Geary’s New Murder Series Starts With Chester & Grace

As regular readers know, I’m a huge fan of Rick Geary’s work. His precision linework and fascination with famous murders and infamous people make for compelling reading. There have been nine stories told in his series A Treasury of Victorian Murder, which can be found in two volumes, Compendium 1 (including...

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Arrow’s Next Season to Be Its Last

Last month, Stephen Amell, who plays Oliver Queen on Arrow, tweeted the following: Arrow will return for a final run of 10 episodes this Fall. Playing Oliver Queen has been the greatest professional experience of my life… but you can’t be a vigilante forever. Arrow will return for a final run of 10...

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Legends of Tomorrow Returns April 1

This is one of the most effective TV trailers I’ve seen, capturing the many aspects of the series’ appeal. Legends of Tomorrow is not only fun, it has a sense of humor about itself, and anything can happen on it. How can you not love a show, that in two minutes, * Makes fun of being left out of the...

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Batman on DC Universe Free Today

Today, March 30, to celebrate 80 years of Batman, there’s a whole bunch of content featuring the Dark Knight available at the DC Universe streaming service. If you’re in the US, you can watch the following: Batman (1989) Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero Batman & Robin Batman Beyond Batman Beyond:...

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RIP Mark Alessi, CrossGen Founder

Ron Marz has reported on Twitter that CrossGen founder Mark Alessi passed away yesterday. It seems the news is starting to circulate, so I feel some mention is appropriate. Mark Alessi, who founded and ran CrossGen Comics, apparently passed away this morning. I know no details. 1/ — Ron Marz (@ronmarz)...

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Shazam!

Thanks to a special Fandango offer, KC and I got to see Shazam! last night. It’s a fun movie, thanks largely to the outstanding performance of Zachary Levi as the 15-year-old pretending to be an adult superhero. He does an amazing job capturing the combination of adolescent swagger and uncertainty....

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The Karate Kid: The Classic Illustrated Storybook

The Karate Kid: The Classic Illustrated Storybook is the newest Pop Classic from Quirk Books. I previously talked about Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A Picture Book, from the same line. That book was an original story, but this one retells the 1984 movie. It’s based on the film written by Robert Mark Kamen...

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The Little Guys

The Little Guys has an odd topic and message for a children’s book. When I first heard of the concept, that tiny little creatures — they look rather like beards with acorn caps and stick arms and legs, so they have no analogue in the real world — teamed up together, could do anything, I thought that...

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Five Years Later Legion Book Cancelled Along With Others

I was looking forward to the rumored hardcover collection of Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later. I have quite a fondness for that run, since it changed my life. Unfortunately, it now appears to have been cancelled, as seen on Facebook. There were a number of announced DC collections cancelled...

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Viz Launching Imprint for Original Graphic Novels

This is a major change without much detail behind it yet. Viz Media, the long-standing publisher of translated manga, has been operating in the US since 1986. It’s owned by three major Japanese publishers. Many observers of the comic market, coming out of the superhero world, don’t pay attention to...

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Wonder Comics: Young Justice, Wonder Twins, and Naomi

Now that we’ve seen a few issues, I thought I’d take a look at the Wonder Comics imprint from DC Comics. Wonder Comics is “curated” by Brian Michael Bendis and features four titles that star teenage heroes. One hasn’t appeared yet. Dial H for Hero, about the magic dial that grants its wielder superpowers...

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Grand Theft Horse

Writer G. Neri has a cousin, Gail Ruffu, who’s an opinionated horse trainer working to make racing a more ethical sport. She was also the first person in 150 years to be charged with Grand Theft Horse, taking her case for rescuing an injured thoroughbred all the way to the California Supreme Court....

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You Are New: Lucy Knisley’s Children’s Book

It’s becoming the thing to do for comic artists to expand into children’s picture books. The differences are minimal but significant in terms of publishing audiences and format. A children’s book is usually a larger hardcover (easier for little hands to manipulate), with captioned images instead of...

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Ao Haru Ride Volume 3

Io Sakisaka’s Ao Haru Ride volume 3 brings the students back to the school setting (after the retreat of volume 2) and introduces a new conflict. After having her eyes opened to what friendship should mean in volume 1, Futaba is challenged by a passing comment made by new friend Yuri. Yuri likes Kou,...

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Behind the Scenes!! Volume 6

When I talked about the previous volume in this series, which came out last year, I was about ready for it to end. (Volume 7, the last, is due out later this year.) I enjoyed Behind the Scenes!! volume 6 more than I did volume 5, but I think the length is about right, with no need to extend further....

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Krypton: The Complete First Season

I was happy to get a review copy of Krypton: The Complete First Season, because I’m always curious, with so many superhero/comic-related TV shows out there these days, to see what a show is doing differently to set itself apart. Unfortunately, Krypton is full of things that seem familiar and feel as...

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EndGames

I was anticipating Ru Xu’s EndGames, the sequel to NewsPrints, because I enjoyed the previous book, a steampunk-y tale of the first girl newsboy in a world at war. Unfortunately, EndGames was almost exactly what I didn’t want to read. I missed the individual character work with Blue and Crow, the AI...

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Cells at Work! Spin-Off Series Coming This Summer

I’ve been enjoying Cells at Work!, the manga series by Akane Shimizu that anthropomorphizes red and white blood cells and dramatizes various body processes. Kodansha Comics has released five volumes in English so far, with volume 5 out last November. (I’m not sure what’s going on with volume 6. The...

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First Second Launches Another Non-Fiction Graphic Novel Line

To go along with their non-fiction graphic novel lines Science Comics and Maker Comics, First Second has announced at EW.com a new imprint, World Citizen Comics. They aim to excite and inform readers about how they can fight corruption in elections, blast fake news with truth-telling, and even battle...

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ComicMix Defeats Seuss in Victory for Mash-Ups

At the end of 2017, I reported on a lawsuit, in which the owner of Dr. Seuss properties sued website ComicMix over a proposed mash-up book called Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go!, a Star Trek adventure drawn and told in the style of a Dr. Seuss book. They were alleging trademark infringement (claims...

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American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1990s

Review by KC Carlson I’m a huge fan of this series. Published by TwoMorrows, the American Comic Book Chronicles is an extremely detailed year-by-year — and then a further month-by month — examination of pretty much everything of note that happened during that time, both inside the comic books and at...

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Everyone’s Getting Married Volume 9

Unlike my usual practice, this discussion of Everyone’s Getting Married volume 9 will not avoid spoilers. It’s the final volume of the series, anyway, and the happy ending is given away right there on the cover. When we left our troubled couple of Asuka and Ryu at the end of volume 8, she had just declared...

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Jack Kirby Collector #75 Presents: Kirby & Lee: Stuf’ Said!

The Complex Genesis of the Marvel Universe, in Its Creators’ Own Words Review by KC Carlson John Morrow has to be one of the most prominent (if not THE) Jack Kirby scholars on the planet. His Jack Kirby Collector magazine has been published regularly and faithfully since 1994. The earliest issues were...

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Science Comics: Cars: Engines That Move You

Science Comics: Cars: Engines That Move You is an excellent companion to First Second’s Maker Comics: Fix a Car! While that book concentrates on taking care of a vehicle, this graphic novel by Dan Zettwoch focuses on understanding how they work and came to be with incredibly comprehensive, well-cartooned...

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Captain Marvel: More Boring Than Expected

I went to see the newest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie release, Captain Marvel, this morning. While there was a lot about the movie I intellectually appreciated — such as its focus on female friendship — emotionally, I was left cold. And quite often, bored, waiting to get to the next set piece. Typical...

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