World Comic Book Review

Menu
22nd April 2024

Miscellania

Ten Famous Comics in Haiku

by

This piece, which is a review only in the loosest sense, is inspired by David Bader’s book, “One Hundred Great Books in Haiku” (Penguin Books, 2010). As the promotional copy for Mr Bader’s book notes, “In the sixteenth century, Zen monks in Japan developed the haiku, an unrhymed poetic form consisting of 17 syllables arranged … Read more

“Litigation, Jim, but not as we know it”: Dr Seuss, Star Trek and Copyright Infringement in the US

by

It is a rare day that a Kickstarter campaign – and a successful one, raising $30000 – for a comic book goes on to detail intellectual property infringement as a legal risk for the venture:

While we firmly believe that our parody, created with love and affection, fully falls within the boundary of fair use, there may be some people who believe that this might be in violation of their intellectual property rights. And we may have to spend time and money proving it to people in black robes. And we may even lose that.

The statement was made by the project’s creators, Glenn Hauman, David Friedman, and Ty Templeton, and their Connecticut company ComicMix LLC.

ComicMix is a website providing news and reviews on comic books. (Interestingly, it features a column, “The Law is an Ass”, written by Bob Ingersoll, an Ohio-based attorney and comic book writer.)

Ty Templeton is well known for his work on various “Batman” comics, published by American publisher DC Comics, and has won various Eisner and Joe Shuster awards for his creative efforts on comic books. Glenn Hauman has worked on various Star Trek novels and electronic publications, and knows enough about the law, according to Wikipedia, to have been the chair of the Netlaw special interest group of the World Wide Web Artists Consortium.

Read more

A Eulogy for Marcus: Deadly Class #1-22 (review)

by

Deadly Class #1-22 (review)Image Comics, 2015-2016Writer: Rick Remender Marcus Lopez Arguello died in late 1987 – the exact date is unclear – aged only fifteen. Marcus’ friends, and we are amongst them, know that his death was a shameful waste. In the freefall of violence in which Marcus spent most of his life, it is fair … Read more

The Eight Most Iconic Guns in Comic Books

by

Guns and comic books have a long-standing relationship, but the use of guns in comic books very much dependent upon the respective comic book sub-genre.

War-themed comic books published during World War Two and after featured characters which had, as a rule, no qualms about shooting dead opposing soldiers in often stylised, bloodless battle scenes. These sorts of exchanges of fire are most prevalent in the very long-running series, Commando: For Action and Adventure, a British war comic published by D.C. Thompson & Co since 1961 and approaching its 5000th issue. Soldiers die from gunshot in “Commando” stories, but gore is never depicted.

This absence of bloodshed in these comics is a sanitisation of war for a youthful audience. There is no torn flesh and bone by sniper rifle, no fly-infestation of shredded organs by machine gun. To a very significant extent this absence of gore glorifies war: it makes it harmless save for enemies dropping bloodlessly to the ground, and the hero’s occasional, barely-debilitating bullet wound in the shoulder (one of the few bullet wounds not likely to be fatal).

This has changed in more recent times, with comic books following the lead of online games such as “Gears of War”, but also by writers seeking greater realism as the audience has grown older and more sophisticated.

Read more