Faith #1

Like many customers excited by the concept of the title Faith, I love the idea of a large-sized fangirl getting her own comic. It’s a shame that the comic isn’t as exciting or enjoyable as I hoped, making love for it a matter of it existing at all, not what it brings to the page. In a more diverse market,...

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Batman: Bad Blood

Batman: Bad Blood opens with action, as Batwoman (voiced by Yvonne Strahovski) is battling a gang that includes Firefly and Killer Moth. Unlike Batman (Jason O’Mara), she uses guns, which to the Dark Knight’s eyes makes her just like the villains they battle, so he wants her out of his city. Conveniently,...

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Justice League vs. Teen Titans Coming This Spring

The next original DC Universe animated movie has been announced as Justice League vs. Teen Titans, which “welcomes the Teen Titans to the ever-expanding canon of classic DC Comics characters”. As expected from a Titans project, the big bad is Trigon, who’s possessed the Justice League, causing them...

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Cassius #2

I’m glad to see the alternate-history story of Cassius continuing, but I fear we’ve reached a point where my lack of knowledge of the time of Julius Caesar (either the play or the real history) is going to get in my way. There are enough characters and plotting that I would prefer to read such material...

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Master Keaton Volume 2

I talked, in my review of the first volume, about how Master Keaton is an older series. I knew going in that there would be an air of “that was then” reading it. Yet it surprised me how many of the stories in this second volume were also looking backwards within their own texts. For example, the first...

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Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma Volumes 9-10

The quarterfinal matches of the Fall Classic cooking competition continue and conclude in these volumes. The showdown began in volume 7 and extended into the previous book, where the contest between our hero Soma and the molecular gastronomist began; she presented her bento box there. Here, in Food...

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Say I Love You Volume 9

It’s been a while since I’ve caught up with the mismatched couple, school prince Yamato and shy Mei, at the center of Say I Love You. I liked the emotions she expressed as she began to understand the value of friendship and feeling loved, but I wondered how the series could continue for this long (14...

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Get Back: Imagine… Saving John Lennon

Donovan Day explores a music fan’s biggest fantasy in Get Back: Imagine… Saving John Lennon. The teenage Lenny, named after John Lennon, is staying with his grandpa in New York City. He meets a beautiful girl named Yoko while busking in the subway. Then he discovers his iPod, loaded with a ton of classic...

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Friday Barnes, Girl Detective

Friday Barnes, Girl Detective by R.A. Spratt is an amusing blend of boarding school antics and mystery-solving. Friday, as the overlooked daughter of supersmart academics having to find her own way, reminded me a bit of Meg, from A Wrinkle in Time. Only instead of science fiction, this series is based...

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Diamond’s How to Draw Month Makes Books on Creating Comics Available

This month’s Diamond Previews catalog, used by comic shops and their customers to determine what to buy in the comic months, has the theme “How to Draw” to “pay tribute to the DIY spirit”. That means a number of publishers are reoffering books about making comics. Here are some I recommend you should...

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The Baker Street Peculiars: Exclusive Preview

Coming out in March is a new miniseries written by the talented Roger Langridge (Abigail and the Snowman) that takes on a particular interest of mine: the world of Sherlock Holmes. Illustrated by Andy Hirsch (Adventure Time), The Baker Street Peculiars has the premise that Holmes is a sham. (So not...

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Shuriken and Pleats Volume 1

The concept of Shuriken and Pleats — schoolgirl ninja — is short but interesting. Sadly, the execution is slow and obvious. Author Hino Matsuri is best known for the popular Vampire Knight series, which I don’t remember being this patchy in plotting. The young female ninja is Mikage, whose older master...

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Congratulations, NBM, on 40 Years!

To celebrate their 40th anniversary, independent and Eurocomix publisher NBM has unveiled a new logo, shown here. They’ve changed their name from “NBM Publishing” to “NBM Graphic Novels”, reflecting their speciality, and dissolved their ComicsLit imprint, moving the titles to the main brand. The adult...

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Case Study of an Indy Comic: Mixtape Space Goat Reprints Cancelled

I’ve been covering Mixtape, the slice-of-life indy comic written by Brad Abraham with art by Gervasio and Jok, for four years now. The first issue came out in April 2012 from Ardden Entertainment. As I said then, It’s the story of a group of friends, about to be high school seniors, and the choices...

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The Imitation Game Comes to Print from Abrams ComicArts

A year and a half ago, Jim Ottaviani’s newest graphic novel was published online at Tor.com. It’s The Imitation Game: Alan Turing Decoded, illustrated by Leland Purvis, and now it’s coming to print from Abrams ComicArts. The “historically accurate graphic novel biography” covers Turing’s work on cryptography...

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You Are Not Owed Pre-Orders Because You’ve Been Around Before

Do most readers know who the Badger is? With help from Wikipedia and the GCD, I found out that the superhero was first published in 1983 by the short-lived Capital Comics company. Later, his series ran 66 issues from First Comics, ending in 1991, with revival attempts at Dark Horse (1994), Image (1997),...

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Kurt Busiek on Loss of Public Domain

A new year means another article on what famous works of art (and other discoveries) should have entered the public domain but haven’t, due to continuing legal extensions of copyright law. If the law in existence at the time of their creation had been maintained, this year, works from 1959 would now...

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Different Ugliness Different Madness

Different Ugliness Different Madness is the latest release from Humanoids, a graphic novel by Marc Males that promises an intriguing period setting but disappoints with expected patterns of plot. I loved the idea of a story set among radio in the 1930s, but ultimately, little was done with that, since...

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Maris Wicks Webcomic Your Wild City

I very much enjoyed reading Maris Wicks’ Human Body Theater last fall. She’s skilled at true-life comics; she also illustrated Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas. I was glad to see, then, that she draws a webcomic, Your Wild City. Written by Rosemary Mosco...

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More on New Projects From Larson, Telgemeier

Hope Larson (A Wrinkle in Time, Mercury) will be writing a new comic called Goldie Vance. Brittney Williams (who drew the Hellcat relaunch for Marvel) will illustrate the story, about a 16-year-old in the 1960s who wants to become the full-time in-house detective at her father’s Florida resort hotel....

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Coming Spring From Toon Books

Toon Books, publisher of elegant hardcover comics for early readers, has announced their five titles coming this spring. The first three are Level 1, which means they’re aimed at kindergarten through first grade readers. The title links go to the publisher’s website, which has preview pages for each....

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Meditations on Dying Media

A few links I found to be thought-provoking reads: First up, how newspapers have cannibalized their own sales. Like magazines before them, single-copy sales have practically disappeared as publishers raise prices drastically in order to combat declining readership. But that’s a stupid idea, because...

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Octopus Pie Returns to Print in “Definitive Collection” From Image

Meredith Gran’s Octopus Pie is an excellent case study of the different options over the years for publishing webcomics as the industry (and audience) has changed. There were some early self-published editions, then There Are No Stars in Brooklyn came out from Villard, an imprint of Random House, in...

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A Look at 2015 With Advice for Freelancers

Melanie Gillman (As the Crow Flies) has posted a terrific rundown of 2015 in comic form, arranged by lessons learned in a first year of full-time freelancing. These are the two that resonated most with me. from Comics Worth Reading http://ift.tt/1mYU1v3 Sourced by "The typist writer". The place where...

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An Akiko Flashback

Akiko, the charming SF adventure comic series by Mark Crilley, celebrated its 20th anniversary at the end of last year. I loved this comic! (I have a piece in issue #50 saying so.) It was published by Sirius Entertainment, which also put out Artesia, Joseph Michael Linsner’s Dawn, Poison Elves, and...

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