When Comic Books Ruled the Earth

Every Old Katana is New Again!

2012-01-09T06:10:00.000-05:00

Created by writer Matt W. Barr and artist Jim Aparo, Tatsu "Katana" Yamashiro's been bouncing around the DC universe since 1983 when she debuted in the pages of The Brave and the Bold #200. Despite his long held aversion to killing, Batman allowed Katana to join his Outsiders group, where her place was roughly the same as that of Wolverine in the first Chris Claremont-written issues of Uncanny

How the new "Nexus" story came about...

2012-01-02T00:10:00.003-05:00

If you're interested (as I obviously am), you should read the blog at Steve Rude's website. The Rudes just posted an entry called "The Real Story Behind the Nexus Reunion." It seems to have happened pretty fast. One minute Rude and Mike Baron were talking on the phone, the next minute Mike Richardson of Dark Horse got involved and a minute after that, Rude was at the drawing board laying down

Gary Friedrich loses fight for Ghost Rider movie money

2011-12-30T08:11:00.000-05:00

Poor guy. A New York judge ruled in favor of Marvel in Gary Friedrich's lawsuit against the company over the movie rights to Ghost Rider. I didn't see the movie, but enough people did there are piles of money lying around, enough for a sequel and with plenty left over for everyone involved except Friedrich. I really feel for Friedrich here, especially after reading the quote from his

New Nexus update!

2011-12-30T03:10:00.000-05:00

According to Jaynelle Rude, her husband Steve Rude has finished the thumbnails for the new Nexus story (coming at you in 2012 from Rude and writer Mike Baron courtesy the fine people at Dark Horse Comics) and is now hard at work on the actual pages themselves. Plus this little tantalizing tidbit: "Steve went over the page count so they're trying to figure out how to fit it in." A longer story?

Happy Belated Birthday, Stan Lee!

2011-12-29T09:04:00.000-05:00

Oops! Do I feel like a chump! I knew December 28th was Stan Lee's 89th birthday, but I forgot to commemorate it here. Well, I'm doing it now. Despite having written who knows how many stories from the 1940s up to the present day, Stan Lee's greatest character creation has to be himself-- the Stan the Man persona. Who would have thought a middle-aged man slinging WWII army slang and Madison

Baron and Rude return to Nexus!

2011-12-26T21:08:00.000-05:00

This is the season of giving that keeps on giving... to little old me! But also to you, the savvy comic book fan and possessor of fine taste in illustrated literature. First came word Boom! Studios is reprinting Terror on the Planet of the Apes and now some even better news: Mike Baron and Steve Rude are working on a new Nexus story for Dark Horse Presents. Not only does this mark Steve

I'm sorry to say I don't really know all that much about Joe Simon

2011-12-15T20:11:00.000-05:00

I only know the basics about Joe Simon, who passed away Wednesday at the amazing age of 98. He came up with Captain America with his partner Jack Kirby, then the two of them went on to invent romance comics. How many people can say they created an entire genre? Other than that, I'm most familiar with Joe Simon as the co-creator of the Boy Commandos, one of any number of "kid gang" comics he

My favorite bits from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Vol III): Century #2 - 1969

2011-12-14T21:12:00.000-05:00

And by "bits," I don't mean all the boobies and wieners on display. Although there are a lot of those this time out. It's the Swinging 60s and our fab heroes Mina, Allan and Orlando are back in London to tune in, turn on and occasionally have sex with multiple partners across the gender universe. Which is only natural, the 60s being the time of Free Love, and especially with Orlando

The Onion A/V Club interviews Jack Davis!

2011-12-13T09:32:00.000-05:00

And it's amazing how closely it echoes the talk I had with Davis many years ago when I was a graphic design student, right down to the mention of the kind of brush he uses for inking. Well, for the most part. He's probably answered these same questions from people like me a thousand times over the years. We didn't get into biography all that much. He did tell me the chain gang story and how

Don't you just love Esteban Maroto's artwork?

2011-12-11T00:59:00.001-05:00

I know I do! I've been really getting into Creepy and Eerie and so I've rediscovered my love for Esteban Maroto's artwork. When I was a kid back before you were born, I was very into those Lancer/Ace Conan paperback collections. I'd either buy one of those or a Choose Your Own Adventure book with my allowance each week. Most of the Conan covers featured teensy Frazetta paintings, but I

Boom! Studios is reprinting the classic Terror on the Planet of the Apes!

2011-12-06T20:22:00.001-05:00

Finally, my demands have been met and I can release the hostages. Wait-- a gorilla sniper! KA-POW! Damn you, Dr. Zaius! Thank God, I die a true human... But... first... let me push... this button... With the frivolity finished, I can announce the happiest comic book news I've heard in quite some time. BOOM! Studios, holders of the Planet of the Apes license from 20th Century Fox and

Oh, Dani, don't you ever change!

2011-12-05T06:13:00.000-05:00

Which is ironic because she's already changed so often. At first she could pull images of a person's greatest fear from his or her mind-- and she barely had control of that power-- and later she started manifesting various objects and things, became a Valkyrie, fired some kind of magical arrows, acted as some kind of double or triple agent in the war between humans and mutants, then lost her

Alex Ross takes on the New Mutants!

2011-11-21T01:49:00.001-05:00

Isn't that a nice cover? I tend to hold Alex Ross somewhat responsible for the death of storytelling in modern comics, probably unfairly. His rise to popularity seems to have coincided with an era of too much emphasis on photorealism, an over-reliance on photo reference or outright tracing, too many people getting hung up on cool individual images rather than thinking a page through as a

How do people find this blog?

2011-11-20T18:09:00.001-05:00

Overwrought and poorly written, I suppose. But no, I mean what search terms do people type into Google, only to have this disaster of a blog pop up in their results? Allow me to share them with you. 1. alicia silverstone batgirl 2. roddy mcdowall 3. cassandra cain 4. dani moonstar 5. harlem globetrotters cartoon 6. batgirl alicia silverstone 7. batgirl boobs 8. dave toschi 9. heavyset

Comic Report: Japan!

2011-11-20T00:05:00.001-05:00

After a long break back in the States, I'm in manga heaven again. Not that I'm a fan of manga in and of itself. I enjoy a few titles, consider myself a fan of a few creators, but I don't separate Japanese comics and Western comics. Comics are comics. Sure you read Japanese comics right to left and that takes some getting used to, but with the borrowing and blending of elements over the past

More Cass Cain Batgirl fun times!

2011-11-13T16:39:00.000-05:00

I drew this with my trusty Kuretake Fudegokochi brush pen. When I moved back to the United States from Japan, I brought a few of these with me because they're very fun to use. If all went well and we landed safely last Friday, I'm back in Japan but lack an Internet connection. So this was actually posted Wednesday before I left. Confusing, isn't it? The clumsily constructed Kamandi figure

I don't know who this is!

2011-11-11T16:27:00.000-05:00

She's lovely and fashionable. Another sketchbook page, another Kuretake Fudegokochi brush pen ink job!

Another Batgirl-based sketchbook page...

2011-11-09T16:25:00.000-05:00

I drew this with that same Kuretake Fudegokochi brush pen I used for the previous Cassandra Cain/Batgirl sketchbook pages, but I colored it with Copic Ciao art markers. The paper didn't fit on the scanbed, so Batgirl's legs got cut off. But the Hulk still has his Charles Bronson pec/shoulder tattoo. That's something, isn't it?

Happy Birthday, Steve Ditko!

2011-11-02T19:57:00.000-04:00

Steve Ditko is 84 years old today. The first Ditko artwork I remember seeing came to me inside Dr. Strange Master of the Mystic Arts, one of those Marvel trade paperbacks featuring Marvel's "Sorcerer Supreme" in a selection of memorable tales from the 60s and early 70s. This was sometime in 1979, or maybe 1980. I greatly preferred the Barry Windsor Smith's story to any of the Ditko-drawn

More of the same Batgirl!

2011-11-02T18:10:00.000-04:00

Another version of the same ol' Batgirl. My theory is she had so little regard for protecting her secret identity, she would often leave her mask at home. I enjoy drawing Batman acting like a freak almost as much as I enjoy drawing Batgirl and Supergirl. Poor Robin. If you look closely, there's a Todd McFarlane-era Spider-Man picking lice out of a Neal Adams Superman's hair. Todd

Back when she was Batgirl...

2011-11-01T10:59:00.003-04:00

Here's another sketchbook page. I seem to draw Cassandra Cain, Supergirl and the Hulk pretty often. I did this freehand with a Kuretake Fudegokochi brush pen on a sheet of marker paper. Batgirl on the left is apparently pitching some kind of fit; she's really angry about something. The center Batgirl shows a zen-like calm, but I'm not sure about the weird feathery line I gave her shadowed

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Hoppy Halloween!

2011-10-31T21:14:00.000-04:00

Some stories just stick with you. Take "Hopping Down the Bunny Trail" from DC's Unexpected #202 (1980), for example. I read this in a supermarket in Brevard, North Carolina, while visiting my grandparents. On Easter, three ordinary kids die at the fangs of human-sized, talking rabbit they mistake for the Easter Bunny, their only crimes gleefully biting the heads off chocolate bunnies and being

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T09:41:00.001-04:00

I've got one more horror comic post in the pipe, but I haven't had time to finish it yet. Later this afternoon! In the meantime, here are a few more of those delightful Tales of Terror videos. First up: a spooky sleep-over! Looks like another of those ubiquitous school trips. Japanese students go on these excursions each year. Some stay within Japan, like these unfortunate girls, and

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Bernie Wrightson takes on H.P. Lovecraft

2011-10-30T17:44:00.000-04:00

H.P. Lovecraft is strange case. His influence in horror literature is undeniable and yet he was a pretty lousy writer. When you hear one of his stories described or read a synopsis, it sounds exciting, weird and even a little frightening. Malevolent elder gods from beyond Pluto manipulating scholars into plumbing the depths of forbidden knowledge, whispering aliens hiding in the dark

2nd Annual Spookey Month: What does Halloween have to do with the Banana Splits?

2011-10-29T21:14:00.000-04:00

And comic books for that matter? Nothing, really. But since I go on a Spookey kick every Halloween, I thought you might enjoy comparing their cover of "The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)," the theme song to The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, to the original and the versions by the Dickies and Liz Phair. Here's the original: And here's the circa 1979 cover by the Dickies. They

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Disney's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

2011-10-27T10:03:00.000-04:00

Ah! Now that's some good Halloween-ing. The mellow voice of Bing Crosby, the delightful prose of Washington Irving and some of Disney's finest scene designs and animation. The autumnal backgrounds are also quite lovely to look at-- Mary Blair did some of the color styling on this film, and they look very similar to her work. This short was originally the second part of the 1949 anthology

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Disney's The Great Cat Family

2011-10-26T04:20:00.000-04:00

Look familiar? It's a 1956 Disney short illustrating the history of cats, introduced by Uncle Walt himself from the comfortable confines of a studio set made to look like a handsome book-filled study. Like all good Halloween stories, it begins in Ancient Egypt. But the most memorable part takes place in Europe at a somewhat later date. Watch... You may remember an excerpt from the

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Enjoy some Japanese horror shorts because I don't feel like writing some long, involved post about Halloween today!

2011-10-25T09:43:00.000-04:00

That's a pretty lousy elevator. I don't think I'd enjoy riding that one, either. I rode some creepy elevators during my time in Japan, but I was lucky in that I never had that poor girl's experience. Nice job with those English subtitles by "montecristo73returns," though. What else can we find? How about this one? Lesson learned? Cram school sucks! Again, great job on the

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Tomie Unlimited Introduces Tsukiko into the film series!

2011-10-24T12:48:00.000-04:00

While we're on the subject of Japanese horror, the Tomie film series is apparently as unkillable as their eponymous villain. Tomie Unlimited is the newest offering from Toei Company, LTD. and it seems to be at least loosely based on the "Tsukiko" stories from Junji Ito's manga. This makes me happy, because I'm a big fan of those particular Tomie stories and of the character Tsukiko, the

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Chiaki Kuriyama in an early horror role!

2011-10-23T10:07:00.001-04:00

Okay, okay. It's not a comic book, although Miki Rinno later did a manga adaptation-- published in the US by Dark Horse Comics. It's a scene from the original direct-to-video Ju-on (2000) that spawned the movie series, the American remake and its sequels. I have no idea about the Ju-on mythology or back story, but I do know the American release of the first theatrical movie has a redundant

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Bernie Wrightson!

2011-10-21T19:26:00.000-04:00

How about that, eh? It's Cain, poling his little boat through a swamp-- a haunted swamp, no doubt. Or basement. Haunted basement. Well, wherever it takes place, it's a very nice splash page drawing by Bernie Wrightson, published in House of Mystery #205. Wrightson's career began at DC the same year I was born so I've had a lifetime to associate him with the finest in horror comics

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Get this guy some Halloween candy... fast!

2011-10-17T17:49:00.000-04:00

On second thought, never mind. Candy goes right through him. DC's old timey horror comics are pretty cool. Obviously, my first love is The Witching Hour, because Mildred, Mordred and Cynthia are the hosts with the most personality and endlessly entertaining byplay. But Cain of House of Mystery and Abel of House of Secrets are pretty nifty, too. Of those perpetually battling siblings, Cain

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Uzumaki... spiral into... Halloween!

2011-10-14T21:51:00.000-04:00

Ito Junji's disturbing horror manga Uzumaki was made into a film back in 2000. While the comic ended on a Lovecraftian note, the movie keeps the horror on a more personal level. Possibly because the budget for a more faithful adaptation would have been enormous. Uzumaki the movie is also pretty campy, sometimes substituting goofy comedy for the truly nauseating terror of the original. It's

2nd Annual Spookey Month: DC's Witching Hour trio

2011-10-07T13:59:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if EC started the tradition of having horror anthology books hosted by recurring characters but by the late 60s and early 70s, it was a pretty well established trope. The Crypt-Keeper is perhaps the most famous of all, immortalized by HBO's Tales from the Crypt series. The EC original looked somewhat more human, but the TV version had that crazy cackle, a warm, infectious laugh,

2nd Annual Spookey Month: Swamp Thing tells you what comes with fall

2011-10-06T14:52:00.000-04:00

Whenever I read Swamp Thing, I think of chocolate chip cookies, thanks to Mad Libs. I had a monster-themed Mad Libs book that featured some Swamp Thing art by Bernie Wrightson, only Swampy was made out to be some kind of chocolate chip-based life form. I also think of how incredible Alan Moore's work on the series in the 1980s was. Early in his run, Moore wrote a three-part story

Dracula: Marvel's Merriest Misanthrope (2nd Annual Spookey Month)

2011-10-03T14:35:00.000-04:00

My favorite Marvel monster by far is Dracula, Lord of Vampires. Not because of his redeeming qualities; he doesn't have any. Dracula is far too hateful to identify with, or to like as a person. Every so often, writer Marv Wolfman attempted to establish a little sympathy for Dracula. Dracula loses his powers, he eviscerates himself in his blog, he drinks too much and cries at a sad clown movie

Kinging Off Our Second Annual Spookey Month: Here's Looking at You, Creepshow!

2011-10-01T11:31:00.000-04:00

Ah, Creepshow. Former EC artist Jack Kamen just kills on that cover, doesn't he? I love it. The under-lighting on the kid, the ghoulish personification of horror lurking just outside his window, the full moon through the trees. His rendering style certainly did change over the years, and with this cover, he fixed the notion in my mind that EC had a staff of the best artists ever featured in

When Batgirl Discovered Art

2011-09-30T09:53:00.000-04:00

Batgirl and the homeless guy. This is from Batgirl #51 where Dylan Horrocks introduced the concept of Cassandra Cain shocking people by saying inappropriate things. The story containing these moments is a two-parter in which Poison Ivy has tricked this goofball artist wannabe into helping her create a mind-controlling garden the heart of Gotham City. It opens with your standard comic book

When Batgirl Said "Sweet Patootie"

2011-09-26T13:03:00.000-04:00

Dylan Horrocks wrote some of my favorite Batgirl issues and some of my least favorite. He often had some wonderful ideas, like Batman and Batgirl working out their father-daughter issues in the way that works best for them-- brutally beating up on each other. These are people who believe in tough love in its most literal sense. He also had some crappy ideas, like Barbara Gordon constantly

I always did prefer Veronica to Betty

2011-09-25T19:56:00.000-04:00

Veronica presents Kevin Keller #1. Why is this? Come on, Betty, get with the 21st century. Actually, Archie Comic Publications has managed to become relevant again. I mean, assuming their books ever were in the first place. Archie has always changed with the times-- going from clean-cut teen in a bow-tie and a v-necked sweater vest in the 1950s to a clean-cut teen in a wide collar and

Happy National Comic Book Day!

2011-09-25T13:39:00.000-04:00

It's finally here! National Comic Book Day! The turkey is roasting in the oven, the cranberries are doing whatever it is cranberries do, Wonder Girl is dancing around with her headphones on while Robin, Speedy and Kid Flash glower unappreciatively from along the far wall. I didn't get you anything. Sorry. I've just been so busy reading old Teen Titans and back issues of Batgirl while

Gnarrk: Smartest of the Teen Titans

2011-09-24T12:47:00.001-04:00

We've pretty much established the original Teen Titans are no brain trust. No think tank. Even by the standards of typical teenage behavior, the Titans are a pretty dim-witted bunch. With the addition of Gnarrk, a Cro-Magnon ("Early Modern Human" or "Anatomically Modern Human" in today's terminology) teen from 20,000 years ago, their collective intelligence quotient took a mega-leap upward.

I tried Dark Horse Digital the other day and I didn't die!

2011-09-23T20:27:00.000-04:00

That's right. I've entered the digital age of comic book consumption. No more glossy covers and the ever-present danger of receiving a paper cut so severe I have to go to the emergency room and risk contracting that nasty flesh-eating bacteria strain our local hospitals are rife with. The only reflections interfering with the pure joy of reading a comic book are the ones on the monitor

Congratulations, DC! I knew you could do it!

2011-09-20T13:41:00.000-04:00

In the olden days, the people who made your comics were all middle-aged and wore ties, except for Denny O'Neil, who wore a turtleneck. He's thinking, "Hurry up and draw me. I've got stories to write. But first let me take off my glasses for a slightly casual, candid look." I'm going to steal that pose for my author's portrait, only I'm going to hold a pipe. Why a pipe instead of glasses?

Adventure Comics #412: Supergirl's Jumpsuit Space Adventure

2011-09-19T17:00:00.000-04:00

I'm kind of on an Art Saaf kick lately. When I was a kid or a punk teen, I wouldn't have appreciated his work, because I was into people who rendered the heck out of everything, or put a lot of flash on the page. Sure, I had taste-- I was into Joe Kubert, Gene Colan and Al Williamson, after all. But as I've matured, I've come to love these journeyman old dudes who may not have blown readers

Thirty Years of Hopey Glass, Super Punk Badass!

2011-09-17T17:09:00.000-04:00

With a new issue of the Harvey Award-winning series Love and Rockets: New Stories poised to hit the streets, it's time to look at some of Hopey Glass's moments of punk badassery. I had to limit myself to the first twenty or so issues of Love and Rockets, volume one. Otherwise, this blog post would be almost as long as the series itself. With a career dating way back in 1981 with Los Bros

What About the Future?: The Lost Issue of Marvel's Planet of the Apes Magazine

2011-09-15T12:20:00.000-04:00

Does it ever bother you that the story "Terror on the Planet of the Apes," serialized in Marvel's Planet of the Apes magazine, ends on a cliffhanger? Sure, it's not quite of the same order as that maddening final episode of Twin Peaks, but it's unfinished business nevertheless. I probably spend a lot more time bemoaning the lack of a third season for David Lynch's weird show than I do an ending

Ape-Quest '11: "Quest for the Planet of the Apes" Edition, Part 2!

2011-09-12T14:54:00.000-04:00

Remember a couple of years ago I wrote a piece making affectionate fun of the story "Quest for the Planet of the Apes" right here in this very blog? You don't? Okay, go read it here and then report back to me. It was meant to be the first part of a two-part look at an obscure bit of Planet of the Apes lore. And it still is, goshdarnit! Here's the second part! When we last left our jolly ape

The International Museum of Obscure Comic Book Characters, Exhibit 2: Johnny Carpetbag

2011-09-06T14:35:00.000-04:00

Johnny Carpetbag. Yes, that's his name. No one knows if his parents gave it to him, or if he came by it during his years of riding the rails during the Great Depression. Created by the amazing Bob Haney-- aided and abetted by Art Saaf and Nick Cardy-- Johnny Carpetbag first appeared in Teen Titans #42. If he's ever been in another DC comic in the years since, I'm not aware of it. I'm

Micronauts #8: What do you get the comic book that has everything?

2011-09-05T13:45:00.000-04:00

I'm Facebook friends with artist Bob McLeod, co-creator of one of my all-time favorite super-teams, the New Mutants. McLeod has been doing a series of photo album posts he calls "When the Inker Really Made a Difference," where he showcases some of his work from the good ol' days at Marvel and talks a little bit about the artistic decisions he made, what it was like doing finishes for various

The Henry Cavill-Zack Snyder Superman Suit

2011-09-01T10:09:00.000-04:00

Well, there they are, at last. Some clearer-- though not better-- photos of Henry Cavill cavorting in character as Superman, the first and greatest superhero of them all. I haven't checked out everyone else's opinions on the Superman suit for the upcoming Man of Steel movie because I don't want mine diluted or influenced in any way. Here we go! I don't hate it. In fact, I like it better than

Happy Birthday Jack Kirby!

2011-08-28T17:05:00.000-04:00

Jack Kirby would have been 94 today. What a tremendous creative force he was. In Japan, Tezuka Osamu is rightfully known as the "god of comics," but in America, that distinction has to belong to Jack Kirby. With a little difference. I'd guess practically everyone in Japan knows of Tezuka, but most non-comic readers in the US wouldn't recognize Kirby's name and couldn't tell you who he was.

Kid Flash is powerless against the alligatorid crocodylian

2011-08-17T20:44:00.000-04:00

When your superpower is running extremely fast, you should stick to solid ground-- concrete, turf, asphalt, the Bonneville Salt Flats. Sure, several members of the Flash family have run across the surface of various bodies of water. I assume. That certainly seems like something they would do, doesn't it? Therefore, they must have done it in some comic past. Even so, you need a running start

I finally tracked down that "The Kirk Cries Yipes!" bootleg by Jimi Hendrix

2011-08-15T12:57:00.000-04:00

Even bold space explorers like Captain James T. Kirk experience moments of terror. Depicting one of these humanizes them for the readers. I'm just not convinced Kirk would yelp the word "Yipes!" even if a papier-mache Eiffel Tower threatened to crush him. This is a sequence from Gold Key's Star Trek #7, "The Voodoo Planet" (1970). The Enterprise crew encounters yet another space jerk, some

It's easy to tell you're not in heaven...

2011-08-11T12:13:00.001-04:00

Yeah, I don't think so either, Capt. Kirk. This is a page from the Gold Key Star Trek series, namely issue #9, "The Legacy of Lazarus." This particular story may or may not have been written by Len Wein, but the art is definitely by Alberto Giolitti or someone in his employ doing a fantastic Giolitti impression. How's that for clarification? Well, someone's responsible, dammit, and I hope we

Dangerous Ladies Cass Cain Black Bat cosplay is awesome even in an unfinished state!

2011-08-08T18:17:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Nathaniel, my source for all the best Cass Cain news, is this link to a video for some fantastic Black Bat cosplay. Yeah, that's how good cosplay is born. They did a Cass Batgirl at some point, too. All their costumes are eye-poppingly good. Comic accurate and well-portrayed. Cos-artists. That's what they are. Cos-ARTISTES. DC may toss the character in the garbage, but the

Happy 50th Anniversary, Fantastic Four!

2011-08-08T11:44:00.000-04:00

Hey Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben! I love you guys! No matter what Marvel does to you, you'll always be the First Family of Comics. The Fantastic Four was not my favorite comic when I was a kid. I liked the Saturday morning cartoon versions, but it wasn't until my then-favorite artist, John Byrne, took over the magazine's writing and drawing that I started reading it. From what I remember of the

Is this the first Cassandra Cain as Black Bat cosplay ever?

2011-08-07T08:22:00.000-04:00

Well, is it? I'm a fan of well-done cosplay. For that matter, I'm also a fan of crappily-done cosplay. But I'd rather praise the cosplayers who get it right and creatively embody the characters they portray than make fun of those who choose poorly. Let's praise, shall we?These two look fantastic and obviously I couldn't be more thrilled with this person's decision to go as Black Bat. She

And now a belated look at Andrew Garfield in the new Spider-Man costume

2011-08-05T10:18:00.000-04:00

It seems like the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire/Kirsten Dunst Spider-Man movies were too recent-- and the second one too awesome-- for a complete reconfiguring, but I'm not the person who makes these decisions. If Hollywood had listened to me, the Fantastic Four movies would have been Cold War period pieces stylistically akin to Mad Men, with the Thing in place of Don Draper, instead of

Let's all look at Henry Cavill as Superman why don't we?

2011-08-04T19:38:00.000-04:00

There it is, the picture you've all already seen! It's the first image of Henry Cavill as Superman from the upcoming Zack Snyder movie Man of Steel. Or is it Superman: Man of Steel? It's all about Superman, I take it. As a Superman fan and a loudmouthed jerk with a stupid blog about comic books, I feel I have to add my opinion to the hoopla and hullabaloo no doubt going on right this

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Monsters #1: A Comic Review

2011-07-18T11:21:00.000-04:00

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Monsters #1Publisher: Dark Horse ComicsWriters: Mike Mignola and John ArcudiArt: Tyler CrookI've missed an issue here or there of Dark Horse's B.P.R.D. series, so I'm not exactly sure why Liz Sherman is hanging out in a trailer park and living with a couple of goobers. But I've never objected to any Liz-centric story, neither this one nor the recently completed "The

Red Robin #25 and Walking Dead #86: Comics reviews

2011-07-17T23:00:00.000-04:00

Red Robin #25Publisher: DC ComicsScript: Fabian NiciezaPencils: Marcus ToInks: Guy MajorJust the other day I complained in this blog about having aged out of DC's target demographic. Yet it seems for this single issue of Red Robin, I'm the intended audience. Of course I don't really believe that for a second, but something happens early in this book I've often joked about.As for the rest of

"Trying is the first step towards failure"

2011-07-15T16:00:00.000-04:00

Thanks, Homer. I mailed a submission to a reputable comics company today. I won't tell you what it's about or the company involved. You'll be able to guess who they are when I suddenly start giving all their books negative reviews and writing angry screeds about how they're ruining the comics industry.I wouldn't do that. Yes, I think my story is a good one, but the chances of publication

Here's an interesting essay-- or "open letter"-- to DC

2011-07-14T08:04:00.000-04:00

Why am I telling you? You've probably already read it. I'm always a week or two behind on these things. Which makes me the Jackie Harvey of comics bloggers. Hey! At last I've found a niche!Anyway, enough of my insecurities. Corinna Lawson has written an open letter to DC informing them that they don't particularly know what they're doing when it comes to fan interaction and social media.

Reed Richards ruins everything

2011-06-30T10:44:00.000-04:00

Poor Thing. That Reed Richards is a jerk.

Gene Colan 1926-2011

2011-06-24T16:16:00.000-04:00

Gene Colan, one of my favorite comic artists passed away yesterday. I remember buying How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way way back when I was an artsy little kid with dreams of one day drawing comic books. The John Buscema and Jack Kirby examples inside were pretty snazzy, but what really fired my desire to draw were the little panels from what appeared to be some kind of horror comic. They were

Hellboy: Being Human: Comic Review

2011-06-22T23:00:00.000-04:00