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...
