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Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 48
Issue #59 “Guys & Dolls Part One: Fallen Women” Writer: Garth Ennis; Pencils: William Simpson; Inks: Mike Barreiro & Kim DeMulder; Colors: Tom Zuiko; Letters: Gaspar Saladino; Editor: Stuart Moore; Cover: Glenn Fabry; Shared universes… [more]
An Inconvenient Truth: A Few Thoughts on The World’s End as Imagined by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
At one point of Edgar Wright’s “The World’s End” one of the film’s protagonist’s, Andy, describes Newton Haven as a black hole. Unknown to him at the time, this will prove to be an accurate… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 47
Issues #57-58 “Mortal Clay” & “Body & Soul” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Steve Dillon; Colors: Tom Zuiko, Daniel Vozzo; Letters: Gaspar Saladino; Editor: Stuart Moore; Cover: Glenn Fabry; In a world filled with demons, angels,… [more]
Returning to the “Golden Mile”: A Few Thoughts on The World’s End as Imagined by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
As I promised you in the last instalment of my deliberations on “The World’s End” by Edgar Wright, we shall now join the film’s protagonists on the pub-crawl known as the ”Golden Mile”. Before entering… [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]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 46
Issue #56 “This is the Diary of Danny Drake” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: David Lloyd; Letters: Elitta Fell; Editor: Stuart Moore; Cover: Glenn Fabry; A friend of mine once told me over beer that “the… [more]
Old Red Eyes Is Back: A Few Thoughts on The World’s End as Imagined by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
After their previous ventures into the horror genre with “Shaun of the Dead” (2004) and the crime-fighting-buddy-action-movie with “Hot Fuzz” (2007), Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have applied themselves to science-fiction and its tropes in… [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]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 45
Issue #55 “Royal Blood Part Four: Dog Eat Dog” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Will Simpson; Colors: Tom Ziuko; Letters: Gaspar Saladino; Editor: Stuart Moore; Cover: Glenn Fabry; Royal Blood ultimately concludes with “Dog Eat Dog.”… [more]
Andy Warhol: A Comics Creator?
Andy Warhol’s name is forever linked to a thoroughly modern style of artistic expression, emerging at a very significant time in the history of western culture. Mechanical replication, repetition and bold, vivid colours were hallmarks… [more]
“The Fourth Means Is Most Terrible, And Rests On The Eviction Of A Soul…” Transcription and Trauma in Providence #6
“And yet, its realism was so hideous that I sometimes find hope impossible. If the thing did happen, then man must be prepared to accept notions of the cosmos, and of his own place in… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 44
It has come to my attention that I was mistaken last week in assuming that the person who may have been Prince Andrew, Duke of York had no real uncle whose ashes he could have… [more]
My Twenty Favourite Films of 2015
Well, 2015 is long over and it’s time for me to put down my top films of the year. I always find this a fun task, although I also always find myself opening this list… [more]
Ex Machina: Girlbots vs. Geekboys and Creation Anxiety in the New Frankenstein
Why do we fear what we create? [more]
Comics: The Medium of the 21st Century
I’ve put forward the theory before that comics will be the defining storytelling medium of the 21st century, just as novels were in the 19th and cinema was in the 20th. It’s a theory inspired… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 43
Issue #53 “Royal Blood Part Two: Revelations” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Will Simpson Colors: Tom Ziuko; Editor: Stuart Moore; Cover: Glenn Fabry; Picking up minutes after the conclusion of the previous issue “Revelations” covers the… [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]
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]