I was reading Frink and Freud: The American Patient (written by Pierre Péju, art by Lionel Richerand) when I came across this panel. What is it about that image that’s so compelling? Two of my favorite detectives have connections to a very similar one. Richard Castle had this staircase art behind his desk, as you can see to the left of this set picture. (I so wanted walls made of bookcases.) And Sherlock Holmes had similarly shot significant moments twice. […]

Ah, the hazards of licensed properties. Cowboy Bebop, an anime series launched in 1997, was incredibly popular. A live-action adaptation was finally made by Netflix last year, starring John Cho. The show debuted in November 2021. Less than a month later, the streamer announced a quick cancellation; there wouldn’t be any more past the first season of ten episodes. Pop culture has moved on already, new year, plenty more TV to anticipate or hate on. Next week, Titan Comics releases […]

Ready for the spooky season? I found a lovely little treat called Scaredy Cat by Heather Franzen. You can read it on her website at that link, or she sells a minicomic version (a panel a page, and the whole thing just about fits in the palm of a large hand). It’s not exactly a Halloween story, but it has a pumpkin patch, bats, a black cat, and a cute kitten encountering them all.

Darryl Cunningham, the artist behind non-fiction graphic novels including How to Fake a Moon Landing, Graphic Science, and the most recent Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful, has created a new free online comic. Voices from the NHS: A People’s History is based on stories from a research project capturing workers and patients in their own voices, about the UK National Health Service. It’s not exactly a celebratory work, as it acknowledges many of the issues with the […]

As I previously mentioned, Doctor Who: Missy is out in October. Titan Comics has released the following preview pages. It’s written by Jody Houser and illustrated by Roberta Ingranata with cover by Claudia Caranfa.

I’ve been a fan of Kris Dresen’s work for a long time now. It doesn’t look like anything else out there, and she was telling everyday stories about queer characters long before it was fashionable, or accepted, to do so. Now she’s put a whole graphic novel, She Said, online. It’s about the lifespan of a relationship, and it’s so very bittersweet, particularly if you don’t rush through it but give each panel space.

Here’s a brilliant free read: How to Study Comics & Graphic Novels: A Graphic Introduction to Comics Studies by Enrique del Rey Cabero, Michael Goodrum, and José Morlesín Mellado, available online at Issuu (found via Ben Towle). It’s put out by the Oxford Comics Network, part of TORCH, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. And it’s wonderful, a comic that’s chock-full of information on how to read comics. It covers terminology (comic or graphic novel?), specialized terms (panel, gutter, […]