The News Blog of Comics Culture
TweetThis May DC released a free guide in magazine-like format, about the size of a small prestige graphic novel itself, containing a list of “essential graphic novels” and also a “chronology” for new readers. It’s not a bad idea considering what a difficult time new readers, or those who have left for awhile, can have [...]
Tweet And if you haven’t, I strongly recommend that you don’t read this full review, or maybe not even any of it, since not knowing anything about the comic before reading it makes for a pretty astonishing experience. TEN GRAND reads like a Choose Your Own Adventure story and you feel convinced somehow that you [...]
TweetDark Horse appears to be increasing their list of titles at a gradual but steady pace, with some laudable caution but what seems to be a specific agenda to build on their successes rather than simply allowing those successes to maintain their reputation over time. Many readers have been following the publisher’s works since their [...]
TweetThe semi-annual Long Beach Comics Expo landed on May 11th with a substantial line-up of guests and also some smart choices in programming. Guests included Rich Avons, Joe Benitez, Brian Buccellato, Ale Garza, Joel Gomez, Ray-Anthony Height, Vince Hernandez, Drew Johnson, David Mack, Frank Mastromauro, Dustin Nguyen, Nei Ruffino and more, showing a strong representation in [...]
Tweet Black Mask Studios is the ambitiously game-changing publishing company founded to bring out OCCUPY COMICS and much more, headed by Matt Pizzolo (GODKILLER, HALO-8), Steve Niles (30 DAYS OF NIGHT and much more), and Brett Gurewitz (Epitaph Records). In interviews when the company formally announced itself, they touted a new structural framework for comic [...]
Tweet George Jurard is a versatile artist working in an indie spare-line style, often with soft, muted pastels and grey-tones in color choice. He’s currently working on a creator-owned web series, BEACON LIGHTS, for TRIP CITY, a series of “loosely interlocking stories that take place over the course of 200 years”. As you can tell, [...]
TweetThe first Iron Man movie landed like a bomb blast in my personal pop culture universe, making me believe that superhero films could find their own voice while forming a dialogue with comics. Strict adaptations hadn’t been that great in the past and there needed to be another approach, one that had a deeper understanding [...]
Tweet You might have caught wind of the fact that a multi-media iPad app has been released this week featuring The Doors as part of a “fan experience” that was created to coincide with the digitization of boxed sets by Warner Music Group. The app seeks to “tell the tale” of The Doors through a [...]
Tweet This week Valiant are spring-boarding off their Free Comic Book Day offerings to announce “Summer of Valiant” previews of upcoming titles. Their first announcement was that QUANTUM AND WOODY would be coming back starting in July, their first super hero team to grace the Valiant charge into their highly regarded and fan favorite lines [...]
Tweet I guess I should have expected that, the terrifying part, given not only the title, but the author concerned. I somehow missed reading Joe Hill’s short story THE CAPE when it was winning all kinds of awards, so first encountered it here in comics form in IDW’s recent “Treasury Edition” of several short comics [...]
Tweet The fact that both the Iron Man character and the Avengers team has reached their 50th anniversary since creation hasn’t received a lot of attention in the press, and this could be because the immense success of the IRON MAN and AVENGERS films means that the powers that be don’t particularly want the public [...]
Tweet Pop culture is a bizarre creature and often creates strange intersections in media. Brooklyn-based artist Jen Ferguson has found herself standing at a cross-roads of TV, blogging, and illustration in her projects OUT OF LUCK, based on the HBO series LUCK, and in the Triple Crown horse racing previews that she’s been asked to [...]
Tweet Matt Fraction skyped in to celebrate Iron Man’s 50th anniversary at a Comic Book Round Table event held at John Ordover’s Soho Gallery for Digital Art in New York on Wednesday night, and provided some heartfelt insights into the way in which the armored playboy has drastically changed Fraction’s own life. Along the way, [...]
Tweet These graphic novels have been chosen because they were all released in the past 6 months and equally combine qualities of well-crafted concepts and remarkable artwork to create solid visual narratives. They aren’t the only great graphic novels that have been released in recent months, but they are notable, and worth considering as near-misses [...]
Tweet Coinciding with all of the big C2E2 announcements from just about every comics publisher, IDW released some information about more than one upcoming series bringing the characters created by Jay Ward to comics. The two big titles will include MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN, leading up to a March 2014 film release from DreamWorks Animation [...]
Pre-School Bans “Super Hero play” at School
TweetIn an image being circulated on social media, with the name of the school and school officials vaguely redacted (you can almost make them out), a flyer distributed at a pre-school bans school-time play from mimicking TV shows and movies due to their violence. But the central image on the flyer depicts superheroes with a [...]