Recently, a bunch of online commentators have been discussing how Wizard‘s how-to guide objectifies women. At first, all this hoo-hah sounded to me rather like Claude Rains’ character in Casablanca: “I am shocked, SHOCKED to find that gambling is going on in here!” Who doesn’t know that Wizard is targeted at adolescent (in mind if not still in body) males? Of course their view of women is of unknown creatures only to be stared at, because that’s how teenage boys […]

99 Ways to Tell a Story has been billed as a how-to book, but it’s more accurate to talk about it in reference to its subtitle. Matt Madden has been conducting “Exercises in Style”, telling the same short comic story 99 different ways (inspired by the work of Raymond Queneau). Madden is known as a proponent of formalism, the idea that creativity isn’t necessarily constrained by boundaries. Instead, artificial restraints (like restricting the number of pages or requiring that a […]

Panel Two is a followup to Panel One, a book edited by Nat Gertler collecting sample comic scripts by notable writers, that improves on the first in two ways: it covers even more diverse ways to write comics, and it includes commentary by many of the artists involved. As well as learning basic information (pros and cons of full script vs. just panel descriptions, for example, or a list of art reference books), you’ll be entertained by the occasional horror […]

This readable popular science book has an interesting hook: superhero stories are used to introduce discussions of various scientific questions. Batman brings up gadgets and jetpacks; Spider-Man means spiders and cloning; Green Lantern, black holes and color theory. There’s also a chapter in The Science of Superheroes on the EC science fiction comics — although it sounds as though it’s more accurate to describe them as science-less morality tales — and DC’s Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space. The latter […]

The Science of Supervillains opens with a preface that gives the reader the basics of the Silver Age of superhero comics. After that comes an introduction by Chris Claremont where he talks briefly about Magneto and the problems of writing plausible villains. Then the chapters, one each for Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom, Brainiac, The Vulture, Poison Ivy, Doctor Octopus, The Lizard, Venom, Gorilla Grodd, Magneto, Vandal Savage, The Silver Surfer, Sinestro, Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite, and strangely, the Crisis on […]

I wanted to jump into this how-to book as soon as I received it. Manga Secrets is immediately welcoming, with well-laid-out pages, lots of attractive spot color, and an approach that suggests that anyone can draw manga with its help. Lea Hernandez clearly knows her stuff. She’s created her own manga-influenced graphic novels and worked as a retouch artist and manga rewriter. The introduction is done as a comic strip, demonstrating her art style while communicating her love of manga […]