Category Archives: Comics

X’ed OUT Volume 1 by Charles Burns

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X’ed OUT Volume 1 by Charles Burns came out this week and this is his first new story since Black Hole. Burns is the master of creepy teenage horror with amazing art that looks innocent until one eyed monsters and creepy crawling monsters are mixed in with images of teens (with sexual images and disturbing behavior). Burns has the cleanest and most disturbing art around and his stories are genuinely creepy.

Derby Dugan’s Depression Funnies by Tom De Haven

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Derby Dugan’s Depression Funnies by Tom De Haven is a homage to the days when newspaper comic strips ruled the comic world. Starting with The Yellow Kid, Little Nemo in Slumberland and my favorites, Krazy Kat and The Spirit, comic strips were a huge cultural touchpoint up until Max Gaines decided to fold the strips up into a book and sell them on the newsstand. De Haven creates a new strip, Derby Dugan, and focuses on the artist and the writer to show the time and place. So, who is Derby Dugan?

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Superman Earth One by J. Michael Straczynski

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Every couple decades, DC Comics decides to re-invent Superman. The trappings are the same (newspaper, Lois Lane, Metropolis), but the technology and society are updated to current day. From John Byrne to Mark Waid, the reboots keep coming without changing the essential character. In Superman: Earth One, J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5) takes his swing at it with painted art by Shane Davis. This is the first in a series of original graphic novels of this new Superman. It’s been compared to Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, but in a different format. So, how is the new Superman.

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Bloom County Complete Library Volume 3

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Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume 3 (Bloom County Library)In a recent interview with Slate, Gary Trudeau was asked why he kept going when Watterson, Breathed and Larson stopped. Trudeau mentioned why he though Watterson and Larson stopped and how much he admired their work. That pretty much sums up the relationship between the two premier social satirists of the 1980s. In Bloom County Complete Library Volume 3, Breathed is at the top of his game. Some of my favorite strips are in here and some of his most biting satire as well (including a swipe at Trudeau and his wife). What does this collection include?

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From Hell by Alan Moore

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From Hell is Alan Moore’s take on Jack the Ripper. Jack is one of the great literary challenges because everyone has their own take on it. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of books, both fiction and non-fiction, about the murders and everyone has their own theory. As Moore details in the epilogue, he doesn’t care about who the murderer is, he just wants to use the murders as a backdrop for the story he wants to tell. So, he co-opted the theory from Stephen Knight about a royal conspiracy with a Freemason solution to the murders. So, what makes it so great?

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Daredevil: Love and War by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz

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Daredevil: Love and War is a short prestige format story by the team that also brought you Elektra Assassin, Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz. This story tied into a story from Miller’s first Daredevil run. where Daredevil forces the Kingpin to abandon a mayoral candidate when he finds Kingpin’s missing (and amnesiac) wife. This story is Miller and Sienkiewicz taking a closer look at Kingpin.

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Dr. Evil’s papers available

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You can’t go through the history of comic book in America without seeing the huge distorting effect of Dr. Frederic Werthem had on comic books in the 1950s. It took almost 30 years before mature subjects made it back into mainstream comics. The Library of Congress has opened up a 222 containers from Dr. Werthem. These documents had previously only been available to approved people from the estate. But now it’s open to all. I’m looking forward to seeing what nuggets of information come out from this.

H/T to ArsTechnica

Bone Volume 1 by Jeff Smith

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Probably the most successful comic from the mid 1990s independent boom was Jeff Smith’s Bone. What starts out as a deceptively simple farce, turns into an epic adventure with 10 volumes and at least 2 spin offs. Smith comes out with little to no previous professional experience and self publishes this amazing work which earned him dozens of awards. But who (or what) is Bone?

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Miracle(Marvel)man by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and a cast of thousands

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Miracleman (also known on the England side of the world as Marvelman) started as a Captain Marvel replacement and ended up as a legal hot potato that involved bankruptcy, confusion over copyright ownership, lawsuits, two different comic book companies buying the rights from two different copyright holders, delays, confusion and still no end in sight. And it’s a sad story because not only are the Alan Moore stories now out of print, but the Neil Gaiman stories have never finished their storyline. But who or what is Miracle(Marvel)man?

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Longshot Comics by Shane Simmons

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Longshot Comics by Shane Simmons is at one extreme end of the comic book artistic spectrum. In Scott McCloud’s book Understanding Comics, McCloud talked about the different types of art in comic books. From realistic to shapes to words are the corners of the art triangle. Longshot Comics deals deep inbetween words and shapes, by presenting all the characters as dots. That’s right every character is represented by a small dot. And to make sure the dot doesn’t get lost in the panel, the book is composed of 24 pages of 160 panels. Each page has 16 rows of 10 columns of panels each of which has 1 or more small dots representing people. Now if you figure that a regular comic book has about 6 panels per page. this 24 page book is the equivalent of 32 regular 20 page comic books. Now is it worth reading?

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