Genshiken: Second Season Volume 8

I had hopes, from the beginning of this sequel series, that Genshiken: Second Season would be, like the first, a comedy set amongst nerds. I liked the portrayals of geek hobbies and fan pursuits of college students, with all the concerns and struggles they faced. Now, with volume 8, I have to admit...

Read More

Lumberjanes #31

Although well into the series, which launched two-and-a-half years ago, this issue keeps its eye on several key features that make Lumberjanes so appealing. Issue #31 is written by Shannon Watters & Kat Leyh and drawn by Carey Pietsch. First, there’s the teamwork. The girls are facing off against...

Read More

The Trickiness of a Three-Panel Structure

On Twitter recently, Melanie Gillman had a terrific breakdown of the latest page from As the Crow Flies. It’s a lovely little lesson in the kind of details artists think about to improve readability. They called the two left, bigger right structure “one of those panel structures you’re Not Supposed...

Read More

Interview With Margaret Stohl, Author of Black Widow: Red Vengeance

Now available is Black Widow: Red Vengeance, a YA novel by Margaret Stohl featuring the Marvel Comics superspy. It’s a sequel to the popular Black Widow: Forever Red from last year. In Red Vengeance, Natasha Romanoff and Ava Orlova (introduced in the previous book and created by Stohl), aka Black Widow...

Read More

Daredevil Comes to Blu-ray, First of the Netflix Marvel Shows on Home Video

Disney has announced that Marvel’s Daredevil, the first of the four Netflix Marvel TV series, will be available on Blu-ray in November. Daredevil stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who’s also an avenging vigilante. Vincent D’Onofrio plays Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, with Deborah Ann Woll...

Read More

NY Times Tackles Superheroine Costuming, Forgets About Creator Rights

There’s an article titled “Is It Time for Wonder Woman to Hang Up Her Bathing Suit?” at the NY Times. This debate — whether superheroine costumes are unnecessarily sexualized, the impracticality of the outfits (made more visible with the rise of cosplay), and the disparity in treatment for both female...

Read More

Interview With Kel McDonald on Buffy: The High School Years and Misfits of Avalon

Out this week in comic shops is the second installment of the graphic novel series Buffy: The High School Years, which revisits the core Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters during the first season of the TV series. Glutton for Punishment was written by Kel McDonald, who was kind enough to talk with...

Read More

Resident Alien: The Man With No Name #2

We’re firmly into the mystery here in Resident Alien: The Man With No Name #2 (of 4), but it’s the subtleties of the character interaction that I enjoy most about the series. A downtown building has burned, and the firefighters discover that the ruined warehouse was probably a meth lab. As the investigation...

Read More

The Fuse #22

I have this sinking feeling that this storyline, “Constant Orbital Revolutions“, may be the last for The Fuse for a while. (Issue #22 is part four of the arc.) Maybe that’s because it’s unusual for a solid independent comic to plug along these days for more than a couple of years, and this is the fourth...

Read More

Dark Horse Puts Out a Second Free Emergency Comic

Two years ago, Dark Horse Comics and the Oregon Office of Emergency Management put out a digital comic called Without Warning!, a project geared to helping teens prepare for earthquakes and increasing awareness of what to do in such a situation. Now there’s a sequel! Without Warning! Tsunami is by the...

Read More

Harvey Awards Leaving Baltimore, New Home Not Disclosed

Look, I had nothing to do with it. I was complaining about how the Harvey Awards were easily manipulated last week, and now comes news that the Awards are leaving Baltimore, but I’m sure those things are unrelated. We don’t know how much is actually changing, beyond the location. The Harvey Awards,...

Read More

All It Takes Is a Franchise

So many announcements this month, what with the ever-growing New York Comic Con, but this one caught my eye because of how little information it had and how unexpected (but sensible) it was. Dynamite Entertainment, home of comics starring James Bond, Betty Boop, Xena, Tarzan, and characters from Battlestar...

Read More

Dapper Men Comes Back to Print From Top Shelf

Return of the Dapper Men was an attractive, fairy-tale-like graphic novel by Jim McCann and Janet Lee published in late 2010 by Archaia (before they were acquired by Boom!). It won the 2011 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album — New but apparently went out of print somewhere along the way. Top Shelf...

Read More

What Is the Biggest Graphic Novel Published?

Got the following press release recently. Kingstone Comics, the nation’s largest publisher of Christian comics, is releasing the most complete graphic novel adaptation of the Bible ever published. The Kingstone Bible bring[s] together leading Christian writers with illustrators with credits from Marvel...

Read More

X-Men: Apocalypse

I didn’t see X-Men: Apocalypse in theaters. This past summer, I was pretty burned out on superhero comic movies, and I wasn’t blown away by the trailer. But I like the concept of the X-Men, especially with the revamped prequel setup and cast. Overall, watching the movie made for an enjoyable weekend...

Read More

Dark Horse Brings Gaiman’s American Gods to Comics Now That There’s a TV Show

Dark Horse has announced that they will continue their line of Neil Gaiman comic adaptations (after success with How to Talk to Girls at Parties, the recent Troll Bridge, and others) with a higher-profile title: American Gods. The novel, first published in 2001, is being adapted into a TV series for...

Read More

I’d Like to See Verity Willis Again

I’m not a fan of the Asgardian comics, those about Thor and his buddies, because I find the mythology overwhelming. But there was one aspect of the Loki: Agent of Asgard run a year or two ago that I really liked, and that was the introduction of Verity Willis. She was created by Al Ewing and Lee Garbett...

Read More

Marvel Announces Digital Hulk Animated Movie for Halloween

Marvel announced that they would be premiering “the first animated, feature-length film centered on Hulk” later this month. Marvel’s Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell will team the Hulk with Dr. Strange and the Howling Commandoes and be available beginning October 21 on Digital HD. Sounds like a neat idea...

Read More

Why It Matters When a Publisher Stuffs a Ballot Box

Valiant announced at the New York Comic Con just passed that they were doing a six-episode digital video online series called Ninjak vs. the Valiant Universe. I don’t really care because it sounds like the goal is to show off more characters to garner more movie/TV bids, and the premise of a character...

Read More

Hellboy Wine Debuts on Halloween

There’s a tradition of pop culture-related alcohol, whether it’s Star Trek wine or Thor whisky. Now there’s going to be a Hellboy wine. Dark Horse Comics and the Stoller Family Estates Winery (out of Portland, Oregon) have created the 2011 Hellboy Reserve Pinot Noir. It will be released on Halloween...

Read More

Legends of Tomorrow Returns Thursday – Here’s a Teaser Trailer

The second season of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow debuts this coming Thursday, October 13, and here’s a jam-packed teaser trailer: You’ve likely heard that the Justice Society (including Vixen) will be appearing this season, but so will Albert Einstein, the Queen of France (getting it on with Sara Lance),...

Read More

John Patrick Green’s Next Book

The next project by John Patrick Green, author of Hippopotamister and artist of Teen Boat, has been announced. According to Publishers Weekly, First Second will be publishing House Kittens, a series of two graphic novels about kittens who build houses, beginning in Fall 2018. I really liked his Hippopotamister,...

Read More

Amazon Bans Providing Items for Review (Except Books)

The development of reviews on Amazon is a mini-history of the internet, in a way. At first, it allowed you to hear from people who’d already had experience with something you were interested in buying. Then it became a way to create memes (with goofy reviews of simple pens) or gang up on people whose...

Read More

Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma Volume 14

The work-based stories begun in the previous volume continue here, as Soma takes on another internship, this time in the kitchen of a prestigious French-inspired chef (and former student at the same school). He’s opening a new restaurant in Tokyo, and he’s so demanding that his tastes exceed his budget,...

Read More

Constantine Now Available on Home Video

The forgotten black sheep of the DC comic TV show family is Constantine, because it’s the one (so far) from the modern era that’s gotten cancelled. Thirteen episodes ran on NBC from October 2014 to February 2015. (With a followup guest appearance on Arrow the next year that was quite good.) It was a...

Read More