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Articles
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]
My Pick for the Best Comic of 2015: Invisible Republic
“Beware the best-of list”, Shakespeare once wrote. Or he should have. There are deep problems with basing one’s opinion of the literature worth reading on one critic’s list of the “best” of the year, most… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 42
Issue #52 “Royal Blood Part One: The Players” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Will Simpson Colors: Tom Ziuko; Editor: Stuart Moore; Cover: Glenn Fabry; While Hellblazer very much takes place in the western world, the fact… [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]
Star Wars: The Force Awakens: A Powerful Family Drama About Addiction
This article is about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and discusses elements of the plot that could be considered spoilers. Star Wars: The Force Awakens needed to do a specific set of things in order… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 41
Issue #51 “Counting to Ten” Writer: John Smith; Artist: Sean Phillips; Colors: Tom Ziuko; Letters: Gaspar Saladino; Cover: Sean Phillips; As discussed in prior installments of this column, there are many different kinds of horror.… [more]
Thatcherism in the Space Era (Courtesy of Grant Morrison & Rian Hughes)
“Dare to look to the future”. Because we remember the past and we live in the present, we hold dear the future. We never know what tomorrow might bring and we love dreaming about adventures… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 40
Issue #50 “Remarkable Lives” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Will Simpson Colors: Tom Ziuko; Letters: Gaspar Saladino; Cover: Tom Canty; The monthly numbering system is perhaps one of comics most notable features. Being that issues are… [more]
Man in the High Castle and The Flexibility of the Science Fiction Genre
Science fiction is one of those genres everyone thinks they know, but seems to find it difficult to pin down in terms of a definition. It’s such a porous genre, that is, one that can… [more]
Star Wars: From a Successful Film Franchise to One of the Greatest Hits in Comics
For some reason, I’ve never been a fan of film adaptations, much in the same way that I’m not a fan of videogames turned into comics, or TV series transformed into novels. In my opinion,… [more]
My (Very Brief) History with SF
Speculative Fiction, more commonly referred to as “Science Fiction”, has been described as perhaps the best means of conveying complex ideas. It is a broad genre that was, and for some remains pigeon-holed, like comic… [more]
Sid and Marty Krofft’s Wormholes to Hell
If you’re an American of a certain age, chances are you fondly remember the weird and wonderful worlds dreamed up by Sid and Marty Krofft—especially H. R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville, and Land of the Lost. Those… [more]
The Stars My Destination: A Sci-Fi Masterpiece for Sci-Fi Week
When Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination was first recommended to me, it was with the promise that he “packs as much world-building, plot and character into 170 pages as Asimov did in the entire… [more]
Constructing a Perfect Reality
“Thus only in a dream we are at one, Thus only in a dream we give and take The faith that maketh rich who take or give”- Monna Innominata by Christina Rossetti The topic of… [more]
We are the Heroes of Earth-Prime: The Role of the Reader in the Multiverse
You. Yes, you. Staring at us. Studying us. Picking over these words and looking for meaning. Did it not occur to you that you are the one giving this significance? Every word you read is… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 39
Author’s note: Up to this point in my analysis I’ve tried to remain as objective as possible in the analysis of the content within the series, but the subject matter of the following issue, combined… [more]
Jessica Jones and Netflix’s New Storytelling
SPOILER WARNING Jessica Jones has a lot going on. It’s about trauma, PTSD, rape, and domestic abuse. (Oh, and superheroes, and Hell’s Kitchen, and the Marvel cinematic universe MCU). The fact is that Jessica Jones… [more]
Samuel Fuller’s Fraught Release: White Dog
The American film White Dog was finished in 1981. It was released in Europe in 1982. It wasn’t released in America until 2008, when Criterion released the film on DVD. You can probably tell by… [more]
Superheroes: The American Mythology Part I
Beginning in 1938, two simple creators will develop an entire genre of entertainment that will change the world. The humble beginnings of superheroes as pure heroes to guide America through the Great Depression. [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 38
Issue #47-48 “The Pub Where I Was Born” & “Love Kills” Writer: Garth Ennis; Pencils: Will Simpson, Mike Hoffman; Inker: Stan Woch; Colors: Tom Ziuko; Letters: Gaspar Saladino; Cover: Tom Canty; Being that Hellblazer is… [more]
Eco-Horror: Energy Crises, Pollution, & the End of Humanity
The eco-horror genre of films may now have a proper name, but it’s been around for a long time. Movie goers have been flocking to theaters to see the explosive battle between man and nature… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 37
Issue #46 “Falling into Hell” Writer: Garth Ennis; Pencils: Will Simpson; Inker: Mark Pennington, Mark McKenna, Kim DeMulder, Stan Woch; Colors: Tom Ziuko; Letters: Gaspar Saladino; Cover: Tom Canty; As with any ongoing comic series,… [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]