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5 (22) 4 (13) 3 (5) 2 (3) 1 (3) 4.1 starsAverage score of 46 user reviews
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A Review of Hey Kids! Comics! #1 0
Howard Chaykin is a national treasure in the world of comic books, and he’s self-effacing as hell. In every interview I’ve ever read with the man, he’s always demure. I’ve met him at conventions a handful of times over the years and he’s the same way. He’s always humble, far more interested in talking about the work of other creators. He’s comfortable talking about what’s exciting to him about comics. He doesn’t like speaking about his own co...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Review of Hey Kids, Comics #2 0
Wherein we once again touch on the idea that historical fiction might not be for everyone.Hey Kids! Comics! Is Howard Chaykin’s historical fiction about the beginnings of the American comic book industry. This book is not for everyone but if you are passingly familiar with comics’ sordid, shameful past and if you like historical fiction, then you will not find a better brain movie to feast on. The writing is tight, the story is intriguing and Chaykin’s artwork has never been be...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Matt Kindt schools everybody on the art of high-concept! 0
Black Badge #1 is based on the idea that kids get lost and scared. They must be redirected to their parents and are therefore harmless. But, what if those kids are a black ops team of Boy Scouts that have earned every merit badge… except for the black badge. They are trained in espionage, infiltration and forward air combat control. They can go anywhere because they are perceived as utterly harmless. Using The Boy Scouts as a black ops recruiting pool is one of those high-concept things t...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Review of Farmhand #1 0
Rob Guillory is an absolute genius. Just putting that out there in case any of you who’ve ever read his long running Chew series had any doubt. For those of you who don’t know who Rob Guillory is, he’s half of the creative team behind the aforementioned series that won two Harveys and Two Eisner awards, so I’m not the only one who thinks the man is a genius. With his new series Farmhand he splits off from his former partner John Layman and goes solo. Scary territory to be...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The art of phoning it in and getting away with it. 0
For a writer who learned at the hip of Grant Morrison you’d think by now Mark Millar would know better than to half-ass out a plot and try passing it off as a fully developed story. But that’s the fun and ultimately frustrating thing about Millar. He’s inconsistent as fuck. Back in the day Millar was either brain bleedingly bad (The Ultimates, The Unfunnies, Nemesis) or absolutely on point (Civil War, The Authority, Aztek) and it was a pretty rare occasion where you’d fin...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Review of Mage: The Hero Denied #9 0
Now kids, did I ever tell you the story of how Matt Wagner’s wonderful semi-autobiographical fantasy series changed my life? No? Well it really didn’t… well actually it did. Sort of. Better sit down, let me explain. No, no take the comfy chair. Here’s some nice hot tea. Don’t worry, I put a little spiced rum in it. Don’t tell mom. You see I’ve always had this theory that most of what makes up the kind of person you are can be gleaned from three things. ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Review of Halo Jones Book #1 0
So, Halo Jones...yeah. Is there really anything new to say about her? She’s like that girl you used to date a hundred years ago and you keep running into her at the gas n’ sip often enough where it seems like it could be a coincidence but maybe not. Then you find out she’s friended to a bunch of your friends online, and you suddenly realize she’s been Facebook stalking you for a few years and the whole thing is just kinda creepy. It’s not like Fatal Attraction, boil...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Review of Jim Starlin's Marvel Cosmic Artist Edition 0
It strikes me that many of you out there will have little to no idea what IDW’s Artist and Artifact editions are. You might even know what they are and be thinking, “At $125 a pop I don’t fucking think so.” Fair points all around, but these are important bits of history. They deserve an advocate and their place in the sun.Let’s start with what these are. These editions are pretty much coffee table books. They are ultrasharp color scans of the original comic book art...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Review of Border Town #1 0
Wherein We Take the Good, We Take the Bad, We Take Them Both and Quickly Disappear Down a Rabbit Hole of Hate.Border Town #1 is a mixed bag. Let’s start with the good. The art by Ramon Villalobos is great. He has a Frank Quitely feel to his drawing style that is outstandingly matched to a story heavy on drawing everything from Chupacabra to Mictlantecuhtli and all the ancient Aztec creatures in between. Even though Chupacabra are a modern invention, Eric Esquivel uses them well and you get...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Review of The Dreaming #1 0
Wherein We Systematically Tear Down All the Work Neil Gaiman Left Us with, In Favor of an Unreasonably Unlikeable Character Who Has a Chip on Her Shoulder for No Discernable Reason.Here’s where we pick up the story. As someone who loves Neil Gaiman’s run on The Sandman I know most of these characters. The DC writers who have used the denizens of the Dreaming have done a good job over the years since Gaiman left at keeping everybody at least true to character. So I was more than a lit...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Review of Burnouts #1 0
Wherein we sit down, grab a joint, take a few drags, kick our feet up and crack open a comic book.Burnouts #1 is the new book by Dennis Culver and Geoffo. If you don’t know these two names, you should. Dennis Culver started in the mini-comics scene with a great story called Funwrecker and later graduated to co-creating the excellent digital comic series Edison Rex. Geoffo is relatively new to print, but he’s a great cartoonist and an amazing storyteller.Burnouts hits the ground runni...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A review of The Life of Captain Marvel #3 0
Wherein My Favorite Superhero Continues to Act Like a Douche, We Get About Three Pages of Actual Superhero Comic and Carol’s Mom Debuts a Bit of a Makeover.The Life of Captain Marvel #3 is yet another installment in Margaret Stohl’s half-hearted attempt to turn a superhero comic into a bad Lifetime Original Movie. I mean… uh… to… give Captain Marvel a new origin story more in line with the upcoming movie. Yeah! That’s the ticket!This book is more of the sam...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Silencer Issue #10 0
Wherein we finally decide that Dan Abnett doesn’t really need Andy Lanning, and we sing the praises of one consistently badass comic book.A General Rundown Of The Silencer And Peeking Under Rocks.The silencer is one of the few comics in today’s marketplace that consistently entertains. It’s written by the incomparable Dan Abnett. For those of you who’ve been hiding under a rock since the mid ‘90s (and judging by the current state of the comics industry that’s ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Review of Captain Marvel #1 0
Wherein the world looks a little brighter and happier again even though we have a questionable choice for a first issue bad guy and a colorist ruining the dance party.Captain Marvel #1 has a lot going for it, despite some serious shortcomings. Comparatively speaking, this issue is phenomenal. It’s far better than anything that’s been done with this title in the last few years. If you take that comparison away though, it’s just a mediocre comic that works as a serviceable start....
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Review of Captain Marvel #2 0
Wherein we get a Sophomore slump in a plot that didn’t have a lot of wiggle room to begin with, a colorist that’s still destroying the art, and an artist that still maintains some semblance of quality despite the lack of light, shadow and depth.It’s Still Better Than Anything Done With This Character In The Last Few Years, But...Captain Marvel #2 is mostly filler and setup for what will hopefully pay off a lot better in the next few issues. I know I’m channeling Pollyanna...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Review of Die #3 0
Wherein the great Wizard Gillen decrees that it is long past time we had a horror comic based around a role-playing game, and delivers the goods with awesome visuals and a Trent Reznor soundtrack while birthing a new role-playing game along with the comic.The View From The Cheap SeatsKieron Gillen has created many good things for comic book readers. His Phonogram series explored how music affects humans and humanity as a whole. His excellent series The Wicked + The Divine explored the idea of wh...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Wherein we ask a lot of obvious questions that nobody seems to be asking. 0
Captain Marvel issue #4 had lots of potential. The gods reached down and gave Marvel a gift in the form of one of the best covers Amanda Conner and Paul Mounts have ever done. This cover promises the smackdown of the century between fan favorite Rogue and pretty much nobody’s favorite Captain Marvel, two characters with a tragic and brutal history together. Conner’s dynamism is brilliantly eye catching and Mounts use of bright primary colors is on point. Which makes it that much more...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The acme of synergistic storytelling! 0
Wherein We Muse Wonderingly About the Magical Synergy that Happens When Some Creators Partner Together, and We Miss Our Dear Departed Friend.Frankenstein Alive, Alive! Is one of those rare instances where a writer and an artist click together to make synergistic magic. Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson were a team that seemed to effortlessly get each other and every time they worked together, at their worst they were merely good. Then of course 2017 cut its devastating swath across all of us and ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Seriously, what the hell is a fotonovel? 0
Wherein we wax nostalgic for a bit and muse wonderingly about how good a cinematographer John Byrne really is.Most of you are way too young to remember the bad old days before Blu-Rays, digital downloads and cell phones. Back in the late 1970s through the early 1980s, few people had access to VCR players and cell phones were big bulky kits that barely fit in your car. When a movie came out in the theater you went to see it multiple times and if you wanted to look at freeze frame stills, you eith...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Glowing Review of Tap Dance Killer #1 0
Wherein we recognize talent when we see it, and we cheer heartily while a relatively unknown writer and artist team proceeds to pull Marvel Comics’ underwear up over its head.Here’s The DealIf you’re reading this there’s a good chance you like comics. If you don’t that’s okay. But if you do like comics and if you miss the days when Marvel writers could tell entertaining, coherent stories, then Tap Dance Killer is the comic book for you.Writer Ted Sikora and ar...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Wherein a cool name for your comic only gets you so far and Canadian tweener humor falls kind of flat! 0
Exorsisters #1 has many things going for it. The art by web cartoonist Gisele Lagace is serviceable. She does a great job with her characters. You can easily differentiate between them and she gives the story a nice fluidity that makes this an easy read. The problem is that Lagace is a web cartoonist. Mind you, she’s an exceptional web cartoonist. Lagace was the heart and soul behind Cool Cat Studio, Pennie and Aggie and Menage a 3. But she’s used to a medium where all of the focus ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Yes, this really is a review of Mage: The Hero Denied #11. Just go with it. 0
I first ran into Matt Wagner’s work in 1984, just a few months before he published the first issue of Mage: The Hero Defined. I had direct ordered a roleplaying game box set called Psi World. Back then we didn’t have Amazon.com, so if you didn’t have a local comic book store, you went to the newsstands and did a circuit around town until you got all your Marvel and DC.We direct ordered pretty much everything else from the publishers or they came through the big mailing houses l...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Love Letter to John Byrne and a Toast to IDW! 0
Oh John Byrne, I just can’t quit you. Try as I might. Back in the 1970s when you were working for Charlton Comics I started following your career. You were the best artist on Space 1999 and I loved Doomsday +1. I followed you to Iron Fist at Marvel and there you stayed for many years. Your tenures on The Uncanny X-Men and The Fantastic Four reset the bar higher than it had been since the days of Kirby and Lee.Then you went to DC and for a while you made Superman interesting and kind of fun...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
It's Cats...in space. How much more cool do you need? 0
I love it when comics teach me something without actually beating me over the head with it. Catapulted does just that. Writer/Artist Sebastian Chow has a soft touch with heavy subject matter and he spins a good yarn in the process. The central conceit of Catapulted is rooted in the real world French space program that in 1963, in an effort to make themselves appear as contenders in the burgeoning space race, sent a cat into orbit because, you know… cats. Apparently the United States and t...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Of Humanoids, Hidden Gems and In A Better World this Would Have Won An Ignatz! 0
Aah Humanoids, my eternal darling of excellent European speculative fiction. You are the keeper of the wonderful stories of Jodorowski, Bilal and Moebius, and the purveyor of such fine tomes as Metal Hurlant, The Metabarons, The Incal and Exo. Why then do I find this misfit true story travel diary about a French artist expat going through culture shock in a destabilized Afghanistan circa 2005 deep within your fine over-the-top in-your-face catalog? It’s a straightforward, intimate tale, to...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Working Script: A Review of Highspot #1 0
Scene 1: Fade in on a comic book opened to its splash page, showcasing the artwork. The pages of the comic reveal a slight patina of yellow, marking it as having a little age and a little usage but still eminently readable. The pages begin turning slowly one by one as a voiceover chimes in.Voiceover Narration: In 1988 the great Mike W. Barr recruited a new and relatively unknown artist for his stellar fair-play mystery series, The Maze Agency. The art was overall well above average if a little r...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Yes Disney owns your childhood, but it'll probably be okay. 0
It always sucks when a comics company that was doing a great job with a licenced property gets the rug pulled out from under them. Brian Wood and Carlos DÁnda were doing a fine job with Star Wars until they had the bad luck to rub up against Disney's buyouts of both Lucasfilm and Marvel Comics, which pretty much guaranteed that the Star Wars licence would come quickly skipping back to Marvel. So now we have the first of what looks to be a whole slew of new Marvel Star Wars titles, and if ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Pigs, Bacon, and the Delicious Realization That History Is Written By the Winners. 1
Here's the thing about lying down with pigs. It's tempting because you think you might get bacon out of the deal, but when you finally get up all you really get is dirty. Case in point, Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir. At first blush you think, "All right, a sort of autobiography of Stan 'The Man' Lee but it's actually written by one of the best writers working in comics, Peter David... ooh and it's illustrated by one of the best artists in comics, Colleen Doran! This is Amazing...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Conquering the World, One Comic at a Time. 0
The creators who work in the field of mini-comics are a breed apart. Like the members of a garage band, honing their craft, the dedicated ones toil endlessly, mostly in obscurity. There’s a bit of a punk rock aesthetic at work here. Like their musician counterparts, mini-comics creators tend to be fiercely independent. Oftentimes, that same independent spirit gets in the way of their ever achieving any true success, but they struggle along anyway. With little recognition and even less financial ...
5 out of 5 found this review helpful. -
Riding The Dark Train To The Town Without Pity 0
It's a gut wrenching heartbreak for a comic book fan. Hollywood has finally decided to make a movie of your favorite comic book series, and you're always of two minds. On one hand, it'll be neat to see those characters you've spent years of your life with put to flesh and blood and projected up on the big screen. Considering what they can do with CGI nowadays, you just know the special effects are gonna kick butt, too. On the other hand, there's so many years worth of back story, so many guest ...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
The Act of Sergio Leone Rolling Over In His Grave 3
*I originally wrote this review shortly after seeing this movie in the theater in 2006. I think it's still valid.It was inevitable that I'd go see this movie. I've been a fan of The X-Men since 1975 when I picked up a copy of Giant Size X-Men #1. It sported a cover by the great Gil Kane and interior artwork by Dave Cockrum who I knew and liked from his run on Legion of Super Heroes. I suffered through another fifteen issues of mediocre plotting and insufferable dialogue from Chris Claremont on t...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
The Acid Dreams of Samuel Beckett 2
Okay, I'll admit it. I'm not perfect. I'm human just like everyone else. But I've tried to be open, understanding and liberal my entire life. I don't consider myself a racist or a sexist or really any other "ist" for that matter. Most of my favorite comic book writers are British, Scottish, or Irish, so I think I'm fairly open when it comes to my reading material. When it comes to European comics though, there is a black mark on my soul.I've tried bits and pieces of European graphic literature o...
5 out of 5 found this review helpful. -
Chick Flix Are For Everybody 0
I have this thing in my head. It's kind of my own personal version of a computer installation wizard. You know, the one with the annoying little messages that say things like, "Do you want to proceed?" "Are you sure you want to proceed?" "Well, if you're really, really sure..." "Okay, last chance, are you really, really, really sure?" Sometimes the bastard gets stuck and years slip by while the article, story, or review I originally wanted to write sits on my mental back burner, smouldering and ...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
It's A Nostalgia Thing? 2
The cashier at the video store gave me a funny look. She stared at me, sizing me up. She cocked an eyebrow, looked down at the DVD I'd just slapped on the counter and asked, "Underdog?"I nodded, "It's a cartoon series."She stared at me, blinking slowly like cows often do when events happening around them are overriding their thought processes. "Uh huh," she responded, sizing me up again skeptically.I smiled tightly at her, trying not to think about the Guernseys standing out in the field next to...
5 out of 5 found this review helpful. -
Our Hearts Are Filled With Razorwire 3
There are places in our hearts we don't often visit, dark corners that wall us in during the early morning hours. You've been there, just as I have. You snap awake and the room that should be familiar is strange and you're unsure of yourself, shrouded in twilight memory, slipping into blackness. The void calls to all of us.I bought The Crow graphic novel again. This will be the seventh copy I've either worn out or given to a friend. Maybe I'll hold onto this one awhile. It has been too long out ...
6 out of 6 found this review helpful. -
Spartans Versus Persians and Once Again, Gerard Butler's Nekkid' Ass! 1
If you haven't seen 300 yet, you should drop what you're doing, got to the Redbox, Best Buy, or whatever it is you do, and go see it. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. This movie kicks ass on so many levels, it's hard to decide where to begin. First, a bit of back story I think.In a nutshell, in 480 BC, Persia invaded Greece with what was at the time, the largest army ever assembled. What we know of the invasion, we get from several sources, but the most detailed account, and the one with th...
4 out of 5 found this review helpful. -
The Light That Burns Twice As Bright... 0
Who are the ten greatest comics artists of all time? Those of us who have read comics most of our lives know the question well. Invariably, it comes up in the comics shop and it's always hotly debated. The question often comes up online on forums, in IMs, on Facebook, and fans get crazy over it. We are, as a whole, an impassioned lot, and the answers to this question are as wide and varied as individual taste (or lack thereof) will allow. In my own little world, there are probably twenty artists...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Bitch Slapping Alan Moore: A Review of Albion 0
So, I didn't really have much interest in Albion. Don't get me wrong, I think Alan Moore is a genius writer, and what with his daughter writing it and all, I was certainly curious to see how far the apple falls from the tree. Albion as a concept, however had a few marks stacked up against it. Alan Moore wasn't writing it, not really. In fact, after reading it through, I doubt he had much more to do with it than the initial story idea. Also, not a big fan of husband and wife writing teams. Case ...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
The Eternals Graphic Novel Review 0
Channeling Roger Zelazny I always thought Jack Kirby's series, The Eternals, was a cool idea. The premise was that all intelligent life on Earth was created by gigantic aliens that needed these massive inverse square law violating battle suits to move around. These Celestials accelerated the evolution of the Geico style cavemen that were running around doing whatever it was modern stone-age families did. To protect these newly mutated humans, the Celestials created another race, this time with ...
7 out of 7 found this review helpful. -
Shatter Graphic Novel Review 1
A Review of the Graphic Novel Shatter, a brief discussion of universal forces, and some pot shots at Michael Bay. Most scientists agree that there are four universal forces. These are the most powerful forces in the universe, starting with strong nuclear force which is the most powerful but affects things over the smallest distance. The middle two are weak nuclear force and electromagnetic force, and these are followed by gravitational force, which is the weakest of the four, but affects th...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful.
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