The Wicked + the Divine #1-3

Image Comics is putting out some of the most exciting comics out there, and their newest must-read series is The Wicked + The Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. The Wicked + The Divine postulates gods as pop stars, and it’s drawn in typically gorgeous fashion by McKelvie. Gillen portrays the absolute devotion of a dedicated fan in tangible fashion before sending us into the question of how our world would deal with these beings, plus a murder mystery […]

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The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage #1 Preview and Review

I’ve been looking for an entry point into Valiant’s titles, given how confusing I find their company foundation stones of reusing characters I never knew and lots of crossovers. The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage #1, next week’s launch of a five-issue miniseries, was much friendlier to me. Plus, I appreciated seeing a female lead (where a big deal isn’t made of her gender) written by a woman, Jen Van Meter. Although a first issue, there are still references to events that […]

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Arrow Season 2 Comes to DVD

Arrow: The Complete Second Season is due out on Blu-ray (or DVD) on September 16. I found the first season a pleasant surprise. I haven’t been as big a fan of the second, primarily due to not loving the Deathstroke plot and the continuing island flashbacks, although it’s good to see more done with Black Canary and other female characters. The second season home releases contain 23 episodes, the “Year One” recap episode, commentary, three behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, six […]

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All-New X-Factor #7-12: Change of Decay

When you’ve been reading superhero comics for decades, many of them start blurring together. It’s easy for creators and readers to settle for the usual supervillain challenges, where costumed, powered characters duke it out without much real-world connection. But after a while, when you’ve read more than your share of those stories, it all becomes familiar and boring. That’s why I was so surprised and pleased to see what Peter David was doing with the recent run of All-New X-Factor, […]

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Wizard World Having a Much Better 2014 Financially

Earlier this year, I reported on Wizard World’s financial status, where they made more money but were running at a loss. Now they’ve released their financial statements for the second quarter of 2014, where the headline is “Company Exceeds 2013 Revenue in First Half of 2014”. I guess their expanded slate of shows strategy is working, bringing in more money. Q2 2014 contained four comic cons, which brought in $7,110,940 (compared to only $2,901,416 in the second quarter of 2013). […]

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Some Thoughts on the Comic Con Trademark Kerfluffle

I am not a lawyer, although I did take an intellectual property course once (in today’s world, where everyone ends up violating those laws, it seemed useful), so these are just some observations from an uninterested party. Here’s some background. The short version is that the San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) has sued the organizers of the Salt Lake Comic Con for federal trademark infringement. The folks behind Salt Lake then found it necessary to send out a press release saying […]

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No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! Volume 4 (WataMote)

Ah, it’s time for a price rise (from $11.99 to $13 — and I’m glad Yen has gotten away from the .99 dodge). Thankfully, I’m still enjoying this series by Nico Tanigawa enough to keep buying. I’m not sure why, since normally I hate comedy based on “look how pathetic this person is”, but somehow, I’m still rooting for Tomoko, even when she’s doing the stupidest things possible. I think it’s because there’s a fondness in her portrayal that allow […]

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The First Japanese Comic Artist Published in English

This is a pretty neat writeup… Ash Brown has the story of Masaichi Mukaide’s translated work, credited as “the first Japanese comics to be translated into English”. It appeared in Star Reach, an early independent comic anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories, in the 1970s. As Brown describes it, much of much of Mukaide’s work was written by already-known US creators and developed for this market and audience, so I’m not sure we’d call it manga, but it’s a […]

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