Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
Although well into the series, which launched two-and-a-half years ago, this issue keeps its eye on several key features that make Lumberjanes so appealing. Issue #31 is written by Shannon Watters & Kat Leyh and drawn by Carey Pietsch. First, there’s the teamwork. The girls are facing off against a giant bird with medusa-like powers to turn anyone who sees it into stone, accompanied by Diane, a teen goddess exiled from Olympus, and Ligo, a Gorgon. They have to work […]
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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 […]
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Now available is Black Widow: Red Vengeance, a YA novel by Margaret Stohl featuring the Marvel Comics superspy. It’s a sequel to the popular Black Widow: Forever Red from last year. In Red Vengeance, Natasha Romanoff and Ava Orlova (introduced in the previous book and created by Stohl), aka Black Widow and Red Widow, have teamed up to “stop a conspiracy involving stolen nuclear warheads, mind-altering chemical weapons, and ultimately, betrayal by old friends and enemies alike.” It’s a globe-trotting […]
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Disney has announced that Marvel’s Daredevil, the first of the four Netflix Marvel TV series, will be available on Blu-ray in November. Daredevil stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who’s also an avenging vigilante. Vincent D’Onofrio plays Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, with Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page and Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson. The first season, 13 episodes, comes to Blu-ray on November 8. No word on any extras, and no mention of a DVD version. […]
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There’s an article titled “Is It Time for Wonder Woman to Hang Up Her Bathing Suit?” at the NY Times. This debate — whether superheroine costumes are unnecessarily sexualized, the impracticality of the outfits (made more visible with the rise of cosplay), and the disparity in treatment for both female characters and fans — is nothing new to clued-in superhero comic industry viewers. The piece is a tie-in by a fashion columnist to the recent news that Wonder Woman has […]
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Out this week in comic shops is the second installment of the graphic novel series Buffy: The High School Years, which revisits the core Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters during the first season of the TV series. Glutton for Punishment was written by Kel McDonald, who was kind enough to talk with me about this book; her written-and-drawn series Misfits of Avalon, also published by Dark Horse; and a few other projects. Want to find out what’s next for Buffy: […]
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We’re firmly into the mystery here in Resident Alien: The Man With No Name #2 (of 4), but it’s the subtleties of the character interaction that I enjoy most about the series. A downtown building has burned, and the firefighters discover that the ruined warehouse was probably a meth lab. As the investigation continues, we get some crisp scenes between the authorities and some of the sketchier inhabitants of the area, doling out bits of information and characterization. Peter Hogan […]
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I have this sinking feeling that this storyline, “Constant Orbital Revolutions“, may be the last for The Fuse for a while. (Issue #22 is part four of the arc.) Maybe that’s because it’s unusual for a solid independent comic to plug along these days for more than a couple of years, and this is the fourth volume the series has under its belt. Or maybe it’s because so much of the premise is being severely shaken up in this story, […]
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