A Deep Six’d Publication
As happens to many septuagenarians, MAD has been in unhealthy decline for some time. Since June 2018, when US telecommunications giant AT&T finalised an ill-starred takeover for MAD’s publisher Time Warner, MAD’s creativity and originality has suffered in a slow and descending spiral. Once ever-present in newsstands, MAD is now...
Read More
Writer: Inverna Lockpez Artists: Dean Haspiel, José Villarrubia Vertigo Comics, September 2010 2010 WAS EVIDENTLY a good year for a generation mature enough by then to tell their personal stories from around the world in graphic formats with an unusual skill and grace. The nice hardbound edition of CUBA MY...
Read More
Writer: Neil Gaiman Art: Mark Buckingham Marvel Comics, December 2022 English author Aldrous Huxley wrote the acclaimed dystopian novel Brave New World in 1931. Brave New World is a grim of all visions of the future. Social engineering, eugenics, sexless procreation, and state-sponsored drug-induced bliss are all indicia of the...
Read MoreStory and Art: Koren Shadmi Humanoids, October 2019 IMAGINE A PASSENGER PLANE in the clouds, located somewhere between departure and destination. Rod Serling sits next to a charming woman eager to hear a story from his life to save her from insomnia and boredom. Reluctantly he gives in. He reaches...
Read MoreCreator: Scott Pritchett Stoneseeker is a comic from Australian creator Scott Pritchett. The promotional copy for the first issue reads as follows: When Geologist Irin enters the snowy town of Peake, she asks the impossible – to cross the Floating Isles in search of a legend. Only one optimistic boy,...
Read MoreWriter: William Dumas and community Illustrator: Rhian Brynjolson Highwater Press, September 2022 ENTERING THE LAND of the Rocky Cree people in what is now northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan provinces in Canada, and traveling back in time to the mid-1600s to see them, is a difficult journey from here on the...
Read MoreCreator: Sarah Milne Amplified Press, February 2022 In his spare time (and it is not much of a secret to regular readers after WCBR’s ongoing life span of six years) this reviewer is an intellectual property lawyer. The copyright notice on this comic, entitled Personal Growth, ends with a singularly...
Read MoreWriter: Joshua Williamson Artists: Leomacs, Matheus Lopes, Jason Wordie DC Comics Black Label, March – October 2022 BALD-HEADED BAD GUYS can have a sensitive charm alongside that slithery sneer that gives them away. You may know some of the characters gathered in ROGUES, now up to Issue 3, written by...
Read MoreCreator: Luke Healy Faber & Faber, 2022 After a work-related hiatus of two months, WCBR returns. The Con Artists is a slice of life comic book created by Luke Healy, and published by Faber & Faber in 2022. (Faber & Faber is not known for publishing comics, and so we...
Read MoreStory: Gardner Fox Art: Carmine Infantino DC Comics, 1961-1962 THE WAY WE LEARNED to swim underwater with aqua-lungs and fins in the 1940s made it obvious humans would soon have personal rocket packs to fly in the skies with the same fishy fluency. The first good part about Adam Strange...
Read MoreCreator: Robert Buratti SubRosa Studio, 2022 As the name suggests, this title by Australian creator Robert Buratti is set in Florence. Underscoring the mystique of Florence as a setting for any form of literature, a funny thing happened to your reviewer in 2010 when he was staying in a hotel...
Read MoreWriter: Tom King Artists: Tony S. Daniel, Danny Miki, Tomeu Morey DC Comics, 2018 SOMETIMES I LOVE BATMAN. The artwork by Tony S. Daniel attracted me to this 2018 storyline in BATMAN #55-57 by writer Tom King, called “Beasts of Burden.” Wonderful spreads of the caped detective in action on...
Read MoreCreator: Leonie Brialey Glom Press, 2018, 2020 The promotional copy for this title, Psychic Hotline is understated, to say the least: It’s about a ghost calling a psychic hotline. This one-liner gives no credit at all to what is, with respect, a masterclass of nuance by Melbourne-based creator, Leonie Brialey....
Read More
Written by Gerry Duggan Art by Greg Smallwood Published by Marvel Comics, February 2019 In the current state of comics with its millions of titles and time-lines (a.k.a. the multitude of multiverses), it is always refreshing to find a one-shot comic that tells a small (if not epic) self-contained story....
Read MoreCreators: Don Cameron and Chuck Winter DC Comics, Winter 1942 Liberty Belle debuted in Boy Commandos #1 in the middle of World War 2, when superhero comics were at the height of popularity. Liberty Belle was the alter ego of famous radio columnist Libby Lawrence, whose initial disguise was merely to...
Read MoreWriter: Fabian Nicieza Artists: Scott Lee, Jimmy Palmiotti Event Comics, 1996 ARTISTS CAN GO ANYWHERE they want. The record of their art allows us to follow. Even at a distance we can walk their corridors, whistle their tunes, enter their imaginations, and marvel a little how we keep talking so...
Read More
