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Ryan C.
Ryan Carey maintains a B-movie (with occasional comics-related content) blog at trashfilmguru.wordpress.com, and writes about films and comics for sites such as unobtainium13.com, dailygrindhouse.com, geekyuniverse.com, and now Sequart. You can follow him on Twitter @trashfilmguru.
TOP MAGAZINE CONTENT BY RYAN C.
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part One
So here’s the deal — your newbie (at least around these parts) author found himself having a few back-and-forth conversations with Sequart founder Julian Darius via Twitter over the course of the past several months,… [more]
OTHER MAGAZINE CONTENT BY RYAN C. (59 TOTAL)
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Twenty-Four : All Good Things
The consensus opinion among readers of John Smith and Sean Phillips’ Straitgate appears to be that this was “the story of a mass-shooter,” or words to that effect. But I think that I humbly —… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Twenty-Three : Ka-Pow!
Well — hello again! An observant acquaintance on twitter recently remarked to me that he “hoped I’d get back to (my) ‘Portraits In Alienated British Youth’ series at some point,” and I had to make… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Twenty-Two : Breaking Point
Hard as it may be to believe, Dave, the troubled-to-put-mildly “star” of John Smith and Sean Phillips’ Straitgate, does, in fact, have friends. In fact, if you’ll recall, we met a few of them back… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Twenty-One : The Human Factor
I think it’s perfectly fair to say that the first two segments of John Smith and Sean Phillips’ Straitagte didn’t exactly present their protagonist, Dave, in anything like a sympathetic (or, for that matter, even… [more]
Portraits in Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Twenty: “Movement Of Ja People”
Okay, I admit it: chapter two of John Smith and Sean Phillips’ Straitgate is entitled “Exodus,” and I couldn’t come up with anything like a decent “headline” for this segment, so I went with the… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Nineteen: Minding The Store
The first two chapters of John Smith and Sean Phillips’ Straitgate, which ran back-to-back in issue number fifty of the UK comics anthology magazine Crisis, may not have been given pride of place on the… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Eighteen: What’s To Like?
The image above comes directly from the festering cesspool that swirls in the mind of Dave, the protagonist in John Smith and Sean Phillips’ Straitgate. Okay, sure — if we want to be absolutely technical… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Seventeen: Structure, Format, And Other Boring Details
In the interview with John Smith and Sean Phillips that ran in the UK comic fanzine Speakeasy that we mentioned a couple of segments back, Smith makes a statement that I find somewhat curious: we… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Sixteen : Meet Dave
So, who’s this “Dave” guy you heard mentioned in our last segment here, anyway? Yeah, okay, you may have gathered that he’s the central figure in John Smith and Sean Phillips’ Straitgate, but beyond that,… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Fifteen : Les Enfants Terrible
Debuting in the pages of the well-regarded (and, at least by some of us, much-missed) British comics anthology series Crisis — specifically in issue number 50, cover-dated September, 1990 — John Smith and Sean Phillips’… [more]
Portraits in Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Fourteen : I Used To Think That The Day Would Never Come —
And you, dear reader, could be forgiven, what with the uber-sporadic nature of these posts in recent months (sue me, I’ve been busy), that the day would never come when yours truly would finally get… [more]
Portraits in Alienated British You, Circa 1989-90, Part Thirteen : All’s Well That Ends — Well?
With the shit having already hit the fan, the eleventh and final chapter of Garth Ennis and Warren Pleece’s True Faith plays out more like an epilogue than anything else — but it’s a highly… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Twelve : Where It All Hits The Fan
There’s no doubt about it — chapter ten of Garth Ennis and Warren Pleece’s True Faith, entitled “False Gods,” is an absolute barn-burner. Or church-burner, I guess, as the case may be. The authorities —… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Eleven : Enter The Iron Lady
You knew it had to happen at some point in the pages of True Faith : Nigel, Terry, and their newfound “friends” have been entirely too successful in their church-burning campaign and, this being 1989… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Ten: Into The Fire
Here, friends, in where things get worse—not for True Faith itself per se, as Garth Ennis and Warren Pleece are both really hitting their stride at this point in the story—but for poor, hapless Nigel… [more]
Portraits in Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Nine: Out Of His Depth
As part five of Garth Ennis and Warren Pleece’s True Faith opens, we find our young protagonist, Nigel Gibson, well and truly out of his depth as lunatic (by most people’s standards, at any rate)… [more]
Portraits in Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Eight: Flushed Down The Toilet
There’s a question I just know you’re dying to ask right now—“dude, if you’re talking about True Faith, why do you have a cover scan of Preacher #1 at the top of your article?” It’s… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Seven: “I Feel So Extraordinary”
Those were the opening lyrics to New Order’s breakthrough hit “True Faith,” but let’s be honest—they don’t have jack shit to do with the frame of mind of Nigel Gibson, the teenage protagonist in Garth… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Six: A “Crisis” Of Faith
The next stop on our tour of British comics focused on disenfranchised teens/twentysomethings in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s brings us to True Faith, a smart, satirical, dare I say sometimes even poignant look… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Five: Aim For The Head (Of State)
The fourth and final installment—this time un-numbered, as we’re through counting down to the day and find ourselves at it—of St. Swithin’s Day begins with the most painfully obvious line you could imagine: “today’s the… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Four: Way Too Calm Before The Storm
First off, apologies to those of you who may be following this series for the delay between our last segment and this one. I wanted to wrap up on my OMAC retrospective here at Sequart… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Sixteen
So—what was that all about, then? I assure you, it’s hardly a rhetorical question—Jack Kirby’s eight-issue run on OMAC is stuffed to the gills (and well beyond) with concepts, themes, often-eerily-prescient prognostication, and deft societal… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed and Reconstructed, Part Fifteen
Sometimes, friends, it seems like OMAC is a comic that can’t win no matter how hard it tries. Fans of Jack Kirby’s original eight-issue run didn’t like how it ended, while readers who weren’t fans… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Fourteen
After the original OMAC series ended with a literal—if too-goddamn-tidy-for-its-own-good—bang in 1975, all was quiet in “The World That’s Coming!” for a couple of years, but one should never underestimate DC’s ability to milk a… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Thirteen
It’s panic time! When last we left “The World That’s Coming!,” OMAC had reverted to the form of his human alter-ego, Buddy Blank, who had no knowledge of where he was or how he got… [more]
DC is Re-Branding (or De-Branding) Its Universe. So What?
Note: This is a “companion editorial”—of sorts—to the “Marvel Is Rebooting Its Universe. So What?” piece I wrote for Sequat on Wednesday, January 21st. Apparently there’s something of a PR war going on between the… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Twelve
Before we get into the beginning of the end here, I suppose we’d better talk about that cover first. Yeah, it’s not by Kirby. In fact, I’m willing to bet that even if his distinctive… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Three: Every Day Is Like Sunday
I can’t stand Morrissey, but when I was between the ages of, say, 16 and 19, I thought he was pretty cool—which is precisely what I was supposed to think, given that his music has… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Two: Trident Makes Its Mark—But Ultimately Gets Speared
In August of 1989, a modest little anthology series with some serious “A-list” talent appeared on British comic store shelves and, presumably, at a few newsstands (or newsagents, as they’re called across the pond) as… [more]
The Artfully Crafted Toxicity of David Fincher’s Gone Girl
I’m going to proceed with a fair degree of caution as I write this, and you should probably do the same while reading it, because I’m about to level a pretty serious charge at a… [more]
Marvel is Rebooting Its Universe. So What?
“Don’t change anything, just give the illusion of change.” Those words—or something very much like them, at any rate—have been attributed to Stan Lee for ages now, and it’s been painfully obvious that Roy Thomas,… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part One: Introduction
Maybe it was something in the water—or something in the air—or just something floating around in the larger cultural zeitgeist of the time—but whatever the reason behind it all may have been, from the late… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Eleven
Jack Kirby created many – some would even argue most – of the iconic villains in comic book history. The list of Kirby rogues is a long and distinguished one, a veritable “Bad Guy Hall… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Ten
I suppose if we were in the business of drawing parallels – which, I’m reliably informed, is something that comic book critics and scholars (whether or not I fit into either category, much less both… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Nine
Immortality. It’s the big enchilada, isn’t it? The whole ball of wax. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The one thing that will probably be forever out of our grasp. And… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Eight
What a difference an issue makes! If you’ll recall (and I promise it’s true even if you don’t recall), the super-satellite Brother Eye was noticeable only for “his” absence in issue three of Jack Kirby’s… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed and Reconstructed, Part Seven
Wow, the cover text sure promises a lot this time around, doesn’t it? “Movies In Which We Live!,” ”Parents Picked By Computer!,” and finally—“A Task Force Of–A Hundred-Thousand Foes!” How, exactly, are you supposed to… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Six
The cover for OMAC #2 lays things bare – “In The Era Of The ‘Super Rich’ – Mister Big Can ‘Rent A City’ For Assassination!” And while, admittedly, this may have sounded a bit far-fetched… [more]
It’s Bobcat vs. Bigfoot in Willow Creek
If you’d have told me, say, ten years ago that the annoying comedian best known for doing the voice of that stupid rabbit puppet on a third-rate Married With Children knock-off sitcom would develop into one… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium! : Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Five
Hey, look! It’s our “girl” from the cover—and apparently she’s got a name and everything! Dear readers, allow me—by way of Jack Kirby, of course—to introduce you to Lila, a manufactured “Build-A-Friend” that comes our… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Four
“Man, that cover scared the shit out of me when I was a kid!” You have no idea how many times I’ve heard or read various iterations of that same statement made in regards to… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed And Reconstructed, Part Three
It occurs to me that, before we dive too deeply into the contents of the first issue of OMAC, a brief overview of our title character’s “civilian” identity of Buddy Blank might be in order,… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed and Reconstructed, Part Two
15 pages a week — written, penciled, and edited. Think about that for a minute. That’s the number that Jack Kirby’s fairly-lucrative-for-its-time DC contract called for when he created the concept of the One-Man Army… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium! Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed and Reconstructed, Part One
If there’s one work by the King of Comics that polarizes his legion of fans, it’s his short-lived 1974 DC series OMAC. Appearing to take place in a future universe all its own (as was… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Sixteen
Honest, folks, after this, we’re all done here. I know, I know — Scarab the mini-series is done already, but let’s consider this something of a postscript to look at what ended happening with the… [more]
Bugged Out! Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Fifteen
All good things, as they say, must come to an end. As must all bad things, and all mediocre things… and all truncated, confused, ambitious, intriguing, but ultimately, hopeless things. And so it was that… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Fourteen: Indigo Primer
Before delving into the eighth and final issue of John Smith, Scot Eaton and Mike Barreiro’s Scarab, we need to take a brief side-step and examine an earlier Smith creation, the trans-dimensional troubleshooting way-above-top-secret agency… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Thirteen
And so the big wind-up (or wind-down, depending on how you look at things) begins — I have no idea how much tinkering John Smith had to do with “The Power And The Glory,” his… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Twelve
So here’s my theory: sometime between submitting his final scripts for Scarab #5 and #6, John Smith got word — probably via editor Stuart Moore — that DC wouldn’t be going ahead with his project… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Eleven
Like you, I’m not quite sure what Glenn Fabry and Tony Luke’s cover for Scarab #5 is exactly supposed to be depicting other than some weird electricity coming out of our protagonist’s head, but it… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Ten
Welcome back to the nominally fictitious town of Whitehaven, North Carolina and the most delightfully repulsive story to ever go out under the Vertigo imprint — if you thought that the opening installment of Scarab’s… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Nine
If you wanted to define the visual aesthetic of Scarab in one word, that word would probably be ugly. Everything from Glenn Fabry and Tony Luke’s covers to the title character’s costume/second skin design to the look… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Eight
The other day I was banging out a review for issue number two of Marvel’s new George Romero-scripted zombie series Empire Of The Dead and I remarked that second issues are kind of a tricky deal… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Seven
Finally! Time to get down to the nitty-gritty! We’ve spent the first six parts of this series setting the stage as thoroughly as, I like to fancy, is humanly possible given the vagaries of time… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Six
In the immortal words of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, “And Now For Something Completely Different —” It’s my belief, dear reader, that we live in drastic times — and that we have been for some… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Five
Welcome back to 1993! Nice enough place to visit, although you might not want to live here — Actually, 1993 wasn’t a bad year at all for comics. The Invisibles got off the ground with a… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Four
Where were we again? Oh yeah, it’s 1992, and despite attempting to jazz things up in their low-selling Dr. Fate title by having the Helmet of Fate’s original bearer, Kent Nelson, pass the golden dome onto… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Three
First off, a correction : when we left off last time I told you we were sometime late in 1991, with promising young British comics scribe John Smith receiving a phone call from DC editor… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Two (or, The British Invader Who Stayed Home)
Believe it or not, I’ve never known a John Smith. They say it’s the most common male name in the English language, but seriously — I never went to school with one. I’ve never worked… [more]