I watch Dancing With the Stars for two reasons — first, it’s something my mother and I can share talking about, which is nice, and second, I used to dance. (Competed internationally once in college.) Most of the “stars” aren’t really celebrities — heck, I haven’t heard of more than half of them each season — but they do all kinds of interesting costuming and scoring for theme nights. Last night, of course, was Halloween, so there was a nifty […]

On Twitter recently, Melanie Gillman had a terrific breakdown of the latest page from As the Crow Flies. It’s a lovely little lesson in the kind of details artists think about to improve readability. They called the two left, bigger right structure “one of those panel structures you’re Not Supposed To Do in comics” because readers in a left-to-right language may go in that order instead of reading down, then across, as intended. Oh, forgot I wanted to talk about […]

I’m not a fan of the Asgardian comics, those about Thor and his buddies, because I find the mythology overwhelming. But there was one aspect of the Loki: Agent of Asgard run a year or two ago that I really liked, and that was the introduction of Verity Willis. She was created by Al Ewing and Lee Garbett in Loki: Agent of Asgard #2 (cover-dated May 2014), and she’s the perfect best friend for Loki, the god of lies, because […]

I love comics for a whole bunch of reasons, but one of them is seeing creative visions I never would have dreamed of. Take, for example, “Till Her Final Breath”, written by Greg van Eekhout and drawn by Sarah Winifred Searle. It’s about a super-skilled balloon animal competition. What a great idea for visuals! But it’s about more than that — it’s also about generational change and creativity and aging and caring and tradition. And it’s wonderfully drawn, particularly the […]

Marvel has announced yet another cover theme for November, this time promoting “Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM)”. (Is there something in the water on this subject lately?) The following books will feature special variants, as follows and shown below: S (science) – MOON GIRL & DEVIL DINOSAUR #13 by Joyce Chin T (technology) – SPIDER-MAN #10 by Pasqual Ferry E (engineering) — INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #1 by Mike McKone A (art) — CHAMPIONS #2 by Pascal Campion M […]

Aftershock Comics launched in April 2015 and shipped their first comic (Replica) in December of that year. They’ve currently put out 17 series and miniseries, and their strong point is how many of their creators and staff have long-running comic industry careers, with names like Mike Marts, Joe Pruett, Brian Azzarello, Paul Jenkins, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Amanda Conner. Their logo looks like this: It’s eye-catching and nicely symbolic, but every time I see it, I remember this: I know, that […]

The second single from the new Monkees album, Good Times!, is “You Bring the Summer”. The first video used comic book art; this second one takes a limited animation approach. It made me happy. Particularly in the way they made a virtue of reusing certain action loops. Each time the band plays, they’re in another famous set of costumes, alluding to how the visuals of the TV show changed over its short run. They start in the red 8-button shirts, […]

You probably don’t read Rex Morgan, M.D.. It’s an old-fashioned soap opera comic strip, created in 1948 by psychiatrist Nicholas P. Dallis. (He also created Judge Parker (1952-present) and Apartment 3-G (1961-2015).) Currently, it’s written by Woody Wilson (since 1990) and drawn by Terry Beatty (since 2014). Update: Beatty has commented below that he’s been writing the strip as well since May. I have found the current storyline pretty interesting, though, as an odd topic for a doctor comic to […]