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Kevin Smith & Joe Quesada’s Daredevil: The Comic that Saved Marvel
Joe Quesada is the savior of Marvel. Simply put, without Joe Quesada coming in the late ‘90s to create Marvel Knights, Marvel Comics would be a defunct company. While many editorial decisions made by Quesada… [more]
A Defence of Star Trek The Motion Picture
I don’t like to rank art, instinctively. This isn’t a sport, and it’s not about ringing all the bells and checking off all the boxes. So, when people ask me to rank the Star Trek… [more]
Race, Racism, and Italian-American Crimefighters, Part 1: Columbo, the Untouchables, and Joe Pistone
This article appeared originally in the anthology Pimps, Wimps, Studs, Thugs, and Gentlemen (2009), edited by Elwood Watson. I’m reprinting it here because I believe it has things to say about Italian-Americans, law enforcement, and… [more]
Unashamed: In Which Concluding Remarks are Made and a Book is Announced, Shameless? The Superhero Tales of Mark Millar
I hate to break a promise, even if it’s made to no-one but myself. Yet things have changed since I typed “to be continued” at the foot of the last section of Shameless? to be… [more]
Sensual Female Guardian Angels: Luc Besson’s Early Films, Part 1
In traditional Roman Catholic doctrine, God is represented as a masculine Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) that leaves little room for a feminized vision of either the Creator God or… [more]
Writing the Collective Page: Dave Sim, Judenhass, and Tolerating Injustice
When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 7
Issue #8 “Intensive Care” Writer: Jamie Delano Art: John Ridgeway Inks: Alfredo Alcala Colors: Lovern Kindzierski Letters: John Costanza Cover: Dave McKean Although the series is still very early on, the characterization of Constantine has… [more]
The Super-Heroics of Frank Miller and Alan Moore, Part 5
Optimism Ultimately, there are two types of stories: tragedies and comedies. There are no inherent requirements for tragedies or comedies. In the days of Shakespeare tragedies ended with death and comedies ended with weddings. But… [more]
The Magnificent Ambersons: The Film That Made Orson Welles Cry
“In those days they had time for everything. Time for sleigh rides…” And so begins, in a haze of warm nostalgia and gentle humour, Orson Welles’ most maddening and controversial film, The Magnificent Ambersons. Viewed… [more]
Jorge Borges in Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol #22, A Companion Reader
One final look at the intertextual themes in the first four issues of Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol (#19 to #22). [more]
“The Characters Remain Unaware of My Scrutiny, but Their Thoughts are Transparent”: The Multiversity: Pax Americana #1
Whether he explicitly stated it or not Pax Americana is to be Grant Morrison’s Watchmen Redux. Of course it is so much more than this as well. During the initial drafting of this article Pax… [more]
Grant Morrison, Watchmen, and the Art of the Polemic
In order to criticize a movie, you have to make another movie. —Jean-Luc Godard A few years ago I stopped reading monthly comic books. It wasn’t an ideological decision—just a reader’s. Most of the comics… [more]
Our Feature Presentation: How Superhero Films Have Changed Trailers
What’s the perfect kind of pleasure? Oscar Wilde quipped that a cigarette is most exquisite due to its leaving one unsatisfied afterwards. The having of it immediately leads to wanting another. Now Hollywood has taken… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 6
Issue #7 “Ghosts in the Machine” Writter: Jamie Delano Artist: John Ridgeway, Brett Ewins and Jim McCarthy Colorist: Lovern Kindzierski Letterer:Todd Klein At this point in Hellblazer, the series has featured many things associated with… [more]
The Super-Heroics of Frank Miller and Alan Moore, Part 4
Late ‘90s to ‘00s Superhero Work In the middle of the 1990s Alan Moore did something that confounded everyone, he agreed to work with Rob Liefeld. Liefeld was a bold creator and entrepreneur and his… [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]
True Detective and Breaking the Hard-Boiled Code
Of all the genres used in True Detective, hard boiled detective fiction is the most easily recognizable. Detectives Marty Hart and Rust Cohle have front row seats to the graphic violence and systemic corruption in… [more]
“New Paradigms for the Super Hero Team Structure?”: On Skrull Kill Krew #1-5 (The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 45)
Continued from last week. No-one could accuse Morrison of being blind to Skrull Kill Krew’s satirical potential. In 1995, he spoke enthusiastically of the book’s capacity to discuss the likes of “catastrophy in the 20th… [more]
Religion, Ethnicity, and Marxism in the Films of Sergio Leone
Children are gunned down in the street and in their homes. Women are forced into slavery, beaten, and raped. Men are slowly, methodically tortured. Lifelong friends casually – and sometimes inexplicably – betray one another.… [more]
Confessions of a Paranoid Humanities Scholar: On Big Hero 6 and Interstellar
A couple of weeks ago I parked next to an SUV covered in decals all warning about the coming “zombie apocalypse.” I chuckled, largely because I’ve never had a moment’s worry about zombies. But there… [more]
Before The Clone Wars, There were… Clone Wars?
I’m not usually one to pride myself one way or another on public opinion, but when it comes to the Star Wars Prequels I make no bones about my agreement with the masses about it:… [more]
Theorizing about the Joker in All Seriousness
And it’s not that easy. One thing becomes clear as I go about snooping on the Man Who Laughs – you cannot quite ‘come to know’ the Joker. You can read about him, theorise all… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 5
Hellblazer #6 “Extreme Prejudice” Written:Jamie Delano Art: John Ridgeway Colors:Lovern Kindzierski Letters: Todd Klein Cover: Dave McKean Just as when the term “magic” is presented and certain images come to mind, “skinhead” also conjures certain… [more]
Analysis of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, part two
Some time ago I decided to watch through and analyze the skeletal filmography of Andrew Dominik, watching through all three of his movies in the order in which he made them. After starting with the… [more]
The Super-Heroics of Frank Miller and Alan Moore, Part 3
Early 90s Superhero work I have been alluding at various points the real-life history of my two subjects in my past articles, but context is vital in understanding the next period of superhero writing for… [more]