Wizard Lost a Lot of Money on Shows Last Year

ICv2 has the details. Wizard World lost $4.25 million in 2015, so they’re going to cut back on the number of shows they stage this year. They were profitable to the tune of just under a million dollars in 2014. That year, they made $1.36 million per show, on average, for a total of $23.1 million made...

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YaoiCon Celebrates 15 Years by Adding East Coast Edition

YaoiCon, to be held in the San Francisco area September 16-18 (the same weekend at SPX, but I imagine there isn’t a lot of audience crossover), will be celebrating its 15th anniversary of gathering fans of yaoi in anime and manga. Now they’re adding an East Coast gathering, BishounenCon, which will...

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The Killing Joke Animated Movie Gets an R Rating

The DC Universe original animated movies, over the nine years the line has run, have often featured violent scenes (and the occasional bad word or sexual implication) that firmly put them in PG-13 territory. Just because these are cartoons doesn’t mean they’re for kids. However, this is a new milestone,...

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Warner Bros. Revamps Studio Tour to Promote Their Recent Movies

The Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood (is there another one?) has announced they are adding a “new interactive experience” called “DC Universe: The Exhibit”, which seems to restrict the DCU to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and the upcoming Suicide Squad movie. The new exhibit will open May 24...

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Torchwood Comic Joins Doctor Who Line

Titan Comics has announced that, in addition to their ever-expanding Doctor Who comic line, they will be publishing a Torchwood comic that will be “in continuity with the new hit Torchwood audio dramas from Big Finish”. The story is promised to feature Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper (as played...

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The New Deal

I have never before seen a graphic novel that so beautifully captures what I enjoy about watching 1940s movies. The New Deal is a rich-vs-poor caper set in 1936 at the New York Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Jonathan Case (Green River Killer, Dear Creature) isn’t doing a purely retro piece, though, since he...

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New Monkees Video Uses Comic Art

The Monkees, the band that brought KC and I together, had their peak success in the mid 1960s, although they released singles from 1966-1971. The 80s revival, spurred by MTV rerunning their TV show (which shared a lot in common with music videos and modern editing and comedy techniques) resulted in...

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The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle

Now that the book club and its characters have solved the murder of one of their own (in the first book, The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco), it’s time to see if their abilities extend to another case. In The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle, the group is reading Murder on the Orient Express, a...

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New Bone Graphic Novel Marks 25th Anniversary

25 years after the first Bone issue, and years after the book became a kids’ graphic novel classic, Cartoon Books has announced a new Bone book. The Bone cousins and their friend Bartleby the Baby Rat Creature take a “dangerous journey across the desert back to Boneville in their rickety cow cart” in...

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Die Kitty Die! Makes Fun of Publisher

Fernando Ruiz and Dan Parent, former Archie Comics artists, teamed up for a Kickstarter at the end of last year to put out Die Kitty Die!, a parody series about a large-breasted witch whose comic publisher is trying to kill her. (Dan Parent was the driving force behind the Kevin Keller introduction,...

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Founding Fathers Funnies

Peter Bagge returns to historical biography. I enjoyed his Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story, but Founding Fathers Funnies takes a much different approach: short tales of 5-8 pages with little respect for the subjects. Instead of focusing on historical events, the well-known milestones take background...

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So Cute It Hurts!! Volumes 5-6

I rarely remember what’s been going on with twins Megumu and Mitsuru between volumes of So Cute It Hurts!!, but it doesn’t matter, since author Go Ikeyamada does a great job of catching us up as the various characters talk about who’s been doing what and the various relationship permutations. As volume...

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Love Stage!! Volume 5

This boys’ love manga series about two young actors has now been running long enough that it’s time to flip the premise. Previously, the more experienced Ryoma was pursuing Izumi. However, events in Love Stage!! volume 5 amusingly make the opposite necessary. In volume 4, Ryoma was concerned by how...

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Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor #2

Now that I’ve gotten used to the somewhat stiff art style used for the miniseries by Brian Williamson (probably under constraints to keep the likenesses as on-point as possible), I can relax and enjoy the adventure, and boy, there’s plenty of that! Writers Gordon Rennie and Emma Beeby waste no time...

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No Mercy #9

The psychological horror series by Alex de Campi and Carla Speed McNeil concludes its second arc with the most powerful issue yet. It’s also a great starting point, if you’re curious, since it’s a flashback issue focusing on a single one of the doomed teens. (If you’re looking for a more chronological...

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The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco

As soon as I heard the premise for this first in a cozy mystery series, I knew it was for me. The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco revolves around a mystery-reading book club organized by event planner Amy-Faye Johnson. She lives in a small Colorado town, where the other club members are her best friend,...

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Decanting a Murder

In Decanting a Murder, sommelier-in-training Katie Stillwell investigates a mystery in California wine country. Her outgoing childhood friend Tessa is working at a secretive winery whose products are much in demand, and Tessa invites Katie to a private party there. The owner is found murdered in one...

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The Sculptor

It’s no fun to be Scott McCloud, when it comes to creating comics. He came up with the bedrock work of popular comic theory, Understanding Comics, over 20 years ago. It revolutionized how people thought and talked about the medium, but it sets a very high bar for him when he sets out to simply tell...

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Comics Worth Reading Now Available on Apple News

If you’re an iOS user, you might want to follow this site on Apple News, where it is now available. I’d be really honored if you made it a Favorite by following these instructions: Open Apple News. Tap Search. Enter “Comics Worth Reading”. Locate it in the list of search results. Tap the plus symbol...

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Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon

Review by KC Carlson Inspired by the 2010 book of the same name (but different subtitle: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists Who Made The National Lampoon Insanely Great by Rick Meyerowitz), Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon is a 2015 documentary film starring...

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Good Books to Order for June 2016

The latest Diamond Previews catalog lists a lot of books worth checking out. Here are a few of them, along with others I had something to say about. You can order them now through your local comic shop for delivery in June or later. (The ones with May dates are relists of books that have already been...

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Honey So Sweet Volumes 1-2

As its title suggests, Honey So Sweet is a lightweight confection, an adorable bundle of teen romance between mismatched types that stands out because of the speed of its plot developments. Amu Meguro presents the story of Kogure, a shy girl just starting high school. She’s stunned when a delinquent,...

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Real Account Volume 1

I don’t know why I have a fondness for “we’re trapped in a video game and have to kill each other!” manga, but they can be surprisingly fun as escapism. Except, usually, I don’t really identify with hardcore video game players, and they tend to overdo the fan service. (I figure that the genre exists...

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The Final Tap

The Final Tap is a sequel to The Final Reveille, a murder mystery set at a living history museum, a reconstructed farm in Ohio, but it works perfectly well as a starting point if you haven’t read the previous. This time, instead of a Civil War reenactor getting killed, it’s a despicable, unliked expert...

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Comic-Con International to Launch Subscription TV Service This Summer

Following in Wizard World’s footsteps, Comic-Con International, owner of the San Diego Comic-Con, has partnered with Lionsgate to launch Comic-Con HQ, a subscription video-on-demand service debuting in June. Free beta access begins May 7, Free Comic Book Day. Beta users are promised to have free and...

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