The Binge Watcher’s Guide to Doctor Who: A History of Doctor Who and the First Female Doctor
Since I’d just rewatched the Doctor Who episodes featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker, I was looking forward to reading analysis of that series, particularly around the rather significant change of making the character a woman for the first time in over fifty years. Unfortunately, The Binge Watcher’s Guide to Doctor Who: A History of Doctor Who and the First Female Doctor is unsatisfying, slapdash, and self-indulgent. There are four main sections to the book: Random bits on […]
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Under the Cape: An Anthology of Superhero Romance
Under the Cape: An Anthology of Superhero Romance, although a perfectly fine collection of prose stories, illustrates why so many new superhero concepts have a hard time getting off the ground. I was curious to check out this diverse group of tales. There are eleven in total, grouped as six “sweet” and five with “heat” (which mark how explicit the sex acts are). Five are male/female; four female/female; and two male/male. (You can see the breakdown at the publisher’s website.) […]
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The Hardways #1
I liked Russell Lissau’s Old Wounds when I read it several years ago (unfortunately, it no longer seems to be available digitally), so he got in touch about his newest project, The Hardways, and sent over a copy of the first issue. Illustrated by Shawn Richison, it’s the beginning of a five-issue miniseries, a Las Vegas-set caper story, that also launches Double Down Comics. This first issue has the schlubby Maury getting kidnapped after a successful run at the craps […]
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Food Manga Titles on Sale Digitally
As a tie-in to the upcoming US Thanksgiving holiday, Kodansha has put a number of food-connected digital manga titles on sale through November 30 in a promotion they’re calling “Delicious Delicacies”, with installments up to 50% off. The lead title is one of my very favorites, What Did You Eat Yesterday? by Fumi Yoshinaga. Unfortunately, not all the series volumes are discounted. Only the first half of the Yesterday series is included, for example, although it’s a great price for […]
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Touch is Really Strange
Touch is Really Strange is the newest book in the therapeutic comic series. Written by Steve Haines and illustrated by Sophie Standing, it’s due out in April 2021. The book is almost a meditation on paper, wandering through poetic thoughts on the importance of touch, how damaging the lack of touch can be, how we use it to engage with the world, and how touch interacts with the rest of our senses. (There are footnotes, too, with sources and additional […]
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The Angel of the Crows, an Urban Fantasy Take on Sherlock
I’m not normally a fan of urban fantasy, or fantasy in general, but if you put Sherlock Holmes in it, turns out I can’t read it quickly enough. Not that we ever see that character name, or Watson, here. Instead, it’s a personality resemblance and twists on familiar cases in a world with magic and vampires and angels. The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison is set in a Victorian world where three kinds of angels exist: those protecting […]
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The Most Popular Streaming Genres in Several Countries
Thanks to the good folks at Just Watch, who provided this data, I found out what the most popular genres are for streaming movies and TV shows in several countries. Comedy ranks highest in the US, UK, France, Spain, and Italy. (That’s common — 28 out of the 60 surveyed countries had comedy rank first.) It comes second in India, after Thriller. The top five genres, in order, in the US are Comedy Horror Action Family Science Fiction The UK […]
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The Flash: 100 Greatest Moments
Review by KC Carlson There have been several DC characters named the Flash (or something similar, like Kid Flash), and so it was about time that DC did one of these books devoted to all things Flash. The Flash: 100 Greatest Moments is the latest in the series of DC Comics history books by Robert Greenberger, after the Justice League, Batman, Super-Villains, and Super Heroines volumes. Like both Superman and Batman, the Flash first appeared during the Golden Age of […]
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