What a fascinating tiny bit of comic history! I’d only heard about Marvel value stamps before in the context of back issues with clipped pages. I had no idea of the scope of the project, or what any of them actually looked like. Marvel Value Stamps: A Visual History, edited by Charles Kochman, is incredibly comprehensive. Every stamp is pictured in the context of one of the letter pages where it first appeared, with a list of any other appearances, […]

I don’t know why I’m so into advent calendars this year — perhaps it’s because of the odd timeless nature of the world lately, where days pass so quickly and yet don’t seem to change at all, and I need more help keeping track of the date. Anyway, last year I had great fun with the OPI mini nail polish set, and I supposedly have the Doctor Who advent calendar on its way to me, but in the meantime, I […]

Modern-day coffee table books like DC: Women of Action, in addition to being fun reads on their own, pleasantly remind me of how much things have improved over the past few years. When I started this gig, a book full of pretty pictures celebrating the female superheroes of DC Comics would have been drawn by men and full of anatomically impossible come-hither poses and smutty innuendo. Now, it’s written by a woman, Shea Fontana, who has also written Batman and […]

It’s a famous phrase, at least amongst comic creators. “Comics will break your heart,” reportedly said Jack Kirby, expressing how many people love and are hurt by a tough business with little room for success. It’s also the title of a comic-centered teen romance novel by incredibly productive and talented cartoonist Faith Erin Hicks. (I previously wrote about a few of her inspirations for the story.) It’s a great choice, as Hicks uses the kind of background fans are familiar […]

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 […]

Legion of Super-Heroes fans, you’ll want to make sure to check out Back Issue #120, an issue of the comic history magazine dedicated to “heroes of tomorrow” — which means lots of Legion! KC Carlson (my husband and former long-running LSH editor) was interviewed for the lead article, a history of Mon-El/Valor. KC remembers how he first hired Adam Hughes and Stuart Immonen. Writer John Wells also talked to Mark Waid for the piece (and magazine editor Michael Eury is […]

Several years ago, I contributed an essay to Shot in the Face: A Savage Journey to the Heart of Transmetropolitan, a collection of writings published by Sequartabout the science fiction comic series. My particular topic was “Spider Jerusalem: Super-Hero of the Future?” In that piece, I looked at how one defines a superhero and whether the Warren Ellis-written journalist character qualified. I thought I’d excerpt some key parts here, mostly because I’ve missed arguing online. (I have lightly reedited the […]

Unpublished ‘70s Stories by the King of Comics! Review by KC Carlson Somehow this amazing book from TwoMorrows managed to literally slip through the cracks between what’s laughably known as my desk and a wall — until I was reminded that I hadn’t read or reviewed it yet. After finding it, I was ashamed that I had misplaced this incredible (and fun!) look at Kirby’s odds and ends from DC Comics that hadn’t been collected yet. I appreciated seeing a […]