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Magazine Archives for:
July 2014
Devil Dealers: Our Tapestry is Alive and Well
I’m not usually a big horror person. Despite this, I’ve somehow accumulated a good amount of horror knowledge over the years, and I’ve also developed a great appreciation for what horror stories can offer across… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Sixteen
Honest, folks, after this, we’re all done here. I know, I know — Scarab the mini-series is done already, but let’s consider this something of a postscript to look at what ended happening with the… [more]
“The Notion that Mankind is Diseased and Must be Replaced at all Costs”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 26
Continued from last week. The conflict between Millar’s two opposing teams of Masons appears to represent a clash of empathy and hubris, tolerance and tyranny, good faith and a world-razing secularism. Where one Lodge is… [more]
Guarding the Galaxy from the Discount Bin: Star-Lord: The Special Edition
Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m not in love with the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer. I know this puts me in the comic book community’s version of the flat Earth society, but I’m fine with… [more]
Sequart Releases Diagram for Delinquents
Sequart Organization is proud to announce the release of Diagram for Delinquents, the documentary film about Fredric Wertham, directed by Robert A. Emmons, Jr. In 1950, America was in a state of panic. Juvenile delinquency… [more]
2001′s Planet of the Apes Remake is the Worst of the Franchise
Awkwardly sexualized apes, bad writing, clumsy thematics, and Mark Wahlberg set this film apart from the rest of the franchise. Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of the classic SF franchise starter may not be good, but it is interestingly bad. More bad than interesting though… [more]
An Open Reply to Fantasy Author Patrick Rothfuss
Patrick, In your most recent blog post, you replied to an article that I wrote for Sequart, “Six Reasons Why the Kingkiller Chronicle is the Next Game of Thrones.” You wrote: “Over the years, I’ve been… [more]
Alan Turing in Context, Part 2
Since my last writing, Tor has finished posting the graphic novel of Alan Turing’s life, The Imitation Game, by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Purvis. You can find my comments on the first part here. What… [more]
X-Men: To the Outback & Beyond… Inferno Part 1
The first major crossover of my time as devotee of the Uncanny X-Men, Inferno marked the culmination of year’s worth of story, a vast majority of which I was unfamiliar with at the time, and… [more]
Asterix the Gaul, Captain America, and Steroids
What if Tyrion Lannister had Popeye’s super powers? What if Thor had the appetite and I.Q. of Cookie Monster? What if the Spartacus universe was cross-pollinated with the Smurfs? Well, then you’d get Asterix, Obelix,… [more]
Why Aren’t Horror Comics Scary?
Six months out from its announcement at 2014’s Image Expo, we’re still waiting for a solicitation on Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham’s “The Nameless,” a book that I can guarantee you, based on those two… [more]
An Apology to Pam Noles
Early this year, I wrote an analysis of an interview Alan Moore did with Pádraig Ó Méalóid. One day after it went live, I learned that the “Batman scholar” referenced in the interview (whom I’d… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 1 #67
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]
Stunt Writing Yields a Brilliant Novel: Dave Eggers’s Newest
Imagine you’re a novelist who gambles. You lose a big bet, and the buddy you lost to decides to make your writing life incredibly difficult. He sets these restrictions for your next novel, and as… [more]
Cosplay and Color: Skin Tone and Character Portrayals
Among my other duties for A-Kon is administering the social media pages, the Facebook group in particular. Recently there was an interesting debate on the use of cosmetics and other techniques to alter one’s skin… [more]
The Room
The Room is clearly establishing itself as the current cult classic in the vein of Plan 9 From Outer Space. I first watched it with two friends during a day when we were deliberately seeking… [more]
Why Ravi Thornton’s Graphic Memoir is an Early Candidate for the Year’s Best
At a recent conference I attended for English educators, a panel of writers was discussing the phenomenon of the memoir, and debating what the popularity of the form has to say about today’s readership. The… [more]
Sturm und Drang: Germanic Influence on Shingeki no Kyojin
Seid ihr das Essen? Nein wir sind die Jäger Spoilers to follow: The bestselling manga Shingeki no Kyojin by Hajime Isayama has been adapted to television, inspired several video games, and a commercially successful English… [more]
Bugged Out! Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Fifteen
All good things, as they say, must come to an end. As must all bad things, and all mediocre things… and all truncated, confused, ambitious, intriguing, but ultimately, hopeless things. And so it was that… [more]
Indian Culture in Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji)
I will warn you now: this article has spoilers. What I have in mind would be impossible without them. So, that said, allons-y! In the anime series Black Butler, episodes 13 – 15 introduce us… [more]
“The War Between the Super-Freemasons”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 25
Continued from last week. Millar’s command of his craft wouldn’t significantly improve over the remainder of his time on Swamp Thing, though progress would undeniably occur. He’d dial back on the degree of redundant dialogue… [more]