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Magazine Archives for:
2014
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Zenescope’s Joe Brusha and the Problem with Provocative Covers
Founded in 2005 by Joe Brusha and Ralph Tedesco, Zenescope’s notorious covers have been a topic of intense conversation within the comic community for the entirety of the company’s history. From souped-up, sexy Dorothy and… [more]
Larry Gonick, Thomas Jefferson, and the Fourth of July
The first time I proposed teaching a comics class, someone asked me what I wanted to call it. “Um … Comics? Comic Books? Something like that,” I said, thinking it should’ve been pretty obvious. The… [more]
X-Men: To the Outback & Beyond… Prelude to Inferno
Genosha was now in the rearview mirror but for the last several issues, ever since her dream sequence with S’ym, something had been building with Madelyne Pryor. The demon “stabbed” her in the heart with… [more]
Review of Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert
In her award-winning novel, Mostert blends alchemy, the art of memory, high magic, and murder to create a highly original psychological thriller. Gabriel Blackstone is a cool, hip, thoroughly twenty-first century Londoner with an unusual… [more]
Alan Turing in Context
If you are reading this on a computer, and you almost certainly are, you owe a small debt to Alan Turing. He was the genius code breaker in WWII who theorized and created the first… [more]
Transformers: Age of Extinction Review
The fourth Transformers movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction, is pretty terrible. It’s not really going to have its critical defenders, so piling on the bandwagon and expressing my many problems with the film doesn’t seem… [more]
Optimus Prime Died So The Transformers Could Live
In 1986, Optimus Prime died. And I cried. Not big, wracking sobs or anything, mind you. But it’s entirely possible a single tear rolled down my cheek. I feel comfortable admitting that in a public… [more]
Roll Out! A Review of Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #30
Since the beginning, the Transformers have had a long and distinguished history in comics that have included stories that have been both revered and fondly remembered over the years. From the concept’s earliest days at… [more]
Optimus Prime, Pedophile
Did you know that the beloved leader of the Autobots had a fetish for underage girls? Or that a Megatron look-alike not only shared the same fetish, but repeatedly tried to rape those girls? Or that… [more]
Reinventing the Cog: A Conversation with The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye’s James Roberts
Many might think Transformers comics are glorified toy catalogues at best. However, to Transformers fans old and young, the toys are but one facet or tool for the indulgence of the imagination in creative and… [more]
When the Good Guys Deserted: On the Blaster Saga, Conclusion
Continued from yesterday. The following American issue — #37 (Feb 1988), also by Budiansky, Delbo, Akin, and Garvey — follows up on the Throttlebots plot. It also features Ratbat and the Earth-bound Decepticons, who haven’t… [more]
Why “Man of Iron” May Be the Best Transformers Story Ever Told, Conclusion
Continued from Wednesday. As the final chapter of “Man of Iron” begins, the British military has unearthed a portion of the side of the buried spacecraft. It’s now clear that the hill in question formed… [more]
Why I Dig the Transformers Movies, Part 3: Dark of the Moon (2011)
Continued from yesterday. Despite its strange title, Dark of the Moon represented a return to form for the series and managed to push both its human and Transformers plots into brave new territory. We’ve looked… [more]
They Made Me Watch Transformers: Dark of the Moon
So please God read this so it’s not in vain. I even tried to find something interesting and maybe even educational to say about it. That took effort! [more]
When the Good Guys Deserted: On the Blaster Saga, Part 4
Continued from yesterday. Issue #36 (Jan 1988) doesn’t only mark the conclusion (such as it was) of the Blaster saga. It also marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Optimus Prime — a year… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Warheads Volume 1 #5
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]
Transformers: Headmasters and Cycles of Violence
When the Headmasters toys debuted, Marvel’s Transformers comic was selling well, in part due to the excitement surrounding 1986′s Transformers: The Movie. And so the Headmasters got to debut not in the monthly Transformers comic but… [more]
Why I Dig the Transformers Movies, Part 2: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Continued from yesterday. Say what you want about the Transformers sequels — and I’ll say plenty of good and bad things below. They were directed by the original movie’s director, Michael Bay, executive produced by… [more]
When the Good Guys Deserted: On the Blaster Saga, Part 3
Continued from yesterday. You might think that, after issue #32, Blaster would reconnect with the Throttlebots. But that never happens — at least not on-panel. When the story picks up again in issue #35 (Dec… [more]
Why “Man of Iron” May Be the Best Transformers Story Ever Told, Part 2
Continued from Monday. As the second chapter begins, Sammy wakes from a dream and walks onto his roof, where he sees an extraterrestrial craft pass overhead. It’s a creepy sequence, and it has far more… [more]
Southern Bastards Starts with a Bang (and a Plop)
Southern Bastards #1, from Jason Latour and Jason Aaron, is the most recent high point in the barrage of high-profile releases coming from Image Comics over the last couple years. Insider fans like myself have… [more]
Why I Dig the Transformers Movies
It’s become kind of fashionable to mock the Tranformers movies. In large part, that’s due to their director, Michael Bay, who’s got a reputation for big explosions and superficial plots. When someone wants to mock… [more]
When the Good Guys Deserted: On the Blaster Saga, Part 2
Continued from yesterday. Issue #30 (July 1987) — also by Budiansky, Perlin, Akin, and Garvey — continues the story, but begins in an unorthodox fashion: by introducing the Throttlebots on Cybertron. The Throttlebots were small… [more]
Unicron Vs. Galactus: Battle of the Planet-Eaters!
When coming up with villains, you usually want someone who poses a real threat to the story’s heroes. Few things are as important to a story as making the conflict seem like something’s at stake.… [more]
“A Martyr for All Mankind”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 24
Continued from last week. At first, Morrison and Millar’s scripts were religious only in the very broadest sense of the term. With the former’s influence clearly dominant, Swamp Thing’s series-opening crisis of identity is clearly framed… [more]