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Magazine Archives for:
2015
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The Flash Season 1 Episode 18 Review
Some spinoffs attempt to distance themselves from their parent shows as quickly as possible or only start airing after the parent show has concluded, naturally separating themselves from the show that helped create them. The… [more]
The Onslaught of the Mushrooms: Toho’s Serious and Silly Sixties
“I felt that I was now seeing plain, whereas ordinary vision gives us an imperfect view; I was seeing the archetypes, the Platonic ideas, that underlie the imperfect images of everyday life. The thought crossed my mind: could the divine mushrooms be the secret that lay behind the ancient Mysteries?” [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 26
Issue #30 “Fatality” Writer: Jamie Delano Art: Ron Tiner & Mark Buckingham Colors: Tom Zuiko Letters: Gaspar Saladino Cover: Kent Williams Picking up immediately from the previous issue, “Fatality” brings The Family Man storyline to… [more]
Descender #2 Shows True Promise
In the second issue of Descender, the focus is on the robot boy, Tim, rather than our human protagonist, Dr Quon. While it might seem like Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen are borrowing too heavily… [more]
Community Season Six: “Basic Email Security”
Community episode 6, “Basic Email Security,” self-identifies as the third entry in a trilogy consisting of “Cooperative Calligraphy” and “Cooperative Polygraphy.” Apparently they couldn’t match the “cooperative” moniker to this episode, which is pretty funny.… [more]
“Text Is Vulnerable To Criticism.”:The Multiversity: Ultra Comics #1
Well. Here we are. The penultimate issue of the Multiversity event. If we are to take anything away from this issue it is the realization that, contrary to my initial impressions and predictions, the greater… [more]
Fighting Two Wars: George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead as a Critique of 1960s American Society
A. Introduction Night of the Living Dead is considered to be one of the most important horror films in the history of American cinema and is “widely recognized as the first modern horror movie” (Badley,… [more]
Chrononauts #2: The Past is History
Time travel stories are always tough to write, because most sci fi writers spend an inordinate amount of time building the “rules” of the world. Specifically, they worry about “damaging” the timeline or introducing some… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Four: Way Too Calm Before The Storm
First off, apologies to those of you who may be following this series for the delay between our last segment and this one. I wanted to wrap up on my OMAC retrospective here at Sequart… [more]
“Shut Up, Donny!”: An Existential Reading of The Big Lebowski
The Coen brothers’ most enduring film might be 1998’s improbable cult phenomenon, The Big Lebowski. Coming after the triumph of Fargo and before the inspired musical experience of O Brother, Where Are Thou?, Lebowski occupies… [more]
Smorgasbord #16: Shiny Happy Podcast
In the wake of last episode’s Scandalpalooza, Tom and Shawn discover a whole new world of happy thoughts and positivity (with the exception of Michael Bay). Ego the Living Planet is name-dropped, Shawn prepares for… [more]
The New Tale of Zatoichi : The Blind Yakuza Goes Full Colour
After the success of the speedily produced sequel to The Tale of Zatoichi, Daiei realized what they had on their hands – the makings of a proper franchise. If The Tale of Zatoichi Continues was… [more]
“It’s Not a Game!”: Sam Peckinpah’s The Westerner
You remember that amazing TV show that got cancelled after just a few episodes? The one from the respected TV writer who then went on to become a famous filmmaker? The show was sort of… [more]
The Bastards of Southern Bastards #8
One question that keeps returning as we enjoy Jason Aaron and Jason Latour’s Southern Bastards is how much of it is specifically Southern, and how much qualifies as simple old-fashioned bastardry? Not being a southerner… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 18 Review
Arrow is a dark show. It started as a fairly obvious riff on the Christopher Nolan school of superheroes, and while it has since developed its own unique identity, that dour outlook persists. That’s part… [more]
“The Song and the People is the Same”: Authenticity and Interracial Suspicion in American Music
Amiri Baraka’s quotation “The song and the people is the same.” questions the philosophical conviction that the essence of a thing predates its existence and tells us something about music’s nature as an art form… [more]
Nameless #3 Balances Sanity and Madness
The new issue of Nameless is a step up in scale and in pacing from the previous issues, There’s some plot momentum happening and certain dramatic elements seem to be moving into place for a… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 17 Review
It’s becoming harder and harder to talk about the third season of Arrow without sounding like a broken record. The season keeps circling improvement but never quite manages to sort out its disparate pieces into… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 25
Issue #29 “Sick at Heart” Writer: Jamie Delano Art: Ron Tiner & Kevin Walker Colors: Tom Zuiko Letters: Gaspar Saladino Cover: Kent Williams While being comprised of many styles of stories that can be grouped… [more]
Community Season Six: “Laws of Robotics and Party Rights”
Episode five of the sixth season of Community, “Laws of Robotics and Party Rights”, might be the best episode of the season yet. I say “might” because it still has a few problems. Let’s get… [more]
Notes on Casanova: Acedia #1-2
This year I wrote a book, published by Sequart, called The Future of Comics, The Future of Men: Matt Fraction’s Casanova. That book argues that Fraction’s science-fiction spy series offers both a critique of capitalism,… [more]
Better Call Saul Season Finale: The Path Less Travelled By
Jimmy McGill is angry, Saul Goodman isn’t. Jimmy always has a joke, Saul doesn’t. Jimmy is all charm, Saul is all artifice and business. That first shot of the season, and the series, showing Saul… [more]
A Countless Number of Small Items: King Kong vs Godzilla and Akira Ifukube Pt. 2
I visited temples in Rehe and saw numerous Buddha statues embedded all over the wall. Even though each statue was humble, seeing all of them together on the wall impressed me greatly. [more]