RSS feed for Articles
SEQUART MAILING LIST
ON SCI-FI FRANCHISES
ON GRANT MORRISON
ON TV AND MOVIES
ON COMICS CHARACTERS
OTHER BOOKS
DOCUMENTARY FILMS
Articles
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed…”: DC’s Frankenstein in Post-Millennial Publication, Part One
Frankenstein (or, rather, Frankenstein’s creature): that oft studied literary figure, that icon of cinematic horror and, upon closer inspection that almost universal and perpetual figure in the comic art. Appearing in various titles from a… [more]
Buffy Goes to the Comics: An Introduction
Joss Whedon once claimed that he would continue to engage with the characters of his doomed Firefly series in any possible medium, including “etchings”. As intriguing as a woodcut series sounds, either for Firefly or… [more]
“There are Some Things in Life It’s Best not to See”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 3
Continued from last week. The suspicion that Millar idled his way through his years at 2000AD is at least in part countered by the contents of Favourite Things. For it seems unlikely that he would have… [more]
On Canons, Critics, Consensus, and Comics, Part 3
This week marks the final installment of our search for a comics canon. As I mentioned in the first column, I recently conducted a survey of the people who contribute to Sequart. A total of 25… [more]
20th Century Boys Volume Four
This is an exciting volume. A lot of it focuses on Shogun being generally badass. Shogun acts rather like a vigilante in this volume. He’s continually saving abused women from Thai gangsters. At first this… [more]
Development of the Spiritual Psychosis: “The Kindly Ones,” Chapters 1-3
After absconding to an inn outside the bound of time and reality, Gaiman takes the reader on to the final arc that constitutes The Sandman (discounting the coda material The Wake). The first three issues… [more]
Will We Ever Get a Definitive Superman Film?
With a character that has 75 years of history there has been many graphical representations of Superman. From Grant Morrison’s description of a Circus strongman to the silver age kiss-curl to the mullet of the… [more]
“Yes, Alfred. Time for Bed.”: The American Comics of Mark Millar, Part 2
Continued from last week. Favourite Things was the first mainstream superhero tale that Millar had ever sold. Previously, he’d depicted the costumed crimefighter as a horror-hybridised symbol of corruption and cruelty, as with The Saviour and… [more]
On Canons, Critics, Consensus, and Comics, Part 2
As I explained in last week’s column, I recently asked my fellow Sequart contributors to answer the following question: “What are the 10 greatest works in the history of the comics medium, and who are the… [more]
How the Final Season of Breaking Bad Invalidates the Entire Show
Don’t get me wrong: I’m a Breaking Bad fan. Hell, I watched the first episode when it aired for the first time, and I loved it. I loved the second episode too, in large part… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Three
First off, a correction : when we left off last time I told you we were sometime late in 1991, with promising young British comics scribe John Smith receiving a phone call from DC editor… [more]
20th Century Boys Volume Three
This is definitely the best volume of the series so far. Now that’s almost a false statement in a series like this, because this volume’s quality is utterly dependent on the two prior. Without their… [more]
Locke & Key and the Poetics of Space
“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” – John 14:2 Last month’s final issue of Joe… [more]
A Merry Marvel Mutant X-Mas
In the internet world, specifically that of the comic book discussing community, I am beginning to think that I share a brain with Brett White who writes the “In Your Face Jam” column for CBR.… [more]
Enter Mr. … Miller?: The American Comics of Mark Millar, Part 1
Continued from here. Exactly when Grant Morrison landed Mark Millar the job of scripting Swamp Thing is hard to pinpoint. Millar has hinted that the GLASCAC comic convention in the late April of 1993 may have… [more]
On Canons, Critics, Consensus, and Comics, Part 1
The semester was nearly over. As a class, we had spent nearly four months reading and discussing comics, and now, in the final two weeks of the term, each student was delivering an oral presentation… [more]
Loving the Other: Warm Bodies as Post-Post-9/11 Zombie Movie
It’s easy to dismiss the 2013 zombie film Warm Bodies as a mash-up between Romeo and Juliet and the zombie genre. It’s just as easy to guess that Hollywood saw this as a potential way… [more]
Community and Geek Culture
Yesterday I talked about Big Bang Theory, a hugely popular sitcom with a largely toxic depiction of geek culture. To counter that I thought I’d talk about Community, a smaller, wonderful sitcom with a massively… [more]
The Big Bang Theory and Geek Culture
Geeks have become a spectacle. Right now being a geek is considered cool. It’s considered fairly trendy. Very few people who self-identify as geeks are the real deal. This statement may cause all sorts of… [more]
An Unknown Soldier in an Unknown War: Joshua Dysart’s Unknown Soldier Issue #3
An exploration of the Unknown Soldier’s meta-mythology about war and the individual. Joshua Dysart reboots the franchise in Uganda. [more]
The Power Cosmic Screams: The Death of Reality in Sandman #56
The Worlds’ End Inn: here, reality goes to die. That is the conclusion one can draw after finishing Sandman #56. Existing outside of time, this nexus of infinite zeitgeist is constantly being remade and destroyed… [more]
Escaping the Cage: Martin Vaughn-James’s The Cage and the Question of Comics
In comics studies, there is a great interest in defining what exactly constitutes a comic. Scott McCloud famously begins his Understanding Comics by trying to define exactly what we can and what we cannot consider… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Two (or, The British Invader Who Stayed Home)
Believe it or not, I’ve never known a John Smith. They say it’s the most common male name in the English language, but seriously — I never went to school with one. I’ve never worked… [more]
On “The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas”
Surely among the least-known early Transformers comics, “The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas” appeared in the 26 December 1985 issue of Woman’s Day magazine. The four-page story wasn’t an insert; it was printed on page… [more]
Flowers, Fire, and Dreams in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman: Overture #1, Part 3
The next segment of The Sandman Overture Issue #1 doesn’t have a very auspicious beginning. Pages twenty-five and twenty-six open up into a spread with Morpheus flying towards his Castle and his Dreaming kingdom: now… [more]