April 2010
44 posts
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Daily Breakdowns 080 - Years of the Elephant
Years of the Elephant
Writer/Artist - Willy Linthout
Publisher - PonentMon
Humans, we get on with it. Whatever befalls us, we tend to do our best to get back to our comfortable routine, what we do well or enjoy doing. Tragedy strikes, and before long the baseball player is back on the diamond, the actor out of the house and back making movies, the guitarist back playing the blues. In a couple...
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Guest Reviewer Month - C. Tyler on Binky Brown...
Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary by Justin Green
Reviewed by C. Tyler, long time Binky fan.
There are two boxes of the just reissued Binky Brown in his hallway. Sent by the publisher, they are Justin’s complimentary copies. Still in the boxes, yet unopened.
It’s not surprising. Those two boxes will probably remain like that for quite a long time. You see Justin is perpetually reticent...
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Guest Reviewer Month: Blake Bell on Golden Age...
“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.”
—William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Everything you don’t know (and should) about why Bill Everett made the single most important contribution to superhero comic-book history can be found in...
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Guest Reviewer Month - Tom Spurgeon on The Early...
I don’t want to talk up Tom Spurgeon too much, for a couple reasons: 1) It’s pretty self-evident by this point how good he is at what he does, and 2) I don’t think he really likes people talking about how good he is at what he does. His humility is part of his charm, and his economy is part of his charm, and his wide knowledge of comics is part of his charm, and his way of a subtle but...
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Guest Reviewer Month - Andrew Farago on The...
This isn’t the Big One, Elizabeth, but it’s a fun piece nonetheless from Andrew Farago, presenting a world where we might have seen a Winter Sister-in-Law or Junkman: Year One, all spinning out of the male empowerment fantasy that is Sanford & Son. Thanks, Andrew. You big dummy. —Christopher Allen
Notes from a world where comics dominated popular culture
Fall 1972: Sanford...
Guest Reviewer Month - Matt Maxwell on DC: The New...
In a perfect world, or at least a better economy, you’d have more Matt Maxwell comics to read, but I do enjoy his lucid writing about comics, and movies, and whatever else he finds time to discuss. Matt broke about the only rule we had for Guest Reviewer Month of using something old (in fairness, it was only implied and not explicit), but it’s such a good piece, who cares? It’s...
Daily Breakdowns 079 - Most Outrageous
Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsley and Chester the Molester
Written by Bob Levin
Published by Fantagraphics Books. $19.99 USD
With his cartoons for Hustler Magazine, Dwaine Tinsley attempted to find humor by pointing out the hypocrisies we see everyday from the leaders of our society, and he also lifted the veil from our own desires, delusions and hatreds. This was...
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Guest Reviewer Month: Jim Rugg Reviews Footnotes...
Footnotes in Gaza By Joe Sacco Published by Metropolitan Books In November 1956, Israeli soldiers rounded up Palestinian men in the Gaza towns of Khan Younis and Rafah and according to UN records, killed 275 of them. The incident was not well documented. In 2001, while researching a story for Harper’s magazine, Joe Sacco heard first hand accounts of these events. When his editors at Harper’s...
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Live Chat with Drawn Together Movie Creators
I’ve only ever seen the first season of Drawn Together, but there’s no doubt it’s my very favourite “reality” TV series; how could you not love all those cultural icons forced to live in a house together, their neuroses and perversions constantly bumping up against each other like twisted tectonic plates? The creators of Drawn Together will be hosting a live chat on...
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Guest Reviewer Month - Brigid Alverson on Bunny...
Manga fan or not, you’ve probably read Brigid Alverson’s writing somewhere, because she’s all over the place. For Guest Reviewer Month (GRM, as we call it here), we really wanted to put a great range of writing, and subject matter, on display. So here we have Brigid adding a touch of class to the joint, and reviewing a book it’s a pretty sure bet wouldn’t have found...
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Guest Reviewer Month: Mike Sterling on The Comic...
I’d been aware of the idea of the fan press prior to picking this publication off the newsstand, of course; a letter published with my home address in a 1981 issue of Superman resulted in a slew of mailing and come-ons for conventions and fan-produced magazines and such. Plus, an early ’80s trip to a comic book store in Simi Valley resulted in my being on their mailing list, ...
Daily Breakdowns 078 - Thanos Needs Pants
The Spirit: First Wave #1
Writers - Mark Schultz, Dennis O’Neil
Artists - Moritat, Bill Sienkiewicz
I certainly didn’t need any more non-Eisner Spirit comics, but as long as DC puts them in the hands of talented creators, I’ll take a look. In this case, we have Mark Schultz, whose work I used to love on his Xenozoic Tales, though I can’t really recall anything after...
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Remembering The Conversation
As I’ve often written, Comic Book Galaxy has gone through many changes over the years. As we approach our tenth anniversary (on September 1st), I want to look back at some of the highlights of the site’s history. For me, one of the greatest moments was co-writing The Conversation with TWC co-editor Christopher Allen. We only did three of them, but we had a blast writing them. Here...
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Getting the Most Out of Comic Book Galaxy
In September, Comic Book Galaxy will have existed for ten years. We’ve gone through four or five incarnations, but currently the site mainly serves as a gateway to my ADD Blog and the group blog Trouble with Comics, which I co-edit with Christopher Allen. Looking at our main page, I realize that the site is very desperately in need of an overhaul, one that unifies all our various...
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Guest Reviewer Month: Timothy Callahan on Nemesis...
Millar & McNiven’s Nemesis #1
Published by Marvel/Icon Writer: Mark Millar Artist: Steve McNiven Colorist: Dave McCaig Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos Cover: Lucio Parrillo Cover Price: $2.99 Release Date: 3/24/10
You have to admire Mark Millar’s audacity.
No, really, you have to admire it. It’s a requirement. He forces it upon you, whether you like it or not.
Here he...
Daily Breakdowns 077 - Market Day
Market Day
Writer/Artist - James Sturm
Publisher - Drawn & Quarterly $21.95 USD
A fable set in the early 1900s in an Eastern Europe shtetl, Market Day finds rugmaker Mendleman taking his finely crafted rugs by donkey to market. Though still a young man, he has settled into a comfortable artisanal routine: Observe nature and draw ideas for rugs from it; make rugs in solitude and without...
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Guest Reviewer Month Update
April is Guest Reviewer Month here at Trouble with Comics, and I can’t tell you how pleased I am by both the volume and quality of the entries we received from the folks Chris Allen and I invited to take part. If you’re just joining us, you can click over to reviews by such comics internet luminaries as Roger Green, Johanna Draper-Carlson, Eric San Juan, Nina Stone, Jamie S. Rich, Jose...
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Guest Reviewer Month - Bob Levin on Sitting Shiva...
The fact we have a writer of Bob Levin’s stature agreeing to provide a review is due to his kindness and a “it can’t hurt to ask” attitude that I’ve carried through my life with a success rate of maybe 52%. Levin is not really a critic; he’s a journalist whose subject is primarily outsider cartoonists, those who have flouted conventions, rules and even copyright...
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Farewell to The Boys
How long does it take most people to realize that a relationship is no longer working?
I mean a relationship that used to have some meaning — a relationship that shared laughs, thrills and wonder; a relationship that saw both parties grow and change and yet still respect and enjoy one another; a relationship that once had so much going for it.
How long does it take before someone shouts,...
Guest Reviewer Month - Grant Goggans on Charley's...
I like Grant Goggans’ taste, and envy his cool, alliterative name. I also like his writing, which is always clean and efficient, “simple and spoiler-free,” as he says at the beginning of every review. But while Goggans does a bang-up job reviewing just about anything, I most enjoy his reviews of British comics from the ’70s to today. You want to know the best Judge Dredd...
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Blinded by the Light or Running to Stand Still?
It kind of goes without saying, but I’m not really a reader of superhero comics anymore. I don’t really frequent comic shops anymore and most of what I buy, I pick up in collected form from bookstores, usually with something like Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly or Vertigo on the spine. I had been following Grant Morrison’s Batman & Robin series, but it...
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Guest Reviewer Month: Box Brown Reviews Jeffrey...
This is a difficult book to find! I was only able to procure one thanks to my friend Susie Cagle going to a small convention in California! But, I’m glad (and thankful) that she picked it up for me. Maybe I am the perfect audience for this type of material. Process by Jeffrey Brown is not just a mini-comic, it is a packet containing a mini-comic, various notes, actual comic making...
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Ellis on Comics Piracy
This kind of ties in with my post yesterday on the likely influence of comics piracy on sales of comics, now that the corporate superhero segment of the industry has embraced the $3.99 price point. Ellis discusses Previews and comics piracy, and says “If I were starting out today, I’d be thinking very hard about wrapping my comic into a .cbz container, slinging it on Rapidshare and...
Self-Serving and Slightly Less So
Hey, it’s not a big deal but still kind of cool to me. The latest issue of Powers (#4) by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Avon Oeming, has in its letter column the interview Tom Spurgeon conducted with me about the book as part of his Best Comics of the Decade interview series around the end of 2009. That shouldn’t be a reason to get the comic itself, since the interview is still free...
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Guest Review Month - Chad Nevett on Spider-Man:...
Writers appeal to me for different reasons. Some dazzle you with their style or ideas, their sheer virtuosity or genius. You know you’re not likely to write anything like Alan Moore, or David Foster Wallace or Bob Dylan. Others are more approachable; when you read Robert Kirkman or Nick Hornby, or listen to Tom Petty, it’s more a feeling of being next to that person on the barstool,...
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GRM
I hope you’ve all been enjoying Guest Reviewers Month, a cheap and relatively easy way for TWC to class up the joint by inviting some our favorite writers-about-comics to drop some reviews. ADD and I have been more than pleased by the great folks who agreed to participate. So far we’ve had Roger Green, Johanna Draper-Carlson, Eric San Juan, Nina Stone, Jamie S. Rich and Jose...
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Have Shitty Comics Reached Their Platonic Price...
At The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon dares speak the name of overpriced corporate comic books and wonders if a tipping point has been reached. Now, I often quote Tom as saying “The only comics that cost too much are shitty comics,” and certainly most corporate superhero comics are shitty comics, but $3.99 really does seem too expensive for most of what the Direct Market offers up as...
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Buffy The Vampire Slayer #34 Reviewed by Kevin...
Writer - Brad Meltzer Artist - Georges Jeanty Published by Dark Horse Comics Depicting sex in comic books can be tough.
It’s relatively easy when it’s the full-tilt boogie of a Tijuana Bible or the drawings of Milo Manara because then it can be explicit and explosive. There’s no need for subtlety because the images can leap off the page in all their pornographic glory.
But it’s much more...
Daily Breakdowns 076 - The Mammoth Book of Best...
The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics
Edited by Paul Gravett
Running Press. $17.95 USD (2008)
I don’t really recommend you follow my semi-ironic method of reading this book—in a glass repair shop after your car was broken into—but there are worse things to do in a paneled waiting room with a distracting fountain wall on one side and too-close restroom on the other, and there...
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Guest Reviewer Month: José Villarrubia on Deicide
I’ve been sometimes asked “who were your greatest influences when it comes to coloring comics?” The answer is easy. Growing up in Spain my two idols were Richard Corben and Moebius. In the 1970s these two giants changed the comics medium, including its colors. It is important to note that these two artists did complete art, including color painted by hand. The fact that they no longer color ...
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Everything Dies Reviewed by ADD
Box Brown’s cheerily-named Everything Dies has its mind on some weighty philosophical issues. Three stories are split into multiple chapters across the two issues, one called Heart of Stonework that focuses on a Buddhist monk and his student, another called The Book of Job that recontextualizes the Biblical tale into modern times, and a third split into chapters called Alpha and Omega that...
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Guest Reviewer Month - Johanna Draper-Carlson on...
When I started writing about comics about a decade ago, Johanna was already an established voice, often of reason and always of authority. I don’t think our tastes overlap much, but I’ve always respected what she had to say, and those who don’t do so at their peril. Because aside from the absolute clarity and efficiency of her style, one of my favorite things about her is the...
MoCCA 2010
This year’s MoCCA was the best ever, in my opinion.
The feedback I got from a lot of people at tables was that traffic was light, but it didn’t seem that way to me. Sunday was much less crowded than Saturday, but that’s to be expected.
Here’s some random highlights and memories:
* Is it just me, or does MoCCA really need to sell coffee?
* Meeting Jaime Hernandez for the first time was...
Daily Breakdowns 075 - It's A Living
Everyone has their own ideas on what critics should be concerned about, should focus on. Some don’t think one should write about whether something is worth the price being charged for it—they might not even list the price. I get that, and that’s something I struggle with and upon which I don’t have a definite stance.
I also struggle with just how useful, or how fair,...
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Black Blizzard - Review by ADD
Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Black Blizzard is published by Drawn and Quarterly, but looks and feels unlike any of the author’s other works previously released by the publisher. The Push Man, Abandon the Old in Tokyo and Good-Bye were all stately hardcovers, elegant and thoughtfully designed, obviously worthy of the visionary comics they contained. Tatsumi’s mammoth autobiography A...
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CA and ADD Go After The Eisners
CA: I rarely comment on the Eisners or other comics awards, but in reading this list a few thoughts occurred and I wanted to get ADD in on it. We both freely admit we haven’t read a lot of the nominated work here, so will not weigh in too much on who should win/what’s best/etc., but there are some books worth talking about for sure, as well as some other stuff related to the whole Eisner process....
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Guest Reviewer Month - Nina Stone on Garth Ennis'...
I don’t really know Nina Stone. I don’t just mean that she’s relatively new to writing about comics (and reading them!). I mean that of all the people I invited, she’s the only one I haven’t had any direct contact with, as her husband Tucker has been the intermediary, which I find rather touchingly protective. But I really wanted to get her in on this little project...
Daily Breakdowns 074 - Spider-Man: Fever
Spider-Man: Fever #1 (of 3)
Writer/Artist - Brendan McCarthy
Colors, Digital FX & Letters - Steve Cook & Brendan McCarthy
Publisher - Marvel Comics
I think McCarthy is a really interesting talent, but despite over 30 years of work in comics and other media, I can’t really point to anything of his I’ve read aside from that final issue of the late, lamented DC series, Solo....
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Guest Reviewer Month: Eric San Juan on Cerebus...
It would be dishonest to suggest that an examination of the final collection of Dave Sim’s sprawling Cerebus saga can take place without at least some discussion of Sim himself. As Cerebus wore on, Sim began to put himself front and center, making himself an explicit part of the story both literally and figuratively. His views became impossible to untangle from the narrative....
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PR: Details on April 25th Albany Comic Con
From the official press release: The city of Albany’s instantly recognizable skyline will be featured on a special edition cover of Magdalena #1, published by the Image Comics imprint Top Cow Productions. The exclusive, variant edition cover will only be available at the Albany Comic Con, to be held 10 a.m.-4p.m. on April 25 at the Holiday Inn on Wolf Road in Colonie. Admission is $3. The special...
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Daily Breakdowns 073 - Blackest Night
Blackest Night #1-8
Writer - Geoff Johns
Penciler - Ivan Reis
Inkers - Oclair Albert & Joe Prado
Publisher - DC Comics
A few months back, I posted something about my preview of the review of this series being that, “it’s awful.” That was written when I had only read the first three issues. Honestly, I was put off somewhat by the killing of some DCU characters, but moreso...
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Guest Reviewer Month - Jamie S. Rich on Howard...
Jamie S. Rich is one of the first people I got to know in the comics industry. He was Editor-in-Chief of Oni Press, and to my mind, the heart of it. He was generous and kind to a newcomer then, not just with books but time (heck, he made me some CDs, too). As he moved into his current career as full-time freelance writer, I haven’t kept in touch the way I should, but when I have, he’s...
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TWC News with ADD [040210]
* I don’t know how I missed it, but now that it’s concluded, you can see a link to every post for Stormatic’s Barry Windsor-Smith Week by clicking here. The series is art-intensive, as one would hope. * At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna has news that Archie is revising its plans for upcoming comics devoted to the “Archie Gets Married” universes. * A poster on The...
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Guest Reviewer Month: Roger Green on Marvel...
I’m delighted to kick off Guest Reviewer Month here at Trouble with Comics with a post by Roger Green, keeper of the FantaCo flame and all-around excellent human being. I’ve written before of buying comics from Roger and his fellow FantaCo folk back in the 1980s and what an honour it is to have gotten to know him during this, The Age of Blogging, so I won’t tell that same old...