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Magazine Archives for:
March 2015
Can You Read The Raven’s Speech: Multiversity Mastermen #1 Splendour Falls
Firstly, dear reader, my apologies for the delay. This write up has been one of the toughest but also one of the most enjoyable thus far. The more I reread Mastermen the more I realize… [more]
Mike Calls Saul on Better Call Saul
Better Call Saul has never had a more apt title than this week’s episode “Five-O”, because it’s here that someone finally “Calls Saul”. Jimmy McGill himself has never been more Saul-like than in this episode,… [more]
The Marx Brothers as Guardian Angels—Part 3: Harpo’s Magical Turn in Love Happy
Harpo himself wrote the storyline for the final Marx Brothers film, Love Happy, which features Groucho as narrating detective Sam Grunion and characterizes Harpo and Chico (a.k.a. Faustino the Great) as nearly supernatural figures. While… [more]
Five Historical Figures Who Deserve a Comic Book
Before we even start with this topic, we should probably clarify that this is call for biographical comics, not films. In recent years, after studying both media, I’ve developed a theory that dramatic biography is… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 21
Issue 24 “The Family Man” Writer: Jamie Delano Art: Ron Tiner Colors: Tom Zuiko Letters: Tom Frame Cover: Dave McKean Being a supernatural horror comic, it is only natural that Constantine would encounter demons, ghosts,… [more]
Baptized in the Fires of the H-Bomb: Eiji Tsuburaya, Godzilla, and the Birth of Kaiju
With my eleven Gamera movies watched and reviewed and the last outlier on its way I decided it was time to delve into more kaiju films, specifically as many of them, in chronological order, as… [more]
Michel Fiffe’s Copra: The Most Well-Known Secret in Comics
Copra is the most well-known secret in comics. Everyone seems to know its name, one repeatedly shouted from digital rooftops in choruses of “all hail!” by ardent fans and critics alike, and it’s a roar… [more]
The Marx Brothers as Guardian Angels—Part 2: Chico Helps Fellow Poor Kids From Brooklyn
A Day at the Races was one of the most dramatically satisfying Marx Brothers films to feature a financially strapped romantic couple. However, it was not the only one to get the storytelling formula right.… [more]
Superhero Fever Strikes India: Maharakshak Aryan on Zee TV
You can hardly swing an unconscious henchman without hitting a superhero in American popular culture these days. Solo and in teams, superheroes dominate our comics and movies; they’re making rapid inroads on television too, on… [more]
Descender #1: A Great Science Fiction Story Off to a Great Start
Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen’s Descender does what every successful comic does in its first issue: build the world, hook the reader, establish the themes and leave them wanting more. As space opera, it’s remarkably… [more]
Blind Swordfighting and Consumption: The Tale of Zatoichi
So Amazon is telling me that Gamera the Brave might not ship for months. Months! So while I’m waiting to finalize that particular series I thought I’d start another series I’ve been planning to review.… [more]
Tracing Some of the Roots of Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor, Part 1
In the midst of this very Postmodern setting, The Sculptor winds up echoing some very old legends with roots tracing back through 19th century Germany, 16th century England, and 1st century Rome. [more]
On Escape from Tomorrow
If you’re going to launch your film career, shooting a wild movie at Disney World without permission isn’t a bad idea. That’s what first-time director Randy Moore’s Escape from Tomorrow (2013) is most known for. It’s… [more]
Rat Queens Returns!
We should probably play a bit of catch-up for this new issue of Rat Queens. After all, issue #8 ended on a cliffhanger (as did issue #7) but that was back in October. Now, here… [more]
The Only Part I’ll Remember: The Dream States in Charles Burns’ X’ed Out Trilogy and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil
This article will attempt to explore of some of the obvious and not so obvious similarities of the dream imagery that appears in both the X’ed Out trilogy and Brazil and what that imagery represents.… [more]
Nameless #2: All Spaced Out
While the first issue of Nameless explored dream territory and the kind of dark modern-day occultism of Sandman or Constantine, the second issue literally takes right off into space, going to Event Horizon territory and… [more]
Nikkatsu Noir: A Colt is My Passport
Nikkatsu is Japan’s oldest movie studio. It was founded in 1912 but hit its peak from the fifties to the sixties. After that they started pushing pink films, basically Japanese soft-core. However before that slow… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 20
Issue #23 “Larger Than Life” Writer: Jamie Delano Art: Dean Motter, Ron Tiner Colors: Tom Zuiko Letters: Elitta Fell Cover: Dave McKean Without a doubt, the most memorable aspect of fiction are the characters—figures that… [more]
Spotlighting Underrated Films: The Hit (1986)
Boy, do I love the poster for the Stephen Frears film The Hit. It looks like a super-cool 80s noir and it sports the wonderful tag line: “Even bad guys have bad days.” Now, the… [more]
Better Call Saul vs “Slippin’ Jimmy”
Here we are, back in the world of Better Call Saul, where the themes of ethics and fraternal loyalty are firmly in the foreground. We learn a little more about Chuck’s specific medical condition, and… [more]
Honest Bees and a Critique of Capitalism: Jupiter Ascending
I loved the design of this movie. Jupiter Ascending feels like someone took Dune (the book) and mashed it up with every Tor book cover, then seasoned it with the kind of contemporary science-fiction design that rarely makes it into movies. [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed and Reconstructed, Part Fifteen
Sometimes, friends, it seems like OMAC is a comic that can’t win no matter how hard it tries. Fans of Jack Kirby’s original eight-issue run didn’t like how it ended, while readers who weren’t fans… [more]
A Look at Better Call Saul, The Comic Book
The first Better Call Saul comic book I’ve had the chance to read is an online comic, available freely from AMC, titled “Client Development”. It tells a story from the Breaking Bad days, covering scenes… [more]