Sometimes, I am very grateful for the opportunities I’ve had. I was recently on an episode of Comic Beat Insider where we talked about The Extraordinary Adventures of Adêle Blanc-Sec. The other guest was Ian Culbard, an artist whose work I was unfortunately unfamiliar with. When I looked him up later, I discovered that, among other graphic novels, he’d done versions of the four Sherlock Holmes novels, adapted by Ian Edginton. (He’s credited for that work as I.N.J. Culbard.) Just […]

Violet Holmes and the Agents of H.I.V.E. Volume 1: Adventures of a Teenage Detective is a graphic novel about Sherlock Holmes’ daughter. It’s got a lot of reasons to recommend it, although it’s a pretty bad comic. I am going to try and avoid using that unwieldy title again, to start. Violet Holmes is one of the early publications from Orange Pip Books, started in 2019 as a division of the longer-established MX Publishing, which puts out Holmes-related books, both […]

Midnight Western Theatre is a high concept done right. And that concept is “vampires in the old West”. (The writer calls it “goth cowboys”.) Red Tom and his gang have taken over a town and are kicking back in the saloon when two strangers come to town. (They’re the ones shown on the cover.) The tables turn on Tom when he tries to scare them off. It’s written by Louis Southard and illustrated by David Hahn, an old favorite of […]

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 […]

These days, I’m excited by how many good Sherlock Holmes projects there are. (I’m even more excited if Mycroft’s in them.) Of course, it’s always a dice roll when ordering comics on Kickstarter if you don’t already know the creators or publisher, but I was pleasantly surprised by this comic series, which came out in reasonable time and of good quality. Major Holmes & Captain Watson is written by Jeff Rider and illustrated by Ismael Canales. It stars the blond […]

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 […]

As many readers know, I’m a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes in many of his incarnations. That includes one of the recent comic reworkings, which I reread this weekend. Watson and Holmes was a modernization that revamped the characters as Black men in modern-day New York. That makes a lot of sense for Watson’s Army background, as a war vet returned from Afghanistan. He’s meant to be the main character, working with a Holmes who refuses to be called Sherlock. […]

Virtually Yours is what I want more of in comics — a romantic comedy with a unique premise. Eva is living at home looking for a journalism job. To get her parents off her back, at her sister’s suggestion, she gets a fake boyfriend from Virtually Yours. The company exists to provide proof of relationships for people in similar situations; it’s an anti-dating app. This way, she can focus on her career without her parents worrying. Max is a former […]