Prison Island

Colleen Frakes had a very interesting childhood. Her parents worked, and so her family lived, on McNeil Island, Washington, the location of the last prison in the US only accessible by sea or air. Prison Island is a graphic memoir of moments from that life, framed within her final visit back. The state...

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Zodiac Starforce #1

With the success of Lumberjanes, we’re seeing more comics with girl teams, a trend I welcome. Zodiac Starforce takes its influences from the manga-style magical girl group, such as that seen in Sailor Moon, but layering it with American schoolgirl life. There’s a twist here, as written by Kevin Panetta...

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CBS Supergirl Marketing Not the Typical Superhero Show Package

Most of the superhero TV show marketing revolves around expected ideas: Gotham pushes a dark, mythic world, while the CW superhero shows, like Arrow, have a strong dash of relationship angst. Supergirl, coming this fall to CBS, aims to be different, which I welcome. I’d also expect as much — CBS viewers...

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Vixen Gets an Animated Series

CW Seed is an online streaming network focused on “animation, game shows, comedy, and digital personalities”. The main advertising point is that they have every episode ever of Whose Line Is It Anyway? (the American version). They’re also airing Almost Human (the scifi show with Michael Ealy as a robot...

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LARP! Volume 1: To Geek or Not to Geek

LARP! Volume 1: To Geek or Not to Geek is a short, predictable graphic novel written by Dan Jolley (Bloodhound, My Boyfriend Is a Monster) and Shawn deLoache and illustrated by Marlin Shoop. Kids, especially those who don’t fit in and dream of being popular, might enjoy it; others will find it lacking...

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The Fuse #13

Time for a new mystery in the dynamite science fiction series by Antony Johnston and Justin Greenwood! Or maybe more than one. The latest arc begins here, with Perihelion, which is the day the space station is closest to the sun. It’s also an excuse for a Mardi Gras-like party that takes over the whole...

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Black Canary #3

I love the premise of this Black Canary revamp — the hero’s on the road with a scrappy band — and I like the way we’re already learning more about the bigger picture. Kid-looking Ditto, who plays guitar, is being pursued by a mysterious group, and this issue lays out the back story, via Kurt, Black...

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Jill Trent, Science Sleuth #1

What a neat idea! Take an intriguing character first published in 1943 (and now public domain) and make new stories about her. Jill Trent, Science Sleuth was a backup feature in Wonder Comics #8-20. (You can read them here.) Accompanied by her best friend Daisy Smythe, Jill used science to detect crimes,...

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Zombie Wife and Other Tales of Supernatural Law

The most recent Supernatural Law collection, Zombie Wife and Other Tales of Supernatural Law, came out last year after a successful Kickstarter campaign. (That link also has the information on where the stories originally appeared.) I was reminded of the series when I read Comic Book Creator #8, which...

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Make Comics Like the Pros

These days, a comic guidebook doesn’t get published without including business advice. That’s a good thing — artists should learn more than they were traditionally taught about how to make a living (just as businesspeople should learn more about valuing creativity, but that’s a different post) — but...

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The Last Domino: Dark Horse Joins ComiXology

This news came out two months ago, but I wanted to capture it here, because I think it’s significant. On June 22, it was announced that Dark Horse, who previously had established their own digital comic distribution platform, would make “their full digital catalog of collections, graphic novels, and...

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Arrow Season 3 Out September 22

I don’t watch much wrestling, but since we had friends over for SummerSlam, I paid attention to one match in particular. Stephen Amell, star of Arrow, actually got in the ring as part of a tag team with Neville. There was some typically jumped-up plotine about Amell and Stardust (who looks and acts...

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The Monet Murders

I had high hopes for The Monet Murders, since it’s a murder mystery set in 1934 Hollywood, but the book by Terry Mort is disappointing. For one thing, there are no real-life characters involved, even tangentially. All the characters are made-up types: the Jewish producer, several gorgeous starlets,...

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Iron Giant Returns to Theaters With New Footage

The 1999 animated classic The Iron Giant, directed by Brad Bird and with Vin Diesel as the robot, will be back in theaters on September 30 and October 4. Warner Bros. has dubbed this the “Signature Edition”, and they’ve remastered the film and added two all-new scenes. This was Bird’s first film, before...

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Sunny Side Up

Sunny Side Up is the newest work by the sibling team who created the unstoppable Babymouse. Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm unspool a semi-autobiographical story about family that packs a sucker-punch, in that you won’t see it coming but it will leave you with a new perspective on how we hurt others....

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Elk’s Run #1

After a checkered publication past, Elk’s Run has returned in digital serialization before the hardcover debuts in November. Issue #1 is out today at ComiXology. As written by Joshua Hale Fialkov (The Bunker) and illustrated by Noel Tuazon (The Broadcast, Family Ties: An Alaskan Crime Drama), the mysterious...

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What Did You Eat Yesterday? Volume 9

What Did You Eat Yesterday? volume 9 may be the last volume of the series by Fumi Yoshinaga we see for a while. There’s no volume 10 listed yet at Amazon, and sales reportedly haven’t been great. That’s a shame, since this is a wonderful manga, blending gorgeous art, well-realized characters, realistic...

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When Life Hands You Lemons, Check For Lymes

When Life Hands You Lemons, Check For Lymes is a roughly drawn, self-published medical memoir by Phil Gerigscott. He was bitten by a tick in 2012, during a camping trip, and he began suffering swollen and painful joints, particularly his knees, when he returned to college. A couple of years later, he...

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The End of the Magazine Age: ACE, We Barely Knew You

At the beginning of the year, I wrote about the planned launch of ACE magazine, a new publication from the editor of Comic Book Artist, Jon B. Cooke, and publisher/retailer Robert Yeremian. “ACE” stands for “All Comics Evaluated”, and the magazine promised both interviews and reviews of current material...

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Princeless Volume 4: Be Yourself #1-2

Princeless, the comedy adventure fantasy starring a different kind of princess, has now made it to four miniseries and the occasional spin-off. Volume 1, Save Yourself, establishes the premise, as Princess Adrienne, instead of waiting to be rescued, escapes from a tower with the aid of her dragon Sparky...

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People Places Things

People Places Things is the latest white-guy-mid-life-crisis indy movie I’ve stumbled across, but aspects of the setting will be of great interest to my readers. Written and directed by James C. Strouse, the film stars Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) as a graphic novelist teaching a comic...

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Old Wounds #4

I don’t want to say too much about Old Wounds #4, written by Russell Lissau and drawn by John Bivens, since it concludes the mystery set up at the beginning of the miniseries. The killer was revealed at the end of issue #3, but this one is the important one, the part that tells us why the murders happened....

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Goodbye Little Pointy Teeth

Brian Moore is brilliant. Apparently, Goodbye Little Pointy Teeth is his debut comic collection, and it’s gorgeous, with unusual influences and painted in watercolor. Don’t think pastels, though, but vibrant shades that suit the unworldly subjects. There are three stories, with a series of interstitials...

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Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem

In the goal to make more DVD movies suitable for kids — since no matter how long or often people say it’s not true, some insist on believing that superhero cartoons should always be ok for children — DC and Warner have released Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem. It’s a sequel to Batman Unlimited: Animal...

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Small Press Expo a Month Away — Guests and Award Nominees

The Small Press Expo is always one of the highlights of my comic-show-going every year. It’s a terrific way to find many amazing comics and interact directly with the artists or publishers. SPX is celebrating its 21st birthday this year, and so the show is planning to spotlight creators who have only...

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