Glen Weldon
Glen Weldon is a host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. He reviews books, movies, comics and more for the NPR Arts Desk.
Over the course of his career, he has spent time as a theater critic, a science writer, an oral historian, a writing teacher, a bookstore clerk, a PR flack, a completely inept marine biologist and a slightly better-ept competitive swimmer.
Weldon is the author of two cultural histories: Superman: The Unauthorized Biography and The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Slate, McSweeney's and more; his fiction has appeared in several anthologies and other publications. He is the recipient of an NEA Arts Journalism Fellowship, an Amtrak Writers' Residency, a Ragdale Writing Fellowship and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts for Fiction.
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There are lots of familiar trappings in Netflix's latest "realistic superheroes" series, but the way it grapples with the moral code at the heart of the superhero genre sets it apart. -
Netflix's new fantasy series contains many familiar elements, but a twisty, fast-moving plot and smart storytelling decisions make it a satisfying, eminently bingeable meal.
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A surfeit of characters, ideas, themes — and familiar writerly tics — obscures the storytelling in the opening episodes of HBO's new series about Victorian women granted special powers.
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We asked PCHH listeners to vote for the best Muppet. Nearly 20,000 votes later, here's your top 25, with accompanying commentary by Linda, Stephen, Aisha and Glen.
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A stellar voice cast helps ground this fantastical tale of a fledgling superhero's first forays into a job where the stakes — and the violence — are all too real.
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Netflix's new animated series takes the cheesiness out of Guillermo del Toro's giant-robots-vs.-giant-monsters franchise; more's the pity.
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A gay couple (Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci) take a trip through Great Britain's Lake District as they deal with the knowledge that one of them is dying.
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The great Alan Tudyk gets a role he can sink his sharp pointy alien teeth into on a darkly funny series boasting an ensemble cast of characters with surprisingly nuanced interpersonal histories.
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Watching musician/actor John Lurie paint and grumbly pontificate in an unnamed tropical locale is sometimes puzzling, often intriguing and always soothing.
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Netflix's post-apocalyptic animated series about a girl and her friends in a world of giant mutant animals is so colorful and sunny it makes the end of the world look ... kinda fun.
