World Comic Book Review

29th March 2024

Plague #1 (Review)

Plague #1 Markosia, March, 2017 Writers: Dennis MaGee Fallon, Jason Palmatier “Plague” is a new fantasy comic book mini-series from British comic book publisher Markosia. The comic’s title is derived from the historical setting, the year 1352 A.D. Bubonic plague (also known as the Black Death) swept through Europe and killed millions of people (and … Read more

The Eight Most Iconic Guns in Comic Books

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.

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A Note on Alan Moore’s Retirement from Comics and Cinema Purgatorio #1

Alan Moore’s Cinema Purgatorio #1 (review)
Avatar Press, April 2016
Writers: Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Max Brooks, Kieron Gillen, and Christos Gage

In its introductory pages, “Cinema Purgatorio” #1 essentially describes the strange existence of the cinema-goer: divorced of everyday reality, watching the realities of someone else but unable to intervene, somewhere in-between. It is a state of powerlessness and disconnectedness. If purgatory exists, then the existential ambiguity of the movie theatre would most likely describe it.

On 9 September 2016, the man behind “Cinema Purgatorio”, acclaimed British comic book writer Alan Moore, announced that he was retiring from writing comic books.

What does that mean for this title?

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