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Analytic articles, whether historical or literary, scholarly or popular. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Sequart.

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Sword-and-Sorcery Movies: They Just Don’t Make Them Like That Anymore

Remember films like Conan the Barbarian, Labyrinth, and The Sword and the Sorcerer? Fantasy movies of the late 1970s and early 80s with lots of swords and sorcery, where the good guys always won? Remember… [more]

Sherlock’s Women: The Good and the Bad

I was continuing my journey through my imposing edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes when I realized my mind could not stop making links between the original texts and BBC’s hit series Sherlock. While I… [more]

Fear and Loathing in a Dead Guy’s House

I recently read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Then I watched the movie, which is a great adaptation. This is about those things, and also some time I spent in an abandoned house. [more]

Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Fourteen: Indigo Primer

Before delving into the eighth and final issue of John Smith, Scot Eaton and Mike Barreiro’s Scarab, we need to take a brief side-step and examine an earlier Smith creation, the trans-dimensional troubleshooting way-above-top-secret agency… [more]

X-Men: To the Outback & Beyond… Part 10

We left off last issue with Rogue / Ace and Wolverine rescuing Phillip Moreau from the Mutant Train with promises to “…bring this flamin’ country down” while their teammates finally arrived in Genosha on their… [more]

Capital Thoughts: Captain America #21

“The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.” —Mahatma Gandhi. So reads the penultimate panel of Captain America #21.  The… [more]

Ang Lee’s Hulk and Seriousness in Comics Movies

I came across a quote from Ang Lee made in 2012. It was during press for the film Life of Pi. Lee said he wouldn’t have been able to do the film without learning about… [more]

Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Cage #15 Volume 1

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] Most Morally Objectionable Comic DC Has Ever Published”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 23

Continued from last week. As ever, it’s impossible to precisely disentangle Morrison’s influence from Millar’s. Yet Swamp Thing’s storylines and themes certainly bear the stamp of many of the former’s recurrent passions; magic and folklore,… [more]

F for Fake: Orson Welles’ Last Movie

Years later, reflecting back on his life and work, Orson Welles would say, “I thought I was onto something,” in reference to his last completed film, 1973’s F for Fake. The relative lack of impact… [more]

A Father’s Day Post-Mortem: Maleficent, Gender, and Fairy Tale Romance

Down with eyes romantic and stupid Down with sighs and down with Cupid Brother, let’s stuff that dove Down with love. –Bobby Darin, “Down With Love” Whenever someone asks me what’s the best part of… [more]

X-Men: To the Outback & Beyond… Part 9

Writer: Chris Claremont Penciler: Rick Leonardi Inker: Terry Austin Colorist: Glynis Oliver Letter: Tom Orzechowski Editor: Bob Harras We left a depowered Wolverine and Rogue, with the Carol Danvers persona in charge of the psyche… [more]

Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: The Adventures of Superman Volume 1 #512

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]

Return to Me: The Experience of Memory in Jaime Hernandez’s The Love Bunglers

SPOILERS BELOW… There is a stunning sequence in part five of Jaime Hernandez’s The Love Bunglers — originally serialized in Love and Rockets: New Stories volumes 3 and 4, and recently released in a deluxe… [more]

It’s the 15th Anniversary of Free Enterprise

As with my previous recap of Chasing Amy here on Sequart, it’s time to take a trip back in time, to that dear departed 20th century. Released exactly 15 years ago this week, Free Enterprise… [more]

Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol #21, A Companion Reader

This article series is an informal annotated bibliography for Grant Morrison’s first four issues of Doom Patrol. Have I ever seen an annotated bibliography before? Apparently not. [more]

Seed Catalogues: A Consideration of the Encyclopedic Comic Book

When my son was much younger, we visited his classroom one evening, to meet his teachers and to see the work he had produced over the course of the year.  As he showed me around… [more]

Six Reasons Why the Kingkiller Chronicle is the Next Game of Thrones

Everyone knows about Game of Thrones – seriously, everyone. Fantasy fiction fans can gloat that they’ve known about it since 1996, when George R. R. Martin published the first Thrones novel. The HBO series has… [more]

Killing the Planet: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 22

Continued from last week. Those first four issues of Swamp Thing by Morrison and Millar set the template for the rest of the series. The pretence of an everything-you-know-is-wrong reboot was swiftly abandoned, and “Alec… [more]

Not Your Father’s Classics Illustrated

“Who’s there?” It’s the opening line of William Shakespeare’s most famous play, Hamlet, and it’s also one of the most important.  Like all great opening lines, “Who’s there?” sets the tone for the entire story. … [more]

Green Lantern: How Not to Write a Comic Book Movie Supervillain

Green Lantern has gotten a bad rap. Critics like to point out that if a DC movie doesn’t have Batman or Superman, it doesn’t work. Some blame Ryan Reynolds as being miscast. Some say Martin… [more]

James Bond’s Scrambled Eggs Recipe and Ian Fleming’s Quirks

The James Bond films are, in many ways, fairly weird and offensive to notions of good taste, political correctness, and plausible storytelling, but many of us are used to their excesses and enjoy them as… [more]

X-Men: To the Outback & Beyond… Part 8

Writer: Chris Claremont Penciler: Marc Silvestri Inker: Dan Green Colorist: Petra Scotese Letter: Tom Orzechowski Editor: Bob Harras With this issue, Marc Silvestri is back on pencil duty along with Dan Green on inks.  In… [more]

Buffy: Turbulence

From issues #32-40, the climax of Buffy Season 8 plays out on an epic scale. We have yet to have a visit from Spike and Angel, for example, and they’ll both make appearances as circumstances… [more]

Fighting for Control: Present Masculine and Feminine Emotion in X-Men: Days of Future Past

I very much enjoyed X-Men: Days of Future Past.  Even with its flaws, who can complain about that ending, or the post-credits scene? Hands down, my favorite element of the film, outside of the ending,… [more]