It’s heartening to hear that the comic book version of the 9/11 Commission Report is selling well. That would mean it’s serving its intended purpose of carrying the message of the report to those who don’t have the time, patience, etc. to wade through nearly 600 very technical and occasionally bureaucratic pages. I’m not saying…
On a whim, I picked up X-Men #190 this week along with the usual stuff, which included Uncanny X-Men #478. I thought it’d be fun to compare the series, since they’re both heading in new directions after several mostly dull years. Uncanny X-Men has been enjoyable as a very different kind of book from Ed…
Recently I brought you a review of The Surrogates, a hell of a sci fi story from first-time comics writer Robert Venditti. Today I spoke with Robert on the phone from his home in Atlanta about the book, how he cracked into comics and his future plans. Jean-Claude Van Doom – You majored in poli…
I just this afternoon received a review copy of the compilation of Robert Venditti’s The Surrogates ($19.99, Top Shelf), a mash-up of sci fi, crime noir and social commentary. If you want the blurb version of my thoughts, I read it straight through as soon as I had the chance, then took a little extra…
Congrats to the Comic Shop News on their 1,000th issue. It seems like only yesterday that I picked up issue 973. The free weekly pamphlet on the goings on in the comic book world has been around since 1987, which, in this latest edition the editors remind us, “when we started CSN, trade paperbacks were…
I picked up my comics this week and had a mild surprise when the fill-in clerk handed me my larger-than-usual stack of books in a white plastic bag emblazoned with the Free Comic Book Day logo. A bit dispirited, I paid and left. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with Free Comic…
Seems only fitting to post this on a Sunday. I wrote a piece for another outlet about all the wiki projects involving comic books, and one of the most interesting links I found catalogued a ton of Marvel, DC and smaller press characters by their religion (or lack thereof). Here’s the link to the page…
I’ve reached out to a few new series lately and have more or less enjoyed them. Some are sure-fire additions to the buy pile, while others are still on the issue to issue trial basis. Either way, all are worth a look and you can probably find them on the shelves for another week or…
A friend just loaned me the first book of this series. Volumes two and three are out as well. I’d made it about three fourths of the way through my first encounter with manga (can you really call it that?) and I was considering dropping the thing cold and chalking it up as a waste…
I haven’t read any of Marvel’s Ultimate line (except for the sublimely ugly Ultimates) for about a year now. X-Men fell down during Brian K. Vaughn’s run, Spider-Man never struck my fancy, Galactus was boring and delayed, delays ruined Iron Man and Fantastic Four was good, but I couldn’t justify adding it to my already…