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 published in limited quantities in B&W and are now almost impossible to find. (Good thing John later reprinted them as paperback collections.) These early issues were also fairly […]

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The Beatles in Comics!

Review by KC Carlson People tend to forget that the Beatles (as a group) were only together for 10 years and only recorded together for eight. But once they got started, they composed and recorded more than 200 songs, and at least 12 albums, throughout the 1960s. (The album count is a little dicey, since many of their albums in England differed from their albums in America in both content and number of songs.) John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, […]

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Popeye the Sailor: The 1940s, Volume 1

Review by KC Carlson It’s been a while since I’ve watched (and reviewed) any vintage Popeye cartoons. But Warner just sent me the first new Popeye set in a long while. Plus, it’s the first restored Popeye on Blu-ray, which is a big deal! Popeye the Sailor: The 1940s, Volume 1 contains 14 recently restored color theatrical shorts — and as far as I can tell these are the original, unedited, versions of the cartoons. I distinctly remember watching these […]

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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 about such a complex subject in such relatively short space. It’s important to note some of the many bands that didn’t have the longevity of The Beach Boys, […]

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DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Third Season

Review by KC Carlson DC’s Legends of Tomorrow remains my favorite of the four “Arrowverse” shows (the others are Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl), with its odd collection of mostly broken-down characters rotating in and out, and its constant feeling of the whole thing flying apart in pieces at any given moment. Their motto has now become, “Sometimes we screw things up for the better,” which captures both the optimism and confusion of the endeavor. This season was no exception, […]

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Supergirl: The Complete Third Season

Review by KC Carlson I unfortunately had a lot of issues with Supergirl: The Complete Third Season. Those of you who remember me from a previous life as an editor for DC Comics (hired specifically to edit The Legion of Super-Heroes, among other things) can probably guess where this is going. I wasn’t crazy about a lot of things regarding the Legion’s storyline. (Like how three characters can be a Legion of anything!?) But I do have to say that […]

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20-Some Things I Learned From DC Comics Absolutely Everything You Need To Know

Review by KC Carlson DC Comics Absolutely Everything You Need To Know is a brand-new, 200-page book, published by DK, packed with information about the entire DC Universe (and its history). However, unlike previous DC Comics books from DK, it has a somewhat skewed sense of the minutia of the DCU that matches up with mine, so I’m finding it particularly entertaining and quite funny/absurd in places. I suspect the books’ four authors — Liz Marsham, Melanie Scott, Landry Q. […]

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The Flash: The Complete Fourth Season

Review by KC Carlson The fourth season of The Flash was not quite as much fun as the third season but still had some great moments — including the long sequence of episodes featuring Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man (played by Hartley Sawyer — which is also a great superhero secret identity-type name). Yeah, I know that he wasn’t very much like the Ralph Dibny from the comic books at all. But the comic book Ralph barely appears anymore, so […]

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