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Michael Campochiaro
Michael Campochiaro works in academic publishing and spends any free time he can find reading and drawing. You can read more of Michael's musings at his blog, Words Seem Out Of Place.
MAGAZINE CONTENT BY MICHAEL CAMPOCHIARO (30 TOTAL)
So Long, Iron Fist—We’ll Miss Ward Meachum Most
Netflix recently cancelled Iron Fist after two frustrating seasons of mediocrity. At least season two was a marked improvement in many ways over the first—robbing Danny Rand (Finn Jones) of the Iron Fist and giving it… [more]
Len Wein, 1948–2017
For those of us of a certain age, who grew up on comic books in the 1970s and 1980s, it seems like we’re losing far too many of the great creators who helped shaped our… [more]
“What I do is not up to you”: Respect and Agency in Wonder Woman
Patty Jenkins’ exceptional Wonder Woman is rightly being celebrated as one of the most inspiring and exhilarating superhero films to date. Still, it has not been immune to criticism, especially with regards to the female lead’s… [more]
Tim Hanley on The Many Lives of Catwoman
Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992) Tim Hanley (author of Wonder Woman Unbound and Investigating Lois Lane) is back with another superhero spotlight book, The Many Lives of Catwoman. I recently talked to Tim about all things… [more]
Wonder Woman: The Promise of Hope
Superheroes are often symbolic representations of any number of emotional, psychological, or behavioral traits. In them, we see highly exaggerated and stylized versions of ourselves. Taking an oath to wage a lifetime war on crime,… [more]
Sequart Interviews Jon Morris of “Gone & Forgotten”
MICHAEL CAMPOCHIARO: Your site, Gone & Forgotten, is one of the longest-running comic book blogs on the internet, going on twenty years now. What led you to not only start the blog, but to focus… [more]
Multiple Realities: The Hollywood Films of Paul Verhoeven
After making a name for himself in the Netherlands, Paul Verhoeven moved to Hollywood in the 1980s to work on American films. From that period through the 1990s Verhoeven directed a series of movies across… [more]
Spotlight on Steve Gerber’s The Son of Satan
Marvel Comics in the 1970s were, to put it mildly, weird. Now, I mean that as a compliment. The dizzying array of subgenres that the publisher expanded into during the decade is impressive. Explosive creativity on… [more]
Turn Loose Our Death Rays and Kill Them All! The Complete Works of Fletcher Hanks
In the first of two forewords to Turn Loose Our Death Rays and Kill Them All: The Complete Works of Fletcher Hanks (Fantagraphics), Paul Karasik describes the cult Golden Age cartoonist Fletcher Hanks as the “village… [more]
Revisiting The Left Hand of Darkness
Reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness in Freshman English during college was a formative experience. Only, I wasn’t prepared yet as an eighteen year old to fully appreciate how so until years… [more]
Word on a Wing: Claremont’s Samurai Detective Colleen Wing
Colleen Wing, the samurai detective who formed one half of the investigative agency Nightwing Restorations Ltd. with Misty Knight, is a complex and vastly underrated character. Created in 1974 by Doug Moench and Larry Hama… [more]
Sinner Man: Lawrence Block’s Long Lost Novel is Back in Print
Lawrence Block’s Sinner Man was originally published under a pseudonym, nearly fifty years ago. This month, Hard Case Crime is bringing the book back into print under Block’s own name. The story behind the book’s disappearance… [more]
Stranger Things: Nostalgia, Loss of Innocence, and Parental Anxieties
Please note: This discussion of Stranger Things includes spoilers for the series. Stranger Things struck a chord with Netflix viewers immediately. My own experience with the show was slightly delayed—having young children will do that… [more]
Blue Beetle and the Last Days of the Bronze Age
Discussions of DC Comics in the 1980s tend to focus on works like The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and Crisis on Infinite Earths. That’s fitting, because all of these were game changers for the industry,… [more]
Traveling to A Hundred Thousand Worlds: A Conversation with Bob Proehl
CAMPOCHIARO: Let’s start with your origin story, along with the origin of your debut novel A Hundred Thousand Worlds. What is your relationship to the worlds of comics, sci-fi, fandom, and the myriad others that… [more]
A Hundred Thousand Worlds: Fandom, Friendship, and Love
There are moments in Bob Proehl’s debut novel A Hundred Thousand Worlds that will affect readers even after finishing the book. These are bighearted yet subtle moments that stick with you, like when one of… [more]
Hunger and Longing: Growing Up with Cloak and Dagger
While I can’t remember exactly what happens in this comic book, the cover to Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #95 has long been burned into my memory. It’s cover dated October 1984 and I must have… [more]
Last Night, A Superhero Saved My Life: Reading Comics to Live
While reading Last Night, A Superhero a Saved My Life (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2016), I was struck by how emotionally invested I became in these tales of lives saved and redeemed by comic… [more]
The Complicated Legacies of Wonder Woman and Lois Lane
Throughout the history of DC Comics, two female characters stand above the rest, in terms of appearances and popularity in the broader culture: Wonder Woman (Diana Prince) and Lois Lane. It can be argued that… [more]
A Marvel Cinematic Universe Wish List
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), including their Netflix series, is expanding rapidly. Since having kids, the wife and I can’t seem to keep up. I’m not sure she’s as impatient to see Captain America: Civil War… [more]
Rethinking and Re-inking Catwoman
A few months ago I started reading Deborah E. Whaley’s recent book, Black Women in Sequence: Re-inking Comics, Graphic Novels, and Anime. In it, Whaley explores how women of African descent are portrayed in various visual… [more]
Until the End of the World: Thoughts on Preacher
Tulip: The way I hear it, there’s two good places to look for God: in church, or at the bottom of a bottle. Jesse: Maybe I’ll go find a liquor store, then … ’cause lemme… [more]
The Music of Defiance: Thoughts on Early American Punk Rock
“To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It’s freedom.” — Patti Smith “To me, punk is about being… [more]
Returning to the Overlook: A Kubrick Fan Finally Reads The Shining
When I was in college, fancying myself a budding film nerd, I began deep diving into the canon of essential films, and in my mind none were more essential or important than those of Stanley… [more]
I Keep Talking Louder Because You Haven’t Heard: Appreciating The Paper
[NOTE: The following is something I worked on sporadically for a while, as a way to understand more about how I work inside a relationship (any relationship, generally, but with my wife, specifically). Only then… [more]
I Just Want Them to Know That They Didn’t Break Me: Pretty in Pink Thirty Years On
Pretty in Pink turns thirty this year. Written by John Hughes and directed by Howard Deutch, the film stars Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy, John Cryer, James Spader, Annie Potts, and Harry Dean Stanton. It would… [more]
The Boys are Back in Town: Power Man and Iron Fist #1
Nostalgia played a big role in why I picked up the first issue of Marvel’s new Power Man and Iron Fist series. From the pre-release buzz, it appeared that writer David F. Walker, artist Sanford Greene,… [more]
Genre Bliss: Surviving The Purge: Anarchy
I recently spent a sick day at home, trying to recuperate from a nasty cold. In the grand tradition of sick days, I decided to spend it on the couch watching movies and catching up… [more]
A Priest, a Panther, and the Dora Milaje Walk into a Bar: Christopher Priest’s Black Panther
With the Black Panther entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe soon, I figured it was high time I explored the character in print, at least more so that I have previously. I’ve always liked T’Challa but… [more]
On X-(Wo)men and Third-Wave Feminism
Sometimes you find ideological influences in the unlikeliest places. For example, X-Men comic books helped make me a feminist. Those comics were some of the first places that I saw women as leads who did… [more]