavorwire Author Club: Shirley Jackson’s Haunting Final Novel, ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’
• SILVER, M. (2013). Is It Real? On Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Southern Review, 49(4), 665–667.
• Savoy, E. (2017). Between as if and is : On Shirley Jackson. Women’s Studies, 46(8), 827.
• BOYD TONKIN. (2015, July 29). Her dark materials: how Shirley Jackson became the ‘sorceress at the sink.’ Independent (UK).
• Shirley Jackson. (2020). Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 1.
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle: A Prelude to a Myth
• How 'We Have Always Lived In The Castle' By Shirley Jackson Novel Made Me Love Horror — Even Though I Hate Being Scared
• The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson

This 1945 children’s book by Tove Jansson began a publishing empire in Finland that is worth millions of dollars. We look at Jansson’s beloved allegory about a world where a family survives turmoil and everyone is accepted for who they are.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• The Moomins and the Great Flood

Additional Resources:

• Tove Jansson: Love, war and the Moomins
• Brown, Ulla (November 2004). "A Quest for What Lies Hidden" (PDF). Outwrite. 7: 8–12.
• 'It is a religion': how the world went mad for Moomins
• THE HANDS THAT MADE THE MOOMINS
• How Tove Jansson's Moomins conquered readers' hearts
• My search for the real Moominland
• How Tove Jansson and the Moomins continue to inspire
• The Evocative Powers of Tove Jansson – Moomin Museum – Tampere Finland – Jude Cowan Montague
• The dark side of the Moomins

This 2001 record is praised as being metal for the thinking man. We peel back the lyrics and the time signatures to understand why this band inspires an almost-religious devotion in its fans.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• Lateralus

Additional Resources:

• 10 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT TOOL'S 'LATERALUS'
• Lateralus
• Publication: Modern Drummer Date: June, 2001
• Fibonacci in Tool's Lateralus
• Spiral Out: Practical Wisdom in Tool’s Lateralus
• Looking Back at Tool’s “Lateralus”
• THE OUTWARD SPIRAL: HOW LATERALUS GALVANISED TOOL’S CUTTING EDGE
• ‘Hammer of the Gods’

This comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan and artist Cliff Chiang started in 2015 as a story about four preteen girls coming of age in the 80s. We look into how the creators produced the comic while examining their skepticism of nostalgia in a post-Stranger-Things world.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• Paper Girls

Additional Resources:

• Brian K. Vaughan Talks Saga, Paper Girls, and Why We’ll Never Get That Lying Cat Series
• Meet Brian K. Vaughan: The Comic Book Visionary Behind ‘Y: The Last Man’
• You all should be reading Brian K. Vaughan’s ‘Paper Girls’ comic series now
• Paper Girls Is the Perfect Comic for Your '80s Nostalgia Trip
• ‘Paper Girls’ Graphic Novel Adaptation From Legendary TV & Plan B Gets Amazon Series Commitment
• The Paper Girls and the Alien Invaders
• Asian American Creatives Behind 3 Top-Selling Graphic Novels Of 2018
• Kids On Bikes: The Sci-Fi Nostalgia Of 'Stranger Things', 'Paper Girls' & 'Super 8'
• Paper Girls' Vaughan & Chiang On the Series' Past, Present and Future
• “It’s Not A Slam-Bang-Action-So-Quiet”: An Interview with Cliff Chiang and Brian K. Vaughan
• NYCC ’19: PAPER GIRLS creators take victory lap, discuss series