Serious Fun

Serious Fun makes a triumphant return for a new season with the first part of the Countdown to Comic-Con event! With a plethora of new games, movies, and comics coming out this fall, Spider-Mania is alive and well - but what about Spider-Man makes him endure and why do we care about him as much as we do? CU-Boulder Media Studies professor J. Richard Stevens sits down with Bryan to talk about the c...

Serious Fun is proud to present another live panel show from UntitledTown 2018! This time around, Bryan moderates a panel on hybrid storytelling featuring "Bend in the River" creator BJ Hollars, and Appleton Storycatchers Tara Pohlkotte and Kathryn Gahl. They'll talk about their own work and how to go beyond prose and page to tell a great story - from podcasting to setting poetry to music and more...

Live from UntitledTown 2018, Bryan moderates a panel with "Imagine Wanting Only This" author & art director and New York Editor for "The Believer" magazine Kristen Radtke and Milwaukee-based comics artist, educator, and hip-hop MC Mistaloo Meff (creator of "Angry Kat: Zombie Protocol"). It's all about comics, from the mechanics of sequential art to breaking into the industry to representation and...

The Serious Fun Women's History Month series concludes with a celebration of the unsung and underappreciated women in popular culture. Panelists Dr. Rebecca Nesvet, Dr. Kris Coulter, and Dr. Michelle McQuade Dewhirst cover female achievement in everything from screenwriting to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to sports bras and hair care products, discuss ways to promote and celebrate women's accomp...

Our special Women's History Month series continues with a discussion of gender issues and body image in popular culture, recorded live at the Common Grounds Coffeehouse at UWGB. Panelists Dr. Jana Fogaca, Dr. Christine Smith, Alison Gates, and Kwynn Carter share their own experiences with body image and explore where our obsession with the "perfect" female body comes from - from classical art hist...

Tired of convention panels on feminism and gender issues in media that are just dudes who look like Bryan? So is Serious Fun. As part of the celebration of Women's History Month, we're launching a three-part series about issues facing women in popular culture - all recorded live at the UWGB Common Grounds Coffeehouse with all-female panels. First up - the female action hero. Once a rarity, we're n...

In this Serious Fun, we dig into the cultural phenomenon that is Marvel Studios’ Black Panther. The movie has already made All Of The Money worldwide, but why is it resonating so strongly? What does it have to say about complex topics like the African diaspora, Black liberation, and the responsibility of a king and a country to its people and the world? And is Shuri a great character, or the great...

Leading experts agree: last year was the most 2017 of any year yet. At least the video games were good. Join Bryan and returning guest Steve Watts as they talk about the best and brightest the year had to offer in digital interactive entertainment in the first-ever live streamed episode of Serious Fun!

This week on Serious Fun – is there such a thing as ethical sports fandom? Or does the often exploitative nature of college and professional sports mean that we’re complicit in some of the very things to which we are often morally opposed? Bryan sits down with freelance journalist Jessica Luther, author of “Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape”, to discuss her work as...

This week, Bryan talks with UWGB Associate Provost and historian Clif Ganyard about pop culture's ongoing fascination with World War 2. Has using the conflict as a backdrop for comparatively simple popular culture in turn simplified our view of the war? How do games like Call of Duty and Wolfenstein and films like Inglourious Basterds turn the war into an abstract...and how might they be used to e...

As part of Serious Fun’s ongoing commitment to riding the coattails of major pop culture events, this week Bryan sits down (virtually) with long-time friend, former podcast co-host, and veteran video games journalist and editor Steve Watts to talk about the long-term impact and cultural value of the Super Mario franchise in light of the release of Super Mario Odyssey. On the docket: our memories o...

Time to smash into a new episode of Serious Fun! Recorded live at Brown County Public Library Comic-Con, this fantastic crossover episode with “All The Rage” sees Bryan sitting down with “All the Rage” hosts Ryan Martin and Chuck Rybak for an episode unpacking the anger that fuels the Incredible Hulk and his superhero cohort. Is The Hulk an interesting and accurate depiction of anger? What can we...

Jiminy Jilikers! It's a live episode from the Brown County Public Library's annual Comic-Con event with comics artist Mike Norton! Bryan sits down with Mike to ask him about his work, his style, his affinity for pugs, and more in a wide-ranging interview. Learn about what it's like to work for DC Comics, how Mike developed a multiple award-winning webcomic, and more!

Oh my goodness, it appears Serious Fun is at it again! This time Bryan sits down with UWGB Computer Science professor and game industry veteran Ben Geisler to talk about the fine art of game design, from corporate challenges to finding sneaky ways to engage and empower players. Plus: electronic music is defended. Credits: "Music 6" - Bill Brown (Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction); "A Dream of...

Like a whirling dervish of red, white, and blue Episode 4 of Serious Fun is here to show man's world what's what. This episode was recorded from a talk given by Bryan at the Brown County Library's Wonder Woman Day, part of a global celebration of the character's 75th anniversary and her new movie. If you ever wanted to know anything about Wonder Woman, her history, and her role in society and pop...

Episode 3 of Serious Fun is here and it brings with it a lovely chat with Tyler Scholz, recent UWGB grad and host -slash- creator of the Reading Pixels webseries on YouTube. Tyler talks to Bryan about his work analyzing games, the challenges a young YouTuber faces, and defends his fandom for Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. All that, and a Special Celebrity Guest*! Check out Tyler's videos by starting wi...

Despite all warnings and wisdom to the contrary, here before you sits another episode of Serious Fun. This time, Bryan sits down with the hosts of Phoenix Studios' "All the Rage Podcast" (UWGB English professor Chuck Rybak and UWGB Psychology chair Ryan Martin) to dork out over the literary, psychological, and cultural dimensions of the incredibly lucrative and timely Marvel Cinematic Universe. Pu...

Here it is, the first episode of Serious Fun! In this one, Bryan sits down with UWGB Music professor Michelle McQuade Dewhirst to talk about Metropolis, her new score for the film, and her guilty Cutthroat Kitchen fandom.