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‘Mad Men’ Characters and Their Comic Book Counterparts

By Alison Nastasi on

Today is Free Comic Book Day, which promises exactly what it advertises: you get a free comic book just for showing up at your local shop. The offerings have been specially selected, but nothing is preventing you from browsing while you’re there and spending a few dollars to support an oft-overlooked art form that has brought joy to many. To celebrate the occasion, and with a new Mad Men episode approaching, we wanted to combine two of our favorite things: 1960′s ad execs crippled by existential angst, and awesome comic book heroes and villains. The resemblance is greater than you think. See our pairings, and leave your own suggestions, below. … Read More

Television

Your ‘Mad Men’ Season 6, Episode 5 Talking Points: The MLK Test

By Judy Berman on

No current TV show generates more Monday morning conversation than Mad Men. With that in mind, Flavorwire is recapping Season 6′s Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce by giving you a handful of talking points to spark your own water-cooler debate. Last night’s episode, “The Flood,” revived one of Matthew Weiner’s favorite formulas; as with Season 5′s “The Other Woman,” which found Joan making partner by sleeping with a client, it forced everyone to react to a difficult situation, thereby taking the moral temperature of each character. The difference is that, this time, the crisis — the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. — was society-wide. … Read More

Television

This Week’s Top 5 TV Moments

By Alison Herman on

There are scores of TV shows out there, with dozens of new episodes each week, not to mention everything you can find on Hulu Plus, Netflix streaming, and HBO Go. How’s a viewer to keep up? To help you sort through all that television has to offer, we’re compiling the five best moments on TV each week. This round, beloved actors Ted McGinley and Gina Torres return to primetime television and Selina Meyer suffers a major gaffe. … Read More

Television

Your ‘Mad Men’ Season 6, Episode 4 Talking Points: All’s Fair in Free Love and Advertising

By Judy Berman on

No current TV show generates more Monday morning conversation than Mad Men. With that in mind, Flavorwire is recapping Season 6′s Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce by giving you a handful of talking points to spark your own water-cooler debate. Last night’s episode, “To Have and to Hold,” was notable for finally revisiting Joan’s story — and for piling up the betrayals, both personal and professional. … Read More

Celebrity

Celebrities Praising Celebrities: The Best Tributes From the Annual “Time 100″ List

By Jason Bailey on

Time magazine released its annual “Time 100” this week — a list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The list is, as usual, light on shock; it pretty much features the political figures, artists, athletes, and philanthropists you’d expect. What makes the feature compelling is the deployment of similarly well-known folks to write testimonials about the influential people they admire. Since we love hearing about the actors our favorite actors love, it warms our hearts to read, for example, Jon Hamm’s fan letter to his fellow AMC star Bryan Cranston. “Over the past five seasons,” Hamm writes, “I’ve marveled at Bryan’s ability to turn Breaking Bad’s Walter White from a feckless, terrified father and husband to a ruthless, terrifying father, husband and crime lord. The transformation is mesmerizing. The performance is fearless. Bryan is that good.” These stunt tributes don’t always work (particularly in the political realm — the only thing we want to read less than Sarah Palin’s tribute to Glenn Beck is Ted Nugent’s tribute to Sarah Palin), but when they do, they’re a joy to read. See our favorite celeb-penned tributes from the past five years of “Time 100″ below. … Read More

Television

Your ‘Mad Men’ Season 6, Episode 2 Talking Points: The Return of the Repressed

By Judy Berman on

No current TV show generates more Monday morning conversation than Mad Men. With that in mind, Flavorwire is recapping Season 6′s Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce by giving you a handful of talking points to spark your own water-cooler debate. A substantially lower-key episode than last week’s showstopping season premiere, “The Collaborators” took us deeper into Don Draper’s latest affair — and, for the first time, gave us a painful glimpse at his childhood in the brothel. … Read More

Television

This Week’s Top 5 TV Moments

By Alison Herman on

There are scores of TV shows out there, with dozens of new episodes each week, not to mention everything you can find on Hulu Plus, Netflix streaming, and HBO Go. How’s a viewer to keep up? To help you sort through all that television has to offer, we’re compiling the five best moments on TV… Read More

Pop Culture

Staff Picks: Flavorwire’s Favorite Cultural Things This Week

By Julia Pugachevsky on

Need a great book to read, album to listen to, or TV show to get hooked on? The Flavorwire team is here to help: in this new weekly feature, our editorial staffers each recommend the cultural object or experience they’ve enjoyed the most in the past seven days. Click through for our picks, and tell us what you’ve been loving in the comments. … Read More

Television

The Most Overwrought Analyses of Last Night’s ‘Mad Men’ Premiere

By Alison Herman on

It’s Mad Men season again, and with the return of Don Draper and his philandering comes the influx of thousands of critics and Internet commenters ready to pick apart showrunner Matthew Weiner’s every move. With dozens of recaps and even more comment forums providing near-unlimited possibilities for professionals and amateurs alike to voice their opinions, the responses to last night’s premiere did not disappoint. From highly specific motifs to theories about Mad Men‘s position on 1960s television filming practices, here are the most intense interpretations of the goings-on at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce during the dawn of 1968. … Read More

Television

Your Monday Morning ‘Mad Men’ Talking Point: Is This Actually the Last Season?

By Judy Berman on

No current TV show generates more Monday morning conversation than Mad Men. With that in mind, Flavorwire is recapping Season 6′s Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce by giving you a handful of talking points to spark your own water-cooler debate. This week, we tackle the death-obsessed two-hour season premiere, which featured enough “WTF” moments and ominous symbols to fuel a whole season’s worth of discussion. Let’s start with the most dramatic theory that occurred to us after seeing “The Doorway”: We don’t have one more season ahead of us. Matt Weiner has been punking us all these years. This is the last season of Mad Men. … Read More