It seems like an awfully long time since we found ourselves under the Ultimate Man’s protection. Think back. Waaaay back to the mid-90’s. The comics industry was beginning to drag itself out of a self-inflicted slump of pointless speculation and multiple foil variant covers. Chains and guns were beginning to lose their appeal and the world was rotating towards a newer, shinier vision of superheroes. Pop, rather than Metal was going to be the order of the day in the lead up to the Millenium it would seem. Superheroes were going to be fun again. No more torturing paedophiles or deacpitating rapists. At the forefront of this movement we have Waid’s hyper-fun Flash and Impulse comics; Busiek’s Astro City with it’s progressive nostalgic vision of meta-comics; Robinson’s Starman that sought to build an engrossing and believable mythos for his pet character, whilst never forgetting that being a superhero is first and foremost fucking skill. Moore was shaking off the dust of self-publishing and gearing up his ABC assault. Miller’s DK2 lurked on the horizon ready to introduce his bezerko psychedelic bigfoot parable on the world. And somewhere lurking at the sidelines was Morrison and Millar’s AZTEK.
Beauty is in the YELLOW EYE of the beholder
July 7th, 2008
And I am that beholder.
Comics bought and read on Saturday the 5th of July 2008.
Rogue’s Review #5: The Riddler
July 5th, 2008
Riddle me this: why are so many writers completely at a loss when it comes to E. Nigma?
Poodle has noted that the Batman TV show of the 60s has been something of a touchstone in his rogue’s review considerations, and you know what? I completely agree that it should be. Many of you will worry that the camp fun therein is at odds with the skein of grim ‘n’ gritty darkness that runs through Batman at his best, but I put it to you that your inner child experienced that show as deadly serious, and that’s what we’re trying to tap into here: the way it felt to you as a kid, which as far as I’m concerned is completely at odds with flooding the Batverse with all out silliness.
Review to go! Batman 678
July 5th, 2008
I’m very definitely not the best choice for a weekly reviewer. I’m extremely narrow in terms of the number of comics I’ll pick up each week (prefering to buy trades and graphic novels as opposed to individual issues), and I really dislike most of what passes for superhero fiction, so I’ve opted out of sharing any responsibility for our regular (!?!) review section, but it doesn’t look like anything’s going to emerge this week unless I man up…
And here we are.
Terminus – a weekly comic strip
July 2nd, 2008
Collected irritant soundtracks vol 2: Young Liars
July 1st, 2008
In 2005, when I was 29, I underwent a second teenhood, and my flat at the time was more like a non-stop party than anything resembling a home. Seriously. You couldn’t get any sleep on a Friday night, and when you’re expected to go to work at 10 o clock the next day, that’s no fun at all. Having said that, I really enjoyed rolling in four hours afterwards and joining in with the drug-bleached bedlam. There’s no way, just three short years later, I could keep up with myself then, and that’s probably for the good, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was a great deal of fun while it lasted. Obviously we had very little money, and we were all boys, so the flat was always a fucking state and the decor and furnishings were sparse and basic to say the least. Inspite of this, however, I was always fairly house-proud – I just had to figure out how to spruce up the living room cum kitchen on a tight budget.
So I raided my comic book collection and 100% came to the rescue.
Better than never: the late review
June 26th, 2008
Other comics that came out LAST week.
Terminus – a weekly comic strip
June 25th, 2008
Iranians can be cartoon characters too
June 24th, 2008
Persepolis, graphic novel and movie reviewed.
Autobiography has become the life blood of mid-ground comic books. Sometimes the lives recalled are woven into the fabric of dramatic and horrific events of global historical importance, sometimes the events described are decidedly quotidian. In American Splendor (Vertigo, 2008 ) – which often immortalises lives of no particular consequence other than the fact that they are being lived by human beings – author Harvey Pekar rants, ““I’ve done a lot of stuff in my life I’m not proud of but at least…” and then lists such non-acts as “never got high and shot my wife in the head” and “never conned my country into a needless war to boost my ego”.
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