Books and comics reviews, features, columns, and news. 2009-07-09T21:21:21Z Copyright (c) 2009, PopMatters.com ExpressionEngine tag:popmatters.com-read,2009:07:09 tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.107411 2009-07-09T17:00:42Z 2009-07-09T17:00:42Z Zane Austin Grant Some people move a lot, jumping from city to city, addicted to the newness and the ability to abandon their pasts. Through this process, they begin to refine their autobiographic introductions.... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107178 2009-07-09T06:00:20Z 2009-07-09T06:00:20Z Zachary Houle Niedzviecki holds a party for his 700 Facebook followers, but is dismayed when only one person is willing to actually show up. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107858 2009-07-09T06:00:06Z 2009-07-09T06:00:06Z Ian Chant tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/column/19.92518 2009-07-09T06:00:00Z 2009-07-09T06:00:00Z Shaun Huston We needn’t substitute our daily fears with the supernatural to understand what it means to adopt different identities for different purposes and to feel both tied to and apart from others, but in Barbara’s case, it helps. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107337 2009-07-09T05:59:47Z 2009-07-09T05:59:47Z Kieran Curran tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.107358 2009-07-08T10:30:16Z 2009-07-08T10:30:16Z Zane Austin Grant More than gore for gore's sake, the best zombie stories are about a force in society becoming normalized into a mob mentality. Night of the Living Dead was about an African American man in... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107212 2009-07-08T06:00:30Z 2009-07-08T06:00:30Z Josh Indar tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107152 2009-07-08T05:59:33Z 2009-07-08T05:59:33Z shathley Q This comic offers a profound meditation on the far-reaching effects the confluence of a literary revolution, engineering miracle and scientific doctrine would have on popular culture. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107219 2009-07-08T05:59:02Z 2009-07-08T05:59:02Z Mary Ann Gwinn tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/reprint/33.107702 2009-07-08T01:28:15Z 2009-07-08T01:28:15Z Lara Killian tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.107356 2009-07-07T17:00:29Z 2009-07-07T17:00:29Z Zane Austin Grant Quite a few Marvel superheroes have anger management issues; Hulk's rage often ruins otherwise sound plans, and Wolverine's rampaging has to be calculated into any team strategy. Depression,... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/column/19.107756 2009-07-07T06:00:36Z 2009-07-07T06:00:36Z Monte Williams Tomine has a gift for capturing body language and facial expressions -- his characters often say more in a silent panel than most say with an entire word balloon. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107487 2009-07-07T06:00:01Z 2009-07-07T06:00:01Z Erik Hinton Moomin owes much of its unique brilliance to its inversion of traditional argumentation. Whereas it is not unusual for an essay to recourse to fantastic thought experiment to complement its strict reasoning, Moomin builds strictly verisimilar situations out of an aesthetics of wild illogic. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.102271 2009-07-07T05:59:59Z 2009-07-07T05:59:59Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107230 2009-07-07T05:59:30Z 2009-07-07T05:59:30Z Connie Ogle tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/reprint/33.107594 2009-07-06T14:00:28Z 2009-07-06T14:00:28Z Chris Barsanti tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.107234 2009-07-06T12:59:59Z 2009-07-06T12:59:59Z Zane Austin Grant At some point in most long-term romantic relationships, couples fall upon the unfortunate question game of 'would you still love me if…?' They ask each other questions like: Would you still... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107725 2009-07-06T11:06:30Z 2009-07-06T11:06:30Z Brian Burnes tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.95072 2009-07-06T06:00:43Z 2009-07-06T06:00:43Z Diane Leach tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107644 2009-07-06T06:00:00Z 2009-07-06T06:00:00Z Matt Sullivan Much has been made of Michael Jackson’s identification with the character of Peter Pan, but the late singer had another literary devotion that didn’t make it into his obituaries: He was an Edgar Allan Poe fanatic. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107554 2009-07-06T05:59:47Z 2009-07-06T05:59:47Z Rachel Balik tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/media-center/15.107615 2009-07-03T13:24:53Z 2009-07-03T13:24:53Z PopMatters Staff tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/reprint/33.102285 2009-06-29T19:00:31Z 2009-06-29T19:00:31Z Diepiriye Kuku Things Fall Apart reduce men to husbands, and women to wives. Even progressive movements like the struggles converging on marriage... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.107359 2009-06-26T17:02:16Z 2009-06-26T17:02:16Z shathley Q The Fantastic Four was always about the costumes, as Reed Richards confesses to his daughter Val. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107344 2009-06-26T14:46:11Z 2009-06-26T14:46:11Z Sharon Hoffmann tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.95078 2009-06-26T06:00:42Z 2009-06-26T06:00:42Z Chris Barsanti This maddening new novel is cinematic, set in New York City in the midst of its slide into near-complete dysfunction. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107129 2009-06-26T05:59:23Z 2009-06-26T05:59:23Z Mark Reynolds Perhaps the strongest theme here is that there’s no singular “voice of Africa”, no overarching cosmology to unify the continent’s literature -- and that’s a great thing. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.107284 2009-06-25T17:07:45Z 2009-06-25T17:07:45Z shathley Q It is not the kind of scene readers have come to expect, but with this subtle inversion, Ellis and Hitch offer a proof of principle for 'widescreen' comics. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/reprint/33.107278 2009-06-25T16:30:19Z 2009-06-25T16:30:19Z Mike Edison The unsinkable Mike Edison — former High Times Publisher, Screw editor, Hustler correspondent, and professional wrestler of no small repute — is hitting the road to promote... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107252 2009-06-25T11:00:15Z 2009-06-25T11:00:15Z shathley Q tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.95157 2009-06-25T06:00:51Z 2009-06-25T06:00:51Z Shyam K. Sriram “Each time we move, we must leave something of ourselves behind; perhaps then the map of a Diaspora consists, like a constellation, mainly of gaps.” ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.102301 2009-06-25T05:59:06Z 2009-06-25T05:59:06Z Liz Colville tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/reprint/33.107237 2009-06-24T23:01:08Z 2009-06-24T23:01:08Z Lara Killian tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.107207 2009-06-24T17:15:03Z 2009-06-24T17:15:03Z shathley Q In Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, it is the ordinary that provides opportunity for the most strange interactions. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107181 2009-06-24T13:30:10Z 2009-06-24T13:30:10Z Aileen Jacobson tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.107180 2009-06-24T13:25:46Z 2009-06-24T13:25:46Z Connie Ogle "Think fantastic," urges the charismatic Chuck Ramkissoon, the shady but genial Trinidadian entrepreneur in Joseph O'Neill's prize-winning novel "Netherland." "My motto is, Think fantastic." O'Neill... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.95075 2009-06-24T06:00:36Z 2009-06-24T06:00:36Z Sarah Boslaugh tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/column/19.102198 2009-06-24T06:00:18Z 2009-06-24T06:00:18Z Chris Justice Like the lakes we fish in, there are great treasures lurking in those depths, and great depth lurking in those treasures. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107015 2009-06-24T05:59:41Z 2009-06-24T05:59:41Z Sarah Moore Satchmo provides a more personal look at the man and his talent for rethinking spaces, both audio and visual. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.107123 2009-06-23T17:03:05Z 2009-06-23T17:03:05Z shathley Q The bright lights of New York City's Times Square below him, Captain America jumps anonymously from a S.H.I.E.L.D. designated military helicopter. In a single panel writer Mark Millar and artist Bryan Hitch offer a compelling argument for the necessary but also unnerving confluence of military and superhuman prowess in the media-saturated reality of the 21st-century. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.107018 2009-06-23T10:30:00Z 2009-06-23T10:30:00Z shathley Q tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/column/19.107006 2009-06-23T06:00:56Z 2009-06-23T06:00:56Z Michael Antman As a memoirist, Burroughs is highly skilled at the art of aestheticized self-pity. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.95060 2009-06-23T06:00:49Z 2009-06-23T06:00:49Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.95294 2009-06-23T05:59:44Z 2009-06-23T05:59:44Z Michael E. Young tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.94343 2009-06-23T05:59:23Z 2009-06-23T05:59:23Z PopMatters Staff “Hell,” Hemon tells PopMatters 20 Questions, “is being stuck at an airport without a book, starving for thought, forced to watch CNN.” Heaven might be a bathtub full of Turkish coffee … ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.107008 2009-06-22T17:44:09Z 2009-06-22T17:44:09Z shathley Q Fabled Flash writer Mark Waid takes the helm on JLA #33 as guest-writer. In a brief interchange between Superman and Batman, Waid not only sets the tone for his forthcoming run on JLA, but also pays homage to his earlier work on Flash. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.94698 2009-06-22T06:00:19Z 2009-06-22T06:00:19Z Kevin Shaw tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.95296 2009-06-22T05:59:42Z 2009-06-22T05:59:42Z Heather West tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.102330 2009-06-21T18:37:00Z 2009-06-21T18:37:00Z shathley Q It was a strange year, 1836. It was the year that would invent the twentieth century. Naturalist Charles Darwin stepped off the HMS Beagle on the morning of October 2nd, seeing his native... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.102268 2009-06-19T17:54:16Z 2009-06-19T17:54:16Z John Anderson tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.102257 2009-06-19T16:52:40Z 2009-06-19T16:52:40Z shathley Q A seemingly throwaway tale from the early days of Spider-Man's career. Writers Brian Azzarello and Scott Levy hold back on the lead character's appearance until page 21 of a 22-page story. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/reprint/33.102204 2009-06-19T13:45:22Z 2009-06-19T13:45:22Z Lara Killian tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.95063 2009-06-19T06:00:20Z 2009-06-19T06:00:20Z Chadwick Jenkins tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.94064 2009-06-19T06:00:00Z 2009-06-19T06:00:00Z Josh Indar Cigarette smoke so permeates George Orwell’s stories it almost leaves stains on one’s fingers when reading his books. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.95256 2009-06-19T05:59:43Z 2009-06-19T05:59:43Z Christel Loar tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/reprint/33.96106 2009-06-19T00:29:41Z 2009-06-19T00:29:41Z Rachel Balik tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/graphically-speaking/40.102186 2009-06-18T17:14:52Z 2009-06-18T17:14:52Z shathley Q The reinvigoration of John Constantine after 20 years in print. Writer Andy Diggle in his first storyarc as series regular, confronts Hellblazer lead character Constantine with the effects of two decades of dishevelment. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/news/23.102177 2009-06-18T13:54:21Z 2009-06-18T13:54:21Z Duane Dudek tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/review/5.95306 2009-06-18T11:00:18Z 2009-06-18T11:00:18Z Sara Cole The Bun Field is one in which the reader is forced into the child-like state of both unbridled imagination, coupled with uncertainty, and a certain inability to quite fathom what is happening around oneself. ]]>