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No Country for Old Men: Jack Kirby, The Hunger Dogs, and the Modern Age of Comics
Jack Kirby’s a great artist. He just can’t draw very well. –Anonymous comics fan Okay, so it was me. I’m not proud of it, but that “anonymous” quote was something I actually said a few… [more]
Oh, My Aching Cranium!: Jack Kirby’s OMAC Deconstructed and Reconstructed, Part Two
15 pages a week — written, penciled, and edited. Think about that for a minute. That’s the number that Jack Kirby’s fairly-lucrative-for-its-time DC contract called for when he created the concept of the One-Man Army… [more]
It’s Jack Kirby Week at Sequart!
In celebration of what would have been Jack Kirby’s 97th birthday on 28 August, Sequart will be publishing content related to Kirby all this week. Sequart uses themed weeks as a way of celebrating popular… [more]
Discovering McGruder’s Black Jesus: “The Shit Heist,” Episode 3
I had the opportunity to meet Christopher McCulloch (AKA Jackson Publick) and Doc Hammer this year at the San Diego Comic Con. (It was a random affair, the sidewalk meeting of a minor hero/celebrity that… [more]
The (de)Evolution of DC Animated Movies
The DC Universe Animated Original Movies (DCUAOM) has long been one of my favorite areas of the expanded media empire that comes along with DC Comics being part of the Warner Brothers family. Although they… [more]
Living Like a Comic Book: Casanova vol. 1 “Luxuria”
Note: In my previous article on Matt Fraction, Gabriel Ba, and Fabio Moon’s Casanova, I examined the series in its relation to themes present in the fiction of Thomas Pynchon. This next series of articles… [more]
Manifest Destiny: Death is their Ally
There’s a line in Oliver Stone’s criminally underrated film Nixon in which the titular character muses to a painting of Abraham Lincoln, “What is that’s helping us? Is it God? Or Death?” That must express… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: The New Warriors Volume 1 #33
On Christmas Day 2013, 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… [more]
Comic Con Discoveries Part 3: American History Z and Bob the Angry Flower
There’s no denying the power and popularity of zombie stories, even if I, and others including Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, can’t fully understand why. Obviously there’s the horror genre thrills, the sheer grotesque power… [more]
The Fisher King: Love and Mercy
For those of you playing the home game, some time ago I did an MA dissertation on the works of Terry Gilliam. Like most things I wrote as a student, today I find my middlebrow… [more]
“Ritual Must Be Observed”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 31
Continued from last week. As for his two warring Lodges of super-mages, Millar seems to have used them as a symbol of religious sectarianism and reconciliation. Their differing interpretations of how to save the world… [more]
Discovering McGruder’s Black Jesus: “Fish and the Con Man,” Episode 2
My previous article was an introductory exposition on Black Jesus and the treatment of Jesus by Aaron McGruder that discussed setting Black Jesus within an environment akin to the historical Jesus’ milieu. Now that I… [more]
Science Fiction Elements of Infinite Jest: Part 1, Videophony
David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel Infinite Jest is, for my money, the greatest novel ever written. It appears regularly near the top of “best novels of all time” lists such as Time Magazine’s. It has… [more]
When Vultures Weep: Reflections on Robin Williams and the Alchemy of Joy
I didn’t want to write this column. From the first moment I heard about the death of Robin Williams, it was hard enough just to process the news. Besides, I knew millions of other people… [more]
“This Mutant Dreamtime” – Language in Australian Post-Apocalypse Horror Broken Line
Broken Line, available digitally from Perth-based Australian publisher Gestalt Comics, is set after a typical Cold War-era nuclear war. In the familiar nightmare image of a man-made apocalypse, artist Emily K. Smith renders the mushroom… [more]
Sex Criminals #7: More Real Life
In a week in which many of us are wondering if there’s any justice left in this world, one bright spot is to remember that Sex Criminals was honoured with an Eisner recently, which means… [more]
Advanced Creative Storytelling and the Art of Metanarrative: Community’s Journey to #sixseasonsandamovie
As the spring television season began its descent into summer, Community fans shared a collective thought: this truly is the darkest timeline. For five seasons, the battlecry of #sixseasonsandamovie had proven to work as Community… [more]
Venture Bros. is Awesome
You’d think designing a show almost purely to mock and taunt things I love would more or less instantly earn my hatred. Well almost instantly. Well in some cases almost five seasons. But Big Bang… [more]
The City on the Edge of Forever: IDW Re-imagines Harlan Ellison’s Original Teleplay
The original draft of City on the Edge of Forever by Harlan Ellison is one of the more famous unproduced screenplays in television or indeed film history. The final episode itself was justly recognized as… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Ghost Rider Annual Volume 1 #2
On Christmas Day 2013, 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… [more]
Defending Guardians of the Galaxy
Okay. Let’s do this. *Cracks knuckles* Recently Julian Darius wrote a real mic-drop of a response to Guardians of the Galaxy. It was pretty incendiary. Like everything Julian writes it was excellent, and made me… [more]
Comic Con Discoveries Part 2: Ghost Cop and the Works of Arthur Ball
Many of the comics I acquired at SDCC were true flukes. Both of the books here were simply handed to me by friendly, approachable creators who were happy to discuss the work and have it… [more]
Japan’s “New” Anti-Piracy Campaign for Anime and Manga
There has been much discussion of a newly enforced law in Japan regarding online piracy. A-Kon, for which I run various programs, and most other anime conventions do not permit bootlegging at events and internet… [more]
Why Don’t We Trust Filmmakers?
Where is the trust? That is the question I asked after the recent flurry of criticisms leveled at Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice. It got me thinking about fandom reactions in general when it… [more]