Clik here to view.
Ass Kicked
Todd McFarlane was fantastically successful for a brief span of the 1990s, successful enough that he was able to parlay a brief dalliance with the zeitgeist into a lifetime’s worth of cred in a very...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kim Reaper Vol 1
Maybe I’ve got a broken heart. That’s not unusual. I’ve always got a broken heart. That’s life, really. Everyone’s got a broken heart now. They’re all the rage. Maybe I’ve got a broken heart and I’ve...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Beef #1
The Beef goes into very graphic detail about how cows are killed in slaughterhouses. You see the machine that puts the bolt in the cow’s brain. You see the animals being dismembered. Fun stuff. That...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked The World
The best way in which to appreciate Pénélope Bagieu’s Brazen is to imagine the book’s ideal audience. This is a thick book, a substantial weight in the reader’s hand. You can imagine the type of person...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Crisis In Time
I. So let’s talk a little bit about Crisis on Infinite Earths! In the first place I should probably say that when I was younger and getting sporadically published in The Journal during roughly the last...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Carnet de Voyage
The “New Expanded Edition” of Craig Thompson’s Carnet de Voyage uses the occasion of the reissue to allow the author to reframe his earlier narrative. It’s a good use of the device. Sketchbook...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Young Terrorists Vol. 1
The problem with Young Terrorists isn’t that it isn’t about anything, but that it’s about too much. There’s a lot of plot, a lot of exposition, a lot of characters. Charts and graphs are employed....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Love & Rockets #5
I Some people learn from their mistakes, but they aren’t usually very interesting people. Having been away from comics for well over a year doesn’t just mean abstaining from crap. I hadn’t seen an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
We Need to Talk about Thanos
We’re all friends, right? Pals, chums, confidantes . . . just between you and me, these comic book movies are a pain in the fucking ass. Some of them are fun, don’t get me wrong! It seems almost...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dark Angels Of Darkness
What is most interesting and essential about Dark Angels of Darkness is Al Gofa’s line. From the opening shot of two leather-clad superwarriors in final embrace to the last panel of a puppy frolicking...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Projection
There’s something going on in A Projection by Seekan Hui, something vaguely sinister and vaguely unsettling, but only vaguely defined. That’s an important feeling to put a finger on, because that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
I’ll Assign This Treason Case to You
For a guy whose hi-tech vest literally harnesses the power of madness Rac Shade kind of has a stick up his ass. That seems very much the point? He can travel through the Zone of Madness and remain...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hasib & The Queen of Serpents
The most significant observation I can make about David B. after reading his work for fifteen years is that the man knows precisely where and how to place every line on the page. That to me is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Love Letters to Jane’s World
My favorite genre of social media jape is straight women who proclaim they’re going to only date women from then on out because men are too difficult. That one always gets me. To put it another way,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hey, It’s a Column about Wolverine
What, you thought I’d forgot the reading order for Marvel’s Fall 1989 crossover spectacular Acts of Vengeance? As if. Also, did you know there are many pretty girls in Australia? I think about that a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Passing For Human
Liana Finck draws like someone who has spent a great deal of time unlearning how to draw. She describes the process herself while watching on & off boyfriend Mr. Neutral at work: “When I watch you...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bald Knobber
The Bald Knobbers were a vigilante group active in southwest Missouri during the 1880s. They wore black hoods with pointy horns that must have looked positively Mephistophelian in flickering torchlight...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have been working together for a while, since Phillips inked part of Brubaker’s Scene of the Crime at Vertigo. The first time they made waves together was Wildstorm’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What He Taught Me
The credit states that Thor was created by Stan Lee & Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby – I believe that’s the current formulation. It always makes me laugh for the very simple reason that it is both...
View ArticleClik here to view.
McCay
Thierry Smolderen and Jean-Philippe Bramanti’s McCay suffers no shortage of ambition. The book purports to be a life, of sorts, of Winsor McCay – the “of sorts” being the operative phrase here, as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This Woman’s Work
The cover of Julie Delporte’s This Woman’s Work features the author fighting a polar bear with her hands. There’s humor there, but its not a happy joke. Late in the book Delporte shares the dream from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Little Girls
So let’s talk about negative space. A very important principle throughout the fields of visual art and design, and no less important in comics where negative space often fulfills the very necessary...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clue: Candlestick #2
So let’s start with things I didn’t know prior to this week: did you know that there was a licensed comic book for the popular board game Clue? Perhaps “popular” might even be pushing it, I can’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Empty Mirror
Alright, let’s immolate my last remaining shreds of credibility right off the bat by saying that I am the person who didn’t like Spider- Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Now hold on, before you go to all...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitar
Wait . . . one more for the road? OK. You talked me into it. Now, in exchange for your patience and kind forbearance I will finish this essay with my absolute best convention story. Trust me. It’s from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Secret Voice: Vol. 1
So let’s grill some hash on the subject of The Secret Voice Volume One, a comic of my recent acquaintance by Zack Soto. It is published by Floating World Comics, and although I can’t remember if I’ve...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ontography 1-3
Scott McCloud died for somebody’s sins, but not mine - leastwise, thanks to Understanding Comics I know full well that single-panel “gag” cartoons aren’t actually comics. I mean, except for that they...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Immersion Program
Temperament likely dictates your reaction to dream stories. Someone with a rich and rewarding dream life may find them fascinating and meaningful - people with silly or strange dreams may find little...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are You Not Entertained? Tegan Enters The DC Universe
The best Batman comic ever made. The way I read comics has changed significantly over the course of the last twenty years. Maybe it’s a familiar story to you: buying and collecting comics is great when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rusty Brown
The last time I read a book that won the Pulitzer Prize - or at least, the last time I read a book for the specific reason that it had won the Pulitzer Prize - was Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Copra #1
Accessibility is overrated! So is context. When I was myself a wee sprat just coming up in the world, most of the comics for sale at the local 7/11 seemed to operate according to the guiding principle...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Visitor #1
So to my eternal chagrin - I won’t say yours, as I don’t know you and would hate to presume - Valiant is still A Thing. I’ve been wrong about a lot of Things over the years so I guess it’s really no...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Missed Connection
It took a few pages to decide where I stood on Tess Smith-Roberts’ Missed Connection, but only a few. There’s a rudimentary quality here that might present an obstacle for some readers, an intentional...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Canopus #1
Helen’s an astronaut, you see. She wakes up in a space suit on the surface of a planet orbiting the star Canopus, 309.8 light years from earth. She doesn’t know how she got there, what she’s supposed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Wreckage: Part One
Come On Pilgrim The Doom Patrol have always been an outlier in DC’s firmament of spandex stars. Whether or not, as co-creator Arnold Drake (alongside Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani) was wont to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Wreckage: Part Two
Bossanova So, brass tacks - what the hell is the Doom Patrol anyway? Let’s really ask the question, because I think it’s a question Grant Morrison thinks is really important. The Doom Patrol was DC’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fire Power: Prelude
Let me begin by saying that I have a great deal of respect for Robert Kirkman. His qualifications at this late date go without saying. Whether or not you’ve ever been a fan of The Walking Dead in any...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Judge Dredd: Control
Can we just stop whatever we’re doing for a moment and talk about Chris Weston? This guy knows how to draw some comics. This solid fact congealed when the present volume arrived on my lap - Control, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Grateful Dead: Origins
Noah Van Sciver has long been one of my favorite cartoonists. I’ve championed his work in a number of venues over the years, and he’s been consistent both in terms of prolificacy and of marking...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vampire: The Masquerade Winter’s Teeth #1
Why not talk about vampires for a bit? That’s something we can do, still, as free persons. We have gathered here today to discuss a new comic book adaptation of Vampire: The Masquerade - venerable...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hedra
Let’s talk about space. Not outer space, or rather, not directly. I’m talking more about the space on the page. You know, the area on which an artist draws. Every inch of the paper is empty space when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
First Knife
It is the year 3241 and things kind of suck. There was a Great Disaster, see, maybe you’ve heard about it, it’s called the Anthropocene. Some other stuff happened too, between then and now, though the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Marjorie Finnegan: Temporal Criminal #1
Imagine with me, one moment, the life of one Mr. Garth Ennis, Esq. - Gartholemew to his intimates. Perhaps he spends a month or two at a time reading about tanks, and all the ways the militaries of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Poison Flowers & Pandemonium
Did we take Richard Sala for granted? Magic 8-Ball informs me signs point to yes. Upon his death I was surprised to learn he was 65 years old. That’s silly, of course. After all, he was in RAW - and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Beef Bros
Let’s talk muscles. Meat! Human meat. We are all beef. Some beef is marbled. (This is the premise of Beef Bros: all men are meat but some meat is more gnarly than others.) The putative brothers...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Light That You Shine Can be Seen
I Among my responsibilities as America’s Comics Critic Laureate I am often called to address hordes of schoolchildren. Gangs of roving fresh-cheeked moppets surge from every corner and duck blind...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Light That You Shine Can Be Seen – Part 2
Previously: The Light That You Shine Can Be Seen IV Anyway. You know this stuff. I’m just listing stuff. It all goes back to that picture, that Aparo splash page. I’ve been going through a laundry list...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Light That You Shine Can Be Seen – Part 3
Previously: Part One, Part Two VII So far we’ve told a pretty straightforward story about a character in a time of change. Denny O’Neil was in charge of almost a decades’ long initiative to update and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Good Asian
Ah, representation - how unproblematic! If you’ve never had the joy of seeing your marginalized community constantly misrepresented in the media and throughout pop culture, well, let me tell you, it’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
As If By Chisel: Barry Windsor-Smith’s Monsters
Melencolia I, Albrecht Dürer 1514. Digital image provided by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Perhaps we shall begin with Albrecht Dürer? Oh, gosh, I hear you say, shuffling your feet, clutching your...
View Article