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Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man, Part 2
In the summer of 2011, Spider-Man died.
Grant Morrison’s Day-Glo Years: The Mystery Play
The Mystery Play is another short-form Morrison work from the “adult comics” era of the early ’90s.
“The Anatomy Lesson”: Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Issue #21
Saga of the Swamp Thing #21: “The Anatomy Lesson” Cover date: February 1984. Writer: Alan Moore. Artists: Steve Bissette and John Totleben (co-penciled by Rick Veitch). Colorist: Tatjana Wood. Letterer: John Costanza. Cover: Tom Yeates.… [more]
On Jeff Hawke: Overlord, by Sydney Jordan and Willie Patterson (1960)
“Adult” all too often has a different meaning now. But in the very best sense of the term, Jordan and Patterson’s Jeff Hawke was a newspaper science-fiction comic strip for adults.
Unproduced Attempts to Film Batman’s Origins
Batman Begins was, in fact, preceded by other attempts to dramatize Batman’s origins, both on film and on television. In 1999, one production company proposed a weekly series about the boyhood of Bruce Wayne prior… [more]
Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man, Part 1
I don’t like to address politics very often when I write about comics.
Comics as Catharsis: Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home
Comic literature is truly an exciting field, as it expands its canon to include more than the super-hero genre that got things started in the 1930s and ’40s.
Meet the Magus, Part 4: Phantasmagoria and the Occult in Saga of the Swamp Thing
The most pertinent question to ask of ourselves at the outset of discussing fictional works by Moore that deal in some way with magic or even the occult is “what is the difference between a… [more]
On Hawkworld, by Timothy Truman and Alcatena (1989)
In the shadows of the planet Thanagar’s great High Towers, where the three billion souls of the Empire’s alien underclass are segregated away in the most squalid and soul-butchering of conditions, there’s a statue of… [more]
Warren Ellis and the Fantastic Four
Warren Ellis hates super-heroes. At least, that’s what people say. He certainly has played his part, through a few off-the-cuff remarks, in this misconception. But it would be more accurate to say that Ellis hates… [more]
Grant Morrison’s Day-Glo Years: St. Swithin’s Day
During the early ’90s, Grant Morrison was wrapping up his acclaimed runs on Doom Patrol and Animal Man and moving away from mainstream super-heroics.
“Loose Ends”: Alan Moore’s First Issue of Swamp Thing
Saga of the Swamp Thing #20: “Loose Ends” Cover date: Jan 1984. Writer: Alan Moore. Penciler: Dan Day. Inker: John Totleben. Colorist: Tatjana Wood. Letterer: John Costanza. Cover: Tom Yeates. Editor: Len Wein.
On Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s Captain America (1941)
1-2-3-4! Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s “The Case of the Hollow Men” is punk super-heroics.
The Fever of Urbicande, Chapter 4 Concludes
We’ve previously looked at The Fever of Urbicande‘s prologue (and some of its implications), as well as chapters one, two, three (in two parts), and most of four (parts one, two, and three). We now conclude our… [more]
Meet the Magus, Part 3: The Deep Green, Jack of the Green, and the Swamp Thing
Ten years before Alan Moore informed friends and family that he would be pursuing the path of a practicing magician, he began working for the megalithic American comics company DC on the production of The… [more]
More The Fever of Urbicande, Chapter 4
We’ve previously looked at The Fever of Urbicande‘s prologue (and some of its implications), as well as chapters one, two, three (in two parts), and most of four (in two parts). We now continue our look… [more]
Grant Morrison’s Day-Glo Years: Kill Your Boyfriend
NOTE: Rather than start chronologically in the early ’90s, I chose to begin my exploration of Grant’s Day-Glo Years with a work that best exemplifies the themes, motifs, and energy of that era of his career
A Ghost Dressed in Weeds: Unearthing Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing
Alan Moore began his career as a minor cartoonist working for his local newspaper and U.K. music magazines, producing humour strips like Maxwell the Magic Cat, Roscoe Moscow, and The Stars My Degradation.
On Charley’s War, by Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun (1979-80)
You have to be careful what chapter of Charley’s War you pick to introduce yourself to the strip. It’s all too easy to stumble upon a three- or four-page episode that, at first, seems to… [more]
The Fever of Urbicande, Chapter 4 (Cont.)
We’ve previously looked at The Fever of Urbicande‘s prologue (and some of its implications), as well as chapters one, two, three (in two parts), and the beginning of four. Although it’s been a while, we… [more]
My Introduction to Manga, Part 2: A Mechanical Emerson for the Future in Urasawa’s Pluto
In 1942, Isaac Asimov introduced the world to the three laws of robotics and, in doing so, set the stage that later science fiction writers interested in writing about robots would have to cross.
Meet the Magus, Part 2: The Universal Dance in Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s Snakes and Ladders
When we discuss the relationship between Alan Moore’s artistic works and magic, clearly marked boundaries become, instead, borderlands of relationship.
On Planetary #3, by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday
“After this, there’s nothing,” explains the ghost of the murdered Hong Kong cop. There is, he assures Planetary’s “mystery archaeologists,” no afterlife awaiting them, or indeed anyone else, when death arrives. Something has brought the… [more]
Miracleman, Chapter 6 Concludes
We’ve previously begun discussion of chapter six of Alan Moore’s Miracleman and continued through page five. We now conclude discussion of this pivotal chapter.