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Magazine Archives for:
2016
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My Twenty Favourite Films of 2015
Well, 2015 is long over and it’s time for me to put down my top films of the year. I always find this a fun task, although I also always find myself opening this list… [more]
The Goddamned #2: Sin and Redemption
Who are “the goddamned”, referenced in rm Guera and Jason Aaron’s The Goddamned? This ultra-violent re-interpretation of the Old Testament is faithful to the original text in the sense that the goddamned are really all… [more]
Elvis and Nixon Trailer Promises Ironic Fun
The most-requested photo in the US National Archives is not the flag at Iwo Jima, nor is it the last photograph of Abraham Lincoln, nor one of the iconic Kennedy portraits. It’s, in fact, a… [more]
Descender #9: Simple Feelings
Despite the epic sweep of this science fiction adventure, the best moments in this latest issue of Descender come in the form of a simple conversation between the two TIM robots, now being taken through… [more]
Ex Machina: Girlbots vs. Geekboys and Creation Anxiety in the New Frankenstein
Why do we fear what we create? [more]
Comics: The Medium of the 21st Century
I’ve put forward the theory before that comics will be the defining storytelling medium of the 21st century, just as novels were in the 19th and cinema was in the 20th. It’s a theory inspired… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 43
Issue #53 “Royal Blood Part Two: Revelations” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Will Simpson Colors: Tom Ziuko; Editor: Stuart Moore; Cover: Glenn Fabry; Picking up minutes after the conclusion of the previous issue “Revelations” covers the… [more]
Descender #8: Andy’s Story
In Descender #8 we finally meet the series’ Han Solo character. There’s even a Chewie equivalent (a giant slug with six eyes but he’s still charming). One could cry foul and say that Jeff Lemire… [more]
Portraits in Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Twenty: “Movement Of Ja People”
Okay, I admit it: chapter two of John Smith and Sean Phillips’ Straitgate is entitled “Exodus,” and I couldn’t come up with anything like a decent “headline” for this segment, so I went with the… [more]
Portraits In Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Nineteen: Minding The Store
The first two chapters of John Smith and Sean Phillips’ Straitgate, which ran back-to-back in issue number fifty of the UK comics anthology magazine Crisis, may not have been given pride of place on the… [more]
Invisible Republic #8: The Maia Difference
Both Arthur McBride and his cousin Maia Reveron eventually become revolutionary leaders: this is not really much of a spoiler for the continuing saga of Invisible Republic. But it’s important to note the differences between… [more]
The Good, the Trek, and the Ugly: Spotlight on Star Trek Continues
There’s something you ought to know: Star Trek Lives! Not merely in the Rasputin-like, unkillable sense that it just won’t go away, no; rather, in the infinitely more appealing sense that the franchise torch continues… [more]
My Pick for the Best Comic of 2015: Invisible Republic
“Beware the best-of list”, Shakespeare once wrote. Or he should have. There are deep problems with basing one’s opinion of the literature worth reading on one critic’s list of the “best” of the year, most… [more]
Sifting Through the Ashes: Analyzing Hellblazer, Part 42
Issue #52 “Royal Blood Part One: The Players” Writer: Garth Ennis; Artist: Will Simpson Colors: Tom Ziuko; Editor: Stuart Moore; Cover: Glenn Fabry; While Hellblazer very much takes place in the western world, the fact… [more]