Popeye Cartoons Coming From Warner Archive

Warner Archive has announced that they will be releasing on Blu-ray and DVD a set of Popeye the Sailor cartoons never before available on home entertainment. Popeye the Sailor: The 1940s, Volume 1 will contain 14 theatrical shorts making up “the first two Technicolor seasons of Popeye’s animated theatrical...

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The Little Bookshop Between

Luke Finch emailed me out of the blue to send me a copy of his comic The Little Bookshop Between. I wasn’t sure it sounded like my kind of story, but I loved it. It could be called horror, but it’s very much about hints and attitude, not gore or conventional scares, and there’s a surprising note of...

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Zen Pencils: Inspirational Quotes for Kids

The quotes in Zen Pencils: Inspirational Quotes for Kids by Gavin Aung Than are oddly chosen. The second is about training to avoid bleeding in battle, attributed to an Armed Forces motto, a strange choice to lead off a book of advice for youngsters. The meanings of several are still argued over by...

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Scooby-Doo Team-Up #44 Preview: Dastardly and Muttley!

Out today is the latest installment of one of the comics I most enjoy reading these days: Scooby-Doo Team-Up. Issue #44 puts the characters in contact with a Hanna-Barbera favorite: fiendish Dick Dastardly and his oddly human-like snickering dog Muttley. They starred in a 1969 cartoon, Dastardly and...

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Horimiya Volume 12

I had a hard time following Horimiya volume 12, simply due to its place in the series. This is a long-running relationship manga, which means by this point, we’ve left the core couple as focus a while back and spun out into various friends and schoolmates as continuing characters. We’ve caught up with...

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Another Version of the Batman Animated Series Blu-ray Announced

Missed out on the gift package version of the Batman: The Complete Animated Series Blu-ray set? Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has just announced a content-only version that’s now available. The 12-disc set (list price $89.99) comes with all episodes, “The Heart of Batman” documentary, the remastered...

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Showtime at the Apollo: The Epic Tale of Harlem’s Legendary Theater

Due out in January is a comic-format reworking of a significant entertainment history. Ted Fox’s 1983 book Showtime at the Apollo: The Story of Harlem’s World Famous Theater has been converted into a graphic novel illustrated by James Otis Smith. Showtime at the Apollo: The Epic Tale of Harlem’s Legendary...

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Incredibles 2

As with many recent Pixar movies, Incredibles 2 isn’t a great, ground-breaking animated work with new emotional insight. They don’t do that as much any more, instead focusing on revisiting familiar characters and spending more time with them. It’s comfortable instead of challenging, but the result is...

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She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

I am excited to see that She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has been so well-received. This relaunch of the 1980s cartoon show has a more modern sensibility, and it allows the character to stand on her own instead of being a He-Man adjunct. (I haven’t had a chance to see the show yet, but I believe...

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Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 3

Now that the feature-length Pixar movies are more focused on sequels and known quantities, the short films are where the most exciting concepts and animation techniques are found, in my opinion. Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 3 has a mix of original ideas and cartoon shorts with Pixar favorite...

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The Story Behind: The Extraordinary History Behind Ordinary Objects

The Story Behind: The Extraordinary History Behind Ordinary Objects is a book compiling short stories of object origins, taken from the podcast of the same name by Emily Prokop. When I was a kid, before the internet became what it is and destroyed traditional publishing, I gobbled up books like these....

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We May Finally Get a Collection of the Infamous Five Years Later Legion of Super-Heroes

A fan on Facebook found this listing on the international sales site for Penguin Random House. Apparently, we’re finally going to get a collection of the infamous “Five Years Later” Legion of Super-Heroes run next July. Also known as Volume 4 of the series, it was published from 1989-1994 (when the...

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Justice League: Throne of Atlantis Commemorative Edition

Now available, to prepare us all for the live-action Aquaman movie out next month (this disc even opens with that trailer, in case you missed the connection), is the Justice League: Throne of Atlantis Commemorative Edition, which reissues the three-year-old animated movie with some new extras. The 4K...

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A New Andi Watson Is Always Worth Reading

I’m thrilled to hear that Gina Gagliano at Random House Graphic will be publishing a new Andi Watson graphic novel! I have loved everything of his I’ve read, from the early works such as Slow News Day and Breakfast After Noon to the more recent kid-focused books Glister and Princess Decomposia and Count...

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The Beatles Story

It’s an amazing period we live in, one where great comics from all eras are reprinted in book format and much more easily available than they used to be. The flip side of that boom in collected format is that a lot of publishers are sweeping the corners of the archives to find anything that might reach...

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Win Copies of XXth Century Murders Black Dahlia and Axe-Man!

I have, as a prize pack for a lucky reader, a set of Black Dahlia and The Terrible Axe-Man of New Orleans, both by Rick Geary, both part of the Treasury of XXth Century Murder true-crime graphic novel series, and both new in paperback. (My thanks to the publisher for providing the copies.) Geary does...

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The Altered History of Willow Sparks

The classic idea of a magical transformation, and the lesson of being careful what you wish for, is revisited in The Altered History of Willow Sparks by Tara O’Connor. This high school-set graphic novel does a terrific job with individual moments but doesn’t fully assemble them into a coherent whole....

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Sleepless Ends With Issue #11

I really like Sleepless, the incredible fantasy series by Sarah Vaughn and Leila del Duca. It’s got wonderful characters, an intriguing premise (what if a knight could give up sleep to better protect his princess?), strong world-building, and political intrigue that makes me want to know more. Now comes...

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Superman: The Movie 4K Re-Release

The movie that’s the grandfather of our current era, with the domination of superhero films at the box office, has been released on the newest video format, 4K Ultra HD. The 1978 Superman, starring Christopher Reeve, showed that you could do superpowers believably on film. This year is the 40th anniversary...

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Dash #5 — Return of the Gay Detective

After a three-year hiatus, I was curious to see how this supernatural noir mystery picked up. Smartly, writer Dave Ebersole begins the issue with a “story so far” section that fits nicely into the hardboiled PI’s tendency to monologue, in keeping with the genre, while bringing the forgetful reader up...

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The Heart of Batman: The Batman: Complete Animated Series Blu-ray Extra

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment was kind enough to send me a review copy of the on-everyone’s-wish-list Batman: The Complete Animated Series Blu-ray set. Due to the incredible demand, as indicated by the huge increase in the print run, I didn’t get any of the extras, so I can’t speak to those, but I...

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Comic Documentaries on Ellis, Morrison to Watch Free

Sequart Organization, a publisher of books and films “devoted to the study of popular culture and the promotion of comic books as a legitimate art form”, has released two of their documentaries about cult comic creators on YouTube for free viewing. Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods was produced in close...

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It’s Alive Leaves IDW Next Year, Previews Family Man

Drew Ford launched It’s Alive in 2016 as a publishing imprint dedicated to reprinting comics by classic creators. (Previously, he did something similar for Dover Publications.) It was Kickstarter-funded with later distribution handled by IDW. Titles have included Red Range by Joe R. Lansdale and Sam...

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Why The Beach Boys Matter

Review by KC Carlson It’s a pretty tall order to tell the Beach Boys’ oft-confusing, decades-long history in a 176-page, 5″ x 7″ book, but Tom Smucker does an admirable job in Why The Beach Boys Matter, recently published by Music Matters/University of Texas Press. I admire someone who can write well...

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Now’s the Time to Buy Your Digital Manga!

Kodansha has announced, for the next week, an almost 50% off sale for over 800 volumes of digital manga. This is the time to buy, as $6 (for example) makes a lot more sense for a digital volume than $11. Sale ends Monday, November 12. If you’re looking for some recommendations, here are series I’ve...

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