1. B. Short

    Black Widow Journal: How Acting Is Exactly Like Espionage, Maybe

    by
    July 27, 2019

    Classic Comics: Tales of Suspense (1964) #52, 53, 57; Amazing Spider-Man (1970) #86; Amazing Adventures (1970-1971) #1-8; Champions (1975-1976) #1-9
    Current Comics: Black Widow (1999) #1-3; Black Widow (2001) #1-3; Black Widow: Pale Little Spider (2002) #1-3; Black Widow: Deadly Origin (2009) #1-4
    Spy Movies/TV: The Americans (2013-2015) Seasons 1-3…

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  4. B. Short

    Captain Marvel: The Omnidirectional Hype Machine

    by
    January 23, 2019

    I was feeling sort of lost last year, I guess, and so, searching around for something to focus on, I, like millions of Americans, found my attention drifting (again) to superhero movies.

    Now I’ve written about superheroes before, and I’ve found myself organizing big parts of my free time around …

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  5. B. Short

    Whistling in the Graveyard

    by
    September 8, 2018

    This is a post in an ongoing series exploring one family’s adventure through genealogical storytelling. The article below was written by Big Ned, and should clue you into the fact that more than a few meaningful moments in genealogical research occur in cemeteries and graveyards. 

     

    So we were in …

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  7. B. Short

    Ant-Men and the Wasps in…QUANTUM FORCE

    by
    July 8, 2018

    So if I were going to pitch a comic to Marvel that somehow related to Ant-Man and the Wasp or one or the other, I’d give them something called Quantum Force. That name doesn’t refer to anything in the Marvel universe yet–at least, I don’t think it does–but it does …

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  9. B. Short

    A Giant-Sized List of Pint-Sized Ant-Man Stories

    by
    July 1, 2018

    Every fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) prepares for a new movie in their own way. Some flip off their internet and hide under the covers, hoping to avoid spoilers. Others rewatch all of the other MCU movies to remind themselves of the stories that have come before.

    Me? …

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  10. B. Short

    Alternate Origins of the Ant-Man and the Wasp

    by
    July 1, 2018

    Executed well, one of the most interesting parts of superhero movies is their commitment to intertextuality. Superhero movies often reference each other–either in the form of the narrative baton-passing that happens between films in the DC Cinematic Universe or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or else in the manner in which …

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  11. B. Short

    The Irredeemable Ant-Man by Robert Kirkman and Phil Hester

    by
    June 27, 2018

    It’s maybe a little strange–or maybe it’s actually super strange–the talent that has been attached to the character of Ant-Man over the years. This is a character who has been written by Stan Lee and Nick Spencer, who has been drawn by Jack Kirby and Ramon Rosanas. The strangest of …

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  12. B. Short

    The Lives and Deaths of Scott and Cassie Lang

    by
    June 23, 2018

    Confucius wrote, “The superior man is not a utensil.” We might add “or a prop” to the end of that.

     

    Throughout the years, as marketing and editorial needs needs dictated it, the characters of Scott and Cassie Lang, as the superheroes Ant-Man and Stature and two of the main …

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  13. B. Short

    Nick Spencer and Ramon Rosanas’s Astonishing Ant-Man

    by
    June 19, 2018

    There’s a tendency in comic book circles—on blogs and in podcasts—to start a conversation about a superhero with that superhero’s first appearance or with their biggest and best-known outing. For Iron Man, it’s pretty much either 1962’s Tales of Suspense #39 or it’s 2008’s Jon Favreau-directed Iron Man film. For …

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  15. B. Short

    The Next Grave Over

    by
    March 27, 2018

    This is a post in an ongoing series exploring one family’s adventure through genealogical storytelling. The article below was written by Big Ned, and features a detailed account of research done ahead of the family’s research trip to St. Thomas, USVI.

     

    We were making plans for a family trip …

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  16. B. Short

    600 Years Ago There Were No Surnames

    by
    March 26, 2018

    This is a post in an ongoing series exploring one family’s adventure through genealogical storytelling. The article below was written by Bri-Bri, and features lists and statements of gratitude.   

     

    The plan at the beginning of this year was to post an article by my dad and an article by …

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  17. B. Short

    Castles, Glasites, and the Widow of Annat

    by
    February 28, 2018

    Okay.

    When we last left off, we had determined that Robert Milner Morrison was a cousin living in the house of an Alexander Moody and Jessie Stuart along with their children. But we didn’t really know how exactly Robert was related to these people or to whom specifically.

    We researched …

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  18. B. Short

    A Son Elaborates and Clarifies

    by
    February 20, 2018

    Dad’s last post encapsulates a lot of what I loved listening to while he was doing all of that research.

    First, it included a lot of the crazy, insane-seeming, ultra-detail-oriented fine-tooth-comb gumshoeing that dad always seemed so good at. Sorting through handwritten census records to find a name that had …

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  19. B. Short

    A Dad Defends His Position

    by
    February 4, 2018

    In a previous post we had discovered that my wife’s ancestor Robert Milner Morrison did not have a bust in the lobby of the University of Edinburgh, but we also found out that he had graduated from there and taught at the university for a time in the late 1870s …

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  20. B. Short

    A Son Digresses into Outer Space

    by
    January 28, 2018

    Here’s a digression, riffing off of what dad put into his last post.

    For me, when I’m thinking about questions like “How did we get here?”, the ones that dad was pondering about in that last blog update, my brain shoots all the way back to the beginning. Not …

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  21. B. Short

    A Dad Reflects on the Research Process

    by
    January 28, 2018

    So at this point in our adventure we know that my wife’s ancestor Robert Morrison got a degree and a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh (so now we can refer to him as Dr. Robert Morrison). We also know that he was born in St. Thomas, USVI, which stands …

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  22. B. Short

    A Son Remembers Scotland

    by
    January 21, 2018

    I didn’t really know much about Scotland before we went there. Or I knew what everybody knew. I knew Braveheart and I knew Trainspotting and I knew, what, Macbeth, I guess. I had read Irvine Welsh’s breakout novel in college when it was recommended to me by a friend as …

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  25. B. Short

    A Dad Explains How He Got Into Genealogy

    by
    January 2, 2018

    It all started as a family story from my mother-in-law. Many times she had recounted a family story regarding her former husband’s family. The story went that there was a bust of one of my wife’s ancestors situated in the lobby of the University of Edinburgh.

    The story remained nothing …

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  26. B. Short

    A Son Asks, Why Do Genealogy?

    by
    January 2, 2018

    Going down into my parents’ basement, the stairs go down, then a brief landing, then they go down the other way. Along the walls are displayed a series of maps, photographs, letters, articles, and advertisements that my father has collected over a decade of genealogical research, the images and words …

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  29. B. Short

    Prehistory of Comics Part 4: The Bayeux Tapestry

    by
    October 18, 2017
    Edward the Confessor, nicknamed for his piety, seems to be winking here but isn’t. The Splash Page

    A 230-foot-long (over that, really) wool-on-linen artifact commemorating the 11th-century Battle of Hastings brings our tour of proto-comics into the second millennium.

    Mounted knights and archers were vital to William’s military success. Past…
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  30. B. Short

    Prehistory of Comics Part 3: Trajan’s Column

    by
    October 18, 2017
    A 1721 illustration including Trajan’s Column by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. The Splash Page

    One of the major monuments to survive the fall of the Roman empire, Trajan’s Column commemorates two wars fought by Emperor Trajan and the Roman armies against the Dacians in what is modern-day Romania. The …

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