Thursday, September 9 2010
“Becoming Who We Are”: The Horrors of Survival in ‘The Walking Dead Vol. 12: Life Among Them’
Thomas Harris' Francis Dolarhyde once commented that his victims were privy to a great becoming. As The Walking Dead continues, Robert Kirkman gives us front row center seats to the greatest undoing of all.
Tuesday, September 7 2010
Pood #1
Turning the physical pages is part of the pure joy of Pood #1. I didn't plan on buying this book... it forced me too.
Thursday, September 2 2010
Kill Audio
Prolific prog-rocker Claudio Sanchez creates metaphorical wonderland where an immortal family struggles to contain creativity for a clockwork god.
Tuesday, August 31 2010
Poetry After Auschwitz: Boom! Studios’ ‘CBGB’
If 20th century philosopher Theodor Adorno was right in calling for "no poetry after Auschwitz", then the problem lies with poetry before Auschwitz. Boom! Studios' CBGB celebrates that same aggressive spirit that allowed punk to decimate Nazi ideology by embracing its iconography.
Monday, August 30 2010
New Orleans Is Sinking: ‘A.D.’ and ‘Dark Rain’
These two graphic novels take contrasting approaches to the catastrophe of New Orleans.
Friday, August 27 2010
Comic Art Propaganda by Fredrik Stromberg
Is it appropriate to condense complex theological ideas into a few literal-minded panels and leave them in truck stop bathrooms for road-weary travelers to read?
Tuesday, August 17 2010
Heavy: John Reed’s ‘Tales of Woe’
With Tales of Woe, Snowball's Chance author John Reed makes a Hail-Mary for the kind of tomorrow we can all participate in.
Friday, August 13 2010
Vigilante Anti-Hero Explores Family Values. Violence Ensues in ‘Jonah Hex: No Way Back ’
Family crops up early and often in No Way Back, and it's clear that the writers link Hex's crippled family background with the shambling wreck he has become.
Thursday, August 12 2010
Feminist Nightmare: Ultimate Comics #3
With the publication of "Lies", the most recent issue of New Ultimates writer Jeph Loeb evolves a nightmare scenario that confirms a return of his full creative instincts.
Tuesday, August 10 2010
All Fall Down: Batman Widening Gyre #1-6
Filmmaker Kevin Smith attempts to write Widening Gyre into the Batman mythos as a psychologically defining moment for the Bruce Wayne character.
Friday, August 6 2010
‘A God Somewhere ’ Is a Challenging and Thoughtful Take on the Superman Story
So what would you do if your best friend became virtually indestructible? More to the point, what would your friend do?
Thursday, August 5 2010
Antigone Tomorrow: Darkwing Duck #1
Series writer Ian Brill strikes a deep vein, plumbing the depths of postwar America and the superhero genre.
Wednesday, August 4 2010
‘Wednesday Comics’ Remembers When Every Day—Not Just Wednesday—Was a Cliffhanger
DC's Wednesday Comics will remind you of the power of sequential story-telling in this showcase of some of the top artists and writers in the field working at the height of their powers.
Tuesday, August 3 2010
Graze Anatomy: Artifacts #1
In shaping a context where the fantastical elements of mythology are devalued, writer Ron Marz also shapes a context for tell the story of Top Cow as a company.
Thursday, July 29 2010
Shutting Down: Vengeance of the Moon Knight Finale
After having successfully redefined the scope of the character over a year's worth of stories, writer Gregg Hurwitz writes the genetic launchpad for a new kind of Moon Knight.
‘Melvin Monster’: Monstrous Hijinks for a Generation That Distrusted Its Parents
Melvin Monsters’ send-up of American family values sometimes takes a bitingly satirical turn.
Tuesday, July 27 2010
Peter Bagge’s Other Lives
Bagge's story is an exploration of the mediums and mechanisms that keep the riddle of the individual dancing between who we think we are, the projections and assumptions of others, and who we want to be.
‘Blackest Night’—Crash! Bang! Pow!
Mood drips from these pages, and a pleasingly sinister undertone informs the whole thing—it's about death, after all.
Monday, July 26 2010
‘Batwoman: Elegy’ Is a Comic Masterpiece About an Openly Gay Superhero
Batwoman lives, much to the chagrin of Gotham's criminal underworld and the conservative commentariat.
Thursday, July 22 2010
The Hole in Things: Batman #701
Returning to the scene of the crime, writer Grant Morrison humanizes Bruce Wayne's Batman, by depicting his fear.
