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Writer and artist: Barry Windsor-Smith Fantagraphics, May 2021 One of my favorite Marvel comics of all time is Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X, a comic that tells the story of Wolverine’s origin in an interesting and creative way, avoiding many of the tropes that had plagued “origin story” superhero comics since their very conception. You can
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis Artist: Michael Avon Oeming DC Comics, May 2019 (as a collection) RUNNING DOGS OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM used to designate characters who emulate the virtues of capitalism from the sidelines, like a dog running alongside a bus with a wagging tongue. In China the label was intended to be nasty, like
Writer: Cris Feldman Art: Michael Charles, Maurice Terry Jr, Michael Brooks A set of legal proceedings launched in the District Court of Harris County in Texas has caused a stir in legal circles, as far away as here in Australia where your critic (in his spare time, a lawyer) practices. The plaintiffs, Criss-A-Less Inc trading
Writer: Brian Azzarello Artist: Eduardo Risso Vertigo Comics, 1999-2009 As ever, this review contains spoilers. It seems an odd thing to have to warn readers that this review contains insights into critical plot developments and twists, given the title concluded publication twelve years ago. Such is the compelling nature of the extended chess game that
Writers: Anonymous editors Artist: Frank Frazetta Vanguard Press, 1981 MANY SHED TEARS for graves left behind, and search the detritus of past lives while names and episodes blow away, leaving only occasional sparkles of horror or heroes to supply a face in the era of our lost loved ones and the loved ones of others.
Writer/Artist: Matt Wagner Image Comics, July 2017 – Feb 2019 SOME SAY HE MAKES NO SENSE when he talks about magic. Yet this time I believe I get it as Kevin Matchstick explains to his son in Mage, Issue 3, how magic “kinda exists alongside what we’d call ‘our world’” as in feeling the electric
Writer: Arnold Pander Artist: Jonathan Vankin Shadowline, 2009 IT COMES DOWN NOT TO WHO’S BIGGER, but who is more determined and more virtuous, the side one wants to win, or some ones for the many ones, like the intelligentsia class that was once supposed to save the world’s benighted peasants with revolutionary modern wisdom, but
Writer and creator: Andrew Guilde Art: Isaac Perez PMB Comics, 2020 Schlock horror is the equivalent of eating out-of-date chocolate. You screw your nose up at the experience, feel mildly unwell, and are left wondering why you bothered. We may be a little snooty, but bad horror is not something to be encouraged. There is
Writer, artist and creator: Dan Nokes 21st Century Sandshark Studios, May 2020 “As serious as a stick of dynamite at a Zippo convention”. This comic, with the unlikely title of Chicken USDA Rejected, created by Dan Nokes, has one of the most amusing adults-only warnings we have seen: We laughed and laughed from beginning to
Writer: Warren Ellis Artist: Salvador Larroca Marvel Comics, 2007-2008 In 2007, Warren Ellis was tasked by American comic book publisher Marvel Comics to re-rig an abandoned 1986-1989 series of titles, called “New Universe”. The New Universe series of titles featured superheroes exiting on a parallel world to that of Marvel Comics’ main characters, created in
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis Artist: Alex Maleev Jinxworld, 2019 I WAS SHOCKED BY THE PANORAMA OF BRIDGES splayed in ruins across the Willamette River in the opening scenes of the five-issue SCARLET sequel by Brian Michael Bendis that appeared two years ago now, illustrating what revolution might look like in his hometown and mine, just
Writers: Roy Thomas, Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio Artists: Keith Pollard, Gene Day Marvel Comics, 2020 MILLENNIA AGO ALL THE GODS CONVENED to ponder the fate of the world when the Celestials arrived from outer space to inspect and cultivate life on Earth, which they had themselves planted many ages ago in a cosmic gardening project.
Writer: Steve MacManus Artists: Dan Cornwell, Colin Maxwell, Filippo Roncone, Pete Western, Andrew Richmond The 77 Publications, June 2021 “Press here to Enter!” This call to action sits in an arrow pointing to a button labelled “Ignition”. It sits on the corner of the cover page, the starting point for thumb and forefinger in the
Writer: Alex Paknadel Artist: John Lê Vault Comics, 2020-1 Little wonder the first issue of this title sold out. Giga is a science fiction story focussed around dead mechas – giant robots with highly advanced artificial intelligences, some of which have been rendered inert as a consequence of some sort of internecine war. Sadly, we
Writers: Deain Akande and Julian Clay Art: João Bosco Released: January, 2021 The intersection between superheroes and horror is well-explored. Superheroes, at least at the point of their American genesis in the late 1930s, were crafted as kid-friendly fare. Time quickly passed, and creators endeavoured to differentiate their caped and masked character from other caped
Writer and Artist: James Romberger Dark Horse Comics / Berger Books, 2021 Eco-apocalypse science fiction or “cli-fi” is very much in vogue. Within American comic books, Snowpiercer, a dystopian comic about an Ice Age-crippled Earth, which gave rise to a successful motion picture, is perhaps the most famous in the genre. The earliest American example
Writer: Jonathan Hickman Artist: Francesco Mobili Marvel Comics, May 2021 This very recent issue of X-Men, a comic about mutant superheroes from American publisher Marvel Comics, adds a level of danger and desperation not seen in the title for some time. Writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Francesco Mobili have been on various tangents since setting
Writer: Jean-Claude Mézières Artist: Pierre Christin Cinebook. First published March-June, 1980 SPACE NEVER APPEARED SO PEDESTRIAN as Laureline noses her spaceship through traffic toward the stars, demure in her spacesuit, leg up on her big pilot’s chair, gazing out at sublight speed with time on her hands, lazy day on the freeway. Then you see
Writer: Silverio Pisu Artist: Milo Manara Dark Horse Comics, August 11, 2018 EVERY SCENE IS BIZARRE in the most tasteful way in the world of Milo Manara, like underground comix for the Medici. A few years ago I was pleased to find Dark Horse collected THE MANARA LIBRARY in nine handsome hardbound volumes, the last
Writer: Jean-Franҫois Di Giorgio Artists: Frédéric Genêt, Delphine Rieu Titan Comics, 2018 QUOTIDIAN GIVES THE RIGHT SENSE of elegance to day-to-day beauty simply here now. If all my life spent in poverty could inhabit the terrain of the SAMURAI according to writer Jean-Franҫois Di Giorgio, and artists Frédéric Genêt and Delphine Rieu, I would be
Writer: Cory Andrew Sousa Artists: Francesco Iaquinta, Chris O’Halloran Designer: Dezi Sienty Alterna Comics, 2017 IF YOU HOLD MY HAND I can take you to the spot where I found the camera. There is probably nothing there to see. The camera, though. You should look at that. On screen, before a silhouette shudders from the
Writer: Ed Brubaker Art: Sean Phillips Image Comics, October 2018 I CAN TELL A STORY IN PERFECT FAITH the facts are straight, and still be wrong. Light glances off the real in imaginary ripples before reaching us. This is how the art gripped me in this unsettling crime novella, as if seen in an intervening
Creators: Michael S. Bracco, Oliver Mertz, Mike Isenberg Independently published, 2018-2021 The most beautiful of all ruins, in science fiction, surely is that of the giant mecha. Here is the promotional blurb for this 140 page graphic novel, The Monuments: THE MONUMENTS is a 140 page, beautifully illustrated, mystery/adventure story from Oliver Mertz (FIRST LAW
Writer: Christophe Bec Artists: Eric Henninot, Milan Jovanovic Humanoids, 2016 NATURE SOMETIMES ALLOWS HUGE CREATURES, though most are long gone. Whales, giant redwoods, big dodo birds, maybe soon the whole Amazon forest are recent casualties within memory alongside ancient extinctions like the dinosaurs 66 million years ago downed by nuclear winter following an asteroid impact
Story: Alan Moore, Malcolm McLaren Artists: Antony Johnston, Facundo Percio Avatar Press, 2012 I WANT TO BE IN THE SCENE like a machine, be in the scene, like a machine. Man, I can’t tell you where I was when I first heard Malcolm McLaren doing his dance extravaganza music, it would sound too cool. That
Writers: Tom Peyer and Paul Constant Artists: Jamal Igle, Juan Castro Ahoy Comics, collected May 2019 The “nature/nurture” debate has been the fodder for various superhero genre titles over many years, especially as creative teams began to explore “What if…?”, “imaginary stories” and later, “Elseworlds” within the well-plumbed continuities of major American publishers. In Marvel
Story: Jean Dufaux Art: Griffo Dargaud Benelux, 1987-1989 LIFE WAS SUPPOSED TO GET BETTER. People power was supposed to bring us to our senses, but then the spawn always spawning call it a spawn and nothing else with a name took us to the brink of destruction and beyond. Dystopian fantasies of the 1980s fondle
Writer: Ales Kot Art: Tradd Moore and Heather Moore Image Comics, collected as a trade paperback in January 2019 I HAVE TO HOLD MY BREATH to go back inside this psychodelicized pop art world throbbing with drama so real and grounded every scene plants itself in space though it looks like it shouldn’t: ready to
Writer: Geoff Johns Artist: Gary Frank Image Comics, 2021 Stop us if you have heard this tune before. For those of us who lamented the demise of the ground-breaking but eventually anchorless Vertigo Comics imprint and the ill-fitting replacement by the DC Black Label imprint, there is something bitterly satisfying about DC Comics’ Chief Creative
Writer: Justin Jordan Art: Donal Delay Image Comics, Valentine’s Day, 2018 FACE IT YOU KNOW how it feels. Love hates you. You are a complete clod, a horrible fraud, totally clumsy and inept, and not in a cute way. People rappel away from you, gravity exhales around you in flushing torrents, and eventually you want
Writer: Jordan Patrick Finn Artist: Greg Woronchak Independently published, 2020 Death Kanji is an excellent independent publication written Jordan Patrick Finn by with art by Greg Woronchak. Here is their Kickstarter pitch: With its roots in the short stories of HP Lovecraft and the films of Akira Kurosawa, Death Kanji tells the story of a samurai’s struggle to
