Wednesday, March 30 2011
BOOM! Studios’ CBGB Anthology: The Magic and Banality of Place
Whether CBGB had a special poetry to it or was nothing more than a decent rock club is less interesting than the debate itself.
Wednesday, March 9 2011
Quantum and Woody’s Mildly Postmodern Gags
Are Quantum and Woody a dynamic duo, or just another wearying odd couple with a duo dynamic?
Tuesday, March 1 2011
‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ as Motion Comic: Paper Doll or New Art Form?
Will motion comics become the digital equivalent of the film strip? Merely an interesting artifact of a particular period of media production? Or are they the crude beginnings of a new art form?
Monday, February 14 2011
Punk Rock? It’s a Black, Jewish, Southern Thang
Punk is no vacuum, no airtight, sealed white music form. It's a repository of culture -- magnetized, manifold, and chock-full of merit – that was, and is, impacted by Jewish, black, and Southern experiences.
Wednesday, February 9 2011
Raimi’s Last Hunt: A Brief Reappraisal of the ‘Spider-Man’ Trilogy
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is like his Evil Dead trilogy: the first entry is self-conscious, the second is more of a remake than a sequel, and the third is so different from the first two that it almost qualifies as a different genre.
Friday, February 4 2011
Lynd Ward and Walt Disney: Illustrators of America’s Tumultuous History
Much as Walt Disney would do with his famed television programs of the '50s and '60s, Lynd Ward used his talents with watercolor, oil, brush and ink, mezzotint, and lithography to illustrate hundreds of inspiring historical biographies of true-life American heroes for children to admire and emulate.
Friday, January 21 2011
The Year in Review: The Best Comics of 2010, Part II
Regardless of format, what seems unlikely to change is the use of comics for serial storytelling. In the future, this may take place on the web, or in e-editions, it may not follow a monthly publishing schedule, but like television, comics is both historically associated with serials and well-suited to making and delivering these kinds of stories.
Wednesday, January 19 2011
Mighty Morphin’ Masterpiece: One Man’s Inexplicable Love for ‘Power Rangers: The Movie’
The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers TV series was after my time, and a passing glance at any given episode was enough to convince me that it was, well, 'stunted'. So why have I seen Power Rangers: the Movie five times?
Tuesday, December 14 2010
The Year in Review: The Best Comics of 2010, Part I
Through some of the best comics of 2010, we look at how stories are told in comics, and how the medium benefits from being a subcultural or marginal form of narrative art.
Tuesday, November 30 2010
The Devil Wears Spandex
It seems that Todd McFarlane designed Spawn’s cape to billow wildly just so that it would obscure Spawn’s feet, so that he wouldn’t have to draw them.
Tuesday, November 16 2010
From Pin-Ups to Ass-Kickers: Girls in Comics Go Through Transitions
The original Supergirl and her readers would no doubt be scandalized by the current length of her skirt and exposed skin, not to mention her toned physique.
Friday, November 5 2010
Take Your Daughter to Work Day: A Father Reflects on Years of Force-feeding Pop Culture to His Child
How will my daughter feel when her friends greet her in 2030 with an enthusiastic shout-out to Hannah Montana or SpongeBob SquarePants and she can only remember Bebop, Rocksteady, the Gentleman Ghost and Gyro Gearloose?
Tuesday, October 26 2010
And Here’s to You, Mr. Robinson: ‘Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics’
In a conversation with Jerry Robinson, the man who created the Joker, we learn he is much like the superheroes with which he will forever be identified; his career reflects a lifetime of pushing boundaries, challenging conventions, and fighting for artistic integrity.
Tuesday, October 5 2010
Strange Tales and Mainstreams: When All Superheroes Are Uncanny
The long-term serialization of comics means that different creators get a chance to work with characters and storyworlds originally written by others. On occasion, they're given license to run wild.
Thursday, September 30 2010
Crisis of Faith: The Struggle to Believe in ‘Preacher’
If Preacher’s longtime fans were to take a fresh look at its nine uneven volumes today, would nostalgia keep them from noticing its flaws, or would they banish it to the realm of other crude, corny, ostensibly shocking ‘90s relics like South Park, Attitude-era WWF shows and Kevin Smith movies?
Friday, September 17 2010
Can You Imagine Standing in Line Just for a Newspaper?
'Suddenly and with little warning: STRIKE!' So began a 17-day newspaper delivery strike that prevented newspapers from getting to newsstands and doorsteps, as immortalised in the 1945 short, 17 Days: The Story of Newspaper History in the Making.
Monday, August 30 2010
‘Scott Pilgrim’ and What Movies Mean to Comics
Why do comics readers care about the movies made from their favorite books?
Monday, August 16 2010
The Danger of ‘Girl Comics’
There's always the risk that efforts like the “Women of Marvel” are token exercises, small measures taken in lieu of further reaching commitments to change in how women are regarded, as characters, as creators, and ultimately, as readers.
Monday, July 26 2010
Almost Lifelike: Drawing Out Reality in Comics Art
While leaving out details that we often associate with 'reality', the drawings of comics artists will often evoke a sense of place more effectively than the photos from which those images may be drawn.
Tuesday, June 8 2010
Freeze Frame: How Best to Capture Film in a Comic Book?
For both writers and artists working on adaptations of movies and TV shows, the challenge is to find a working space wherein one's own sensibilities can be effectively meshed with the look and feel of the original text and into a book that works for readers.