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A Tour of the 2016 Eisner Nominees, Part 11 – March: Book Two
The history recounted in March: Book Two is, or should be, fairly familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of the 20th century. The Freedom Riders and the other struggles of the early 1960s American… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 61
Issue #73 “Damnation’s Flame: Broadway the Hard Way” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Steve Dillon; Colors: Tom Ziuko; Letters: Gaspar Saladino; Editor: Stuart Moore; Assistant Editor: Julie Rottenberg; Cover: Glenn Fabry; Last we left John Constantine… [more]
A Tour of the 2016 Eisner Nominees, Part 10 – Kaijumax
Zander Cannon’s Kaijumax is an easy comic to like, because it takes such joy in being what it is. A colourful, quick-witted satire of prison movie cliches, blended with an all-star cast of Toho Pictures’… [more]
13 Cameras Plays Upon Your Video Surveillance Fears
The new suspenseful home invasion horror film, 13 Cameras, bases its plot on a very realistic fear – that someone may be spying on you inside your own home. The notion that anyone could be… [more]
Revisit The Dark Knight Rises With Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman
Kevin Smith is naturally a positive and forgiving personality, which makes his podcasts fun, but often prevents him from really getting into a serious critique of a film, especially when it’s a film close to… [more]
Science Fiction Elements of Infinite Jest: Part 3, Subsidized Time
The twentieth-anniversary rereading and discussion of the greatest novel ever written, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, has just ended. The discussion continues, and this is part of it. Many thousands of fans worldwide including me… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 60
Issue #72 “Damnation’s Flame Part One: Brave New World” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Steve Dillon; Colors: Tom Ziuko; Letters: Clem Robins; Editor: Stuart Moore; Assistant Editor: Julie Rottenberg; Cover: Glenn Fabry; When Hellblazer started 71… [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]
Of Squirrels and Girls
This exposes me to some risk, having to look over my shoulder for Steinbeck’s vengeful spirit, but that’s the life we choose in the thrilling, fast-paced world of sequential art criticism. Not like music reviewers… [more]
A Tour of the 2016 Eisner Nominees, Part 9 – Monstress
Monstress wastes no time in creating a lush, vivid fantasy world and giving us some great characters to populate it. This Image Comics release by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda builds all manner of artifice… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 59
Issue #71 “Finest Hour” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Steve Dillon; Colors: Tom Ziuko; Letters: Gaspar Saladino; Editor: Stuart Moore; Assistant Editor: Julie Rottenberg; Cover: Glenn Fabry; Last we left John Constantine he was in a… [more]
They Were Lost in Space-Time and Then They Found God
Written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Al Milgrom, the Lost in Space-Time saga ran from West Coast Avengers #17 to 24. The real meat is between 18-23, with the others serving as a prologue… [more]
Academics on Batman v. Superman
Released on March 25, 2016, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was a movie decades in the making. As the first live action film featuring both Batman and Superman it was a movie featuring two… [more]
A Tour of the 2016 Eisner Nominees, Part 8 – I Love This Part
Comics is a diverse and flexible medium, and one of the greatest examples of that is how it can tell both big stories and small stories. Many people are aware of the degree to which… [more]
A Tour of the 2016 Eisner Nominees, Part 7 – The Fade Out
The Fade Out is a comic about Hollywood, specifically that magical post-war late-1940s Hollywood that is so often romanticized. It’s one of America’s true mythic places, full of hard-drinking writers, bombshell girls (and the occasional… [more]
A Look at East of West (Volumes 1-5)
East of West is an ongoing series that hasn’t exactly been getting the attention it rightfully deserves. So, if you haven’t been reading this series, then you need to run to the nearest bookstore and… [more]
A Tour of the 2016 Eisner Nominees, Part 6 – Two Great Web Comics
As they recognize achievement in all of the widely diverse world of comics, it makes sense that the Eisner Awards have a category for Digital/Webcomics. Two of the nominees this year are Lighten Up, by… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 58
Issue #70 “Heartland” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Steve Dillon; Colors: Stuart Chaifetz; Letters: Gaspar Saladino; Editor: Stuart Moore; Assistant Editor: Julie Rottenberg; Cover: Glenn Fabry; After nearly 6 years of being published as a monthly… [more]
A Tour of the 2016 Eisner Nominees, Part 5 – The Spire
The Spire is a comic that’s overflowing with creative ideas, determined to build its own rich fantasy world and completely heedless of any limits or restrictions in terms of genre. Some comics blend genres, but… [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]
A Tour of the 2016 Eisner Nominees, Part 4 – The Faceless Ghost, and Other Macabre Tales from Japan
If there’s anything at all to old cliche that to understand someone, you must know what they fear and what they desire, then reading ghost stories from a different culture must qualify as some sort… [more]
A Tour of the 2016 Eisner Nominees, Part 3 – Lady Killer
The title of Lady Killer, by Joelle Jones and available from Dark Horse Comics, sort of says it all. This is a comic about Josie Schuller, a killer who stabs, punches, kicks and spins without… [more]
Superweapons vs. Supervoices: What the Beliefs and Opinions of Super-Villains Are Telling Us About the Present Day
To hell with negotiations, most want to see a good blow’em-up story: the Death Star, Starkiller Base, the Red Matter from the famed Star Trek reboot, and GORT from legendary The Day the Earth Stood… [more]
A Tour of the 2016 Eisner Nominees, Part 2 – Paper Girls
Another contender for the 2016 Eisner Award for Best New Series is Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, from Image Comics. By now we’ve come to expect great things from the creator… [more]