ON COMICS CHARACTERS
ON SCI-FI FRANCHISES
ON GRANT MORRISON
ON TV AND MOVIES
OTHER BOOKS
DOCUMENTARY FILMS
Magazine
Captain America, Alan Moore, Alex Ross, and the Truth
I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. The Captain America film is coming out, but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel. I just don’t understand Captain… [more]
Sex Criminals #4-5 Review
What’s going on with our heroes, the sex criminals, for issues #4 and 5? Well, a bit of sex, a bit of criminality, and somewhere in there a bit of reality intrudes. This continues to… [more]
Capital Thoughts: Captain America #17
Captain America # 17 is ostensibly about Dr. Mindbubble’s attack on Nick Fury and SHIELD. Mindbubble seems to be doing the bidding of Iron Nail, who argues that SHIELD exerts “fascist control” over the planet.… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 16
There comes a time in just about any season of television where a show has to slow down for a bit and push its pieces around the board. Slowly edging forward conflicts and building to… [more]
The Eric Stephenson Thing
So… that address Eric Stephenson gave at ComicsPRO recently seems to be making lot of waves (in the still small pool of American comics) and while there were things to be applauded there were, also,… [more]
Review of Community Season 5, Episode 9
VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing might be my favourite episode yet of Community’s fifth season. It’s not necessarily the best one – the b-plot was a bit weak – but it made me laugh in… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Eight
The other day I was banging out a review for issue number two of Marvel’s new George Romero-scripted zombie series Empire Of The Dead and I remarked that second issues are kind of a tricky deal… [more]
Cody Walker on Noir City
Cody Walker, Webmaster here at Sequart, has put together a Kickstarter for the second issue of his comic book Noir City. JULIAN DARIUS: You and your co-writer, Rich G. Valerius, have been working on Noir City… [more]
Sandman: Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit — Hope for the Exile
The words of Ovid’s Metamorphoses bear the emblematic slogan of Sandman #74, the second to last Sandman of it’s original run: “Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit.” Gaiman’s translation of the phrase in the comic is “Everything… [more]
20th Century Boys, Volume Five
This is an important volume, deserving of a particularly long write-up. You’ve been warned. This volume starts the conclusion of Kenji’s story, and introduces the next part of this tale – Kanna’s story, which takes… [more]
The Secret Origin of the JLA, and of “Mark Millar” Too: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 11
Continued from last week. It would be another seven months until Morrison and Millar’s next public collaboration on the Batman. In that time, the new JLA title would establish itself as a remarkably successful reboot. Its… [more]
300 Things I Hate about 300: Rise of an Empire
[NOTE: the following essay contains spoilers. As to whether a film that’s already rotten can be “spoiled” … well, that’s a debate for another time.] You know it’s a bad sign when you only have… [more]
Superhero Accessories: Part Two: Truth, Justice, All That Stuff
…continued from here. DC have long had a problem fitting Superman into the grimmer world the DC Universe has become now its readership mostly consists of adults. It’s clear that senior editors feel the ‘big… [more]
Capital Thoughts: Captain America #16
Issue #16 of Captain America lacks a lot of things, including Captain America, who does not make an appearance except in a hallucination where he appears as the Red Skull’s domesticated pet—I kid you not.… [more]
Review of Alan Moore’s Jimmy’s End
I honestly don’t even know where to start with this one. How do you review anything by Alan Moore, much less a short film he’s written? The guy’s a genius. I’m not simply saying that… [more]
Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol, A Companion Reader
This essay series will examine intertexual themes in Grant Morrison’s first four issues of Doom Patrol (#19 to #22). [more]
Celebrating 15 Years of Cult Classic The Goon
After going through three publishing houses, multiple collaborations, and the eternal wrath of “Margaret Snodgrass”, The Goon has reached its 15th anniversary (or ‘gooniversary’, as creator Eric Powell punned on Twitter). I personally love The… [more]
X-Men: To the Outback & Beyond… Part 1
It was certainly not the first time that Marvel’s Merry Mutants left the comfortable grounds of the Xavier Mansion that housed The School for Gifted Youngsters. Way back in the late 1960’s, when Charles Xavier… [more]
Death Comes Calling for Serenity in Leaves on the Wind #2
Life and death are very much on Mal Reynolds’ mind in Serenity: Leaves on the Wind #2. Whereas the previous issue was about how life is continuing for the Serenity crew, with Mal and Inara… [more]
Monstrosity in The Unwritten: Frankenstein’s Creature and Father Figures
A book within a book is not an original story. On the other hand, many books in a comic connected by the collective consciousness in a universe similar to ours is a completely other thing.… [more]
The Batman As Father Figure: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar Part 10
Continued from here. DC’s post-crisis, Dark Age portrayal of the Batman had long been a source of aggravation for both Morrison and Millar. Years before Morrison landed the job of scripting the JLA, the two men… [more]
Jeff Smith Delivers the Old Rasl Dasl
One of the running gags I used to enjoy on The Simpsons was the dreaded educational filmstrip. Whenever Bart or Lisa’s class would settle in to watch one of these out-of-date filmstrips, the faded color,… [more]
MIND MGMT Volume 2: The Futurist Review
Writer/Artist: Matt Kindt Published by Dark Horse In my review of Matt Kindt’s MIND MGMT Vol. 1, I wrote that I preordered the second volume instantly upon finishing volume 1. I was that engrossed in… [more]
Review of Community Season 5, Episode 8
Community’s fans have always extolled the virtues of the show’s concept episodes. School-wide paintball games, science projects, Chang, and more have all served as excuses for pitch-perfect genre parodies that remained firmly grounded in character-based… [more]
Building an Altar to the Super-Hero Holy Trinity
As I was reading Lance Parkin’s Magic Words, a biography of Alan Moore, I looked to my right at the nightstand against my wall and came to the realization that it is, in fact, an altar.… [more]