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“Ritual Must Be Observed”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 31
Continued from last week. As for his two warring Lodges of super-mages, Millar seems to have used them as a symbol of religious sectarianism and reconciliation. Their differing interpretations of how to save the world… [more]
Discovering McGruder’s Black Jesus: “Fish and the Con Man,” Episode 2
My previous article was an introductory exposition on Black Jesus and the treatment of Jesus by Aaron McGruder that discussed setting Black Jesus within an environment akin to the historical Jesus’ milieu. Now that I… [more]
Science Fiction Elements of Infinite Jest: Part 1, Videophony
David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel Infinite Jest is, for my money, the greatest novel ever written. It appears regularly near the top of “best novels of all time” lists such as Time Magazine’s. It has… [more]
When Vultures Weep: Reflections on Robin Williams and the Alchemy of Joy
I didn’t want to write this column. From the first moment I heard about the death of Robin Williams, it was hard enough just to process the news. Besides, I knew millions of other people… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Ghost Rider Annual Volume 1 #2
On Christmas Day 2013, my brother gave me a booster pack of random, non-sequential issues from a variety of popular comic book titles that syndicated in the late eighties to mid nineties. The nineties was… [more]
Japan’s “New” Anti-Piracy Campaign for Anime and Manga
There has been much discussion of a newly enforced law in Japan regarding online piracy. A-Kon, for which I run various programs, and most other anime conventions do not permit bootlegging at events and internet… [more]
Marlon Brando and the Problems with Collective Cartooning
In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud defines the act of cartooning as “amplification through simplification.” In other words, a cartoon ignores most of the details, focusing instead on only one or two key components. In the… [more]
Only Humanoid: The Jodorowsky Paradox
The Incal Writer: Alexandro Jodorowsky Artist: Jean Giraud Watching Jodorowsky’s Dune (an excellent documentary about the never completed adaptation of the Science Fiction classic into film) I was struck by how good it appears to… [more]
So Long and Thanks for all the Apes
I just had to write a fitting send-off to the Planet of the Apes series. I recap, rank, and reminisce these wonderful films. I also do that for the duds. But lets focus on the wonderful aspect. [more]
“Up Onto The Overturned Keel Clamber, With A Heart Of Steel…”: The History Channel’s Vikings and Hyperreal Heathenry
The French postmodern philosopher Baudrillard I believe would have found the History channel’s Vikings to be very interesting. Particularly in light of some of the ideas he espoused in his work Simulacra and Simulation. You… [more]
“Why Try to Create a New God?”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 30
Continued from last week. But for all the carelessness and clumsiness of Millar’s scripts, his and Morrison’s Swamp Thing consistently displays a deliberate and serious moral purpose. Indeed, the comic persistently plays out two quite… [more]
A Much Longer Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: On Reading The Star Wars
Star Wars began for me in the toy section of an old five and dime store called TG&Y. It was there I discovered a whole collection of new and unusual looking figures—“dolls” as my Arkansas… [more]
The Fifth Beatle Revisited: An Update from San Diego Comic Con
This has been a big year for one of the most elegant and beautiful comics to come along in some time, The Fifth Beatle by Vivek J. Tiwary and Andrew Robinson (which I had previously… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Bloodstrike Volume 1 #2
Last Christmas my brother gave me a booster pack of random, non-sequential issues from a variety of popular comic book titles that syndicated in the late eighties to mid nineties. The nineties was a time… [more]
“Take a Look Inside My Mind”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 29
Continued from last week. It’s impossible to believe that Morrison and Millar’s Swamp Thing wasn’t intended as an allegory. For all that Morrison’s original plans appear to have been significantly modified by his junior partner,… [more]
Guarding the Galaxy, Part 2: Cosmic Avengers
One of the papers I usually assign in my composition course is a cultural antecedents essay. The students choose something from popular culture and then examine its relationship to its cultural antecedents. Or, put in… [more]
Eternal Return: The Enduring, and Problematic, Influence of The Dark Knight Returns
When the Man of Steel sequel was officially announced at Comic-Con back in July of 2013, director Zack Snyder claimed that the film would be “inspired” by Frank Miller’s classic Dark Knight Returns. Even though… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Gen13 Annual 2000
Last Christmas my brother gave me a booster pack of random, non-sequential issues from a variety of popular comic book titles that syndicated in the late eighties to mid nineties. The nineties was a time… [more]
The Politics of Batman, Part 1: Batman vs. Osama bin Laden
The following is an excerpt from the book War, Politics and Superheroes: When Frank Miller announced that he would be crafting a graphic novel in which Batman would confront real-world terrorist Osama bin Laden, journalists… [more]
X-Men: To the Outback & Beyond… Inferno Part 2
The son of Scott Summers/Cyclops, Nathan Christopher, is finally in the hands of his demonically twisted mother Madelyne Pryor aka The Goblin Queen. Her promises to turn the world to ashes seem very probable given… [more]
Only Humanoid: Everything Louder than Everything Else
Armies Writer : Jean-Pierre Dionnet, Picaret Art : Jean-Claude Gal I always found it hard to square my ideas of what European (well, French) comics was meant to be with what most of it turned… [more]
“Old Souls, Dark Agendas”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 28
Continued from last week. The final pages of Millar’s Swamp Thing depict the Earth on the eve of a historically unprecedented golden age. (*1) Humanity has been empathetically transformed through the god-like Swamp Thing’s influence,… [more]
Completing the Trilogy: Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane
I’ve never been much of a summer person. I can barely swim, don’t really enjoy the beach, and hate hot weather. But something about summer clicked for me this year. Even though we weren’t able… [more]