While Marvel was going for huge, powerful stories plus soap elements, DC kept on their own way for a while. They aimed at a younger market, and even issue-length stories were an exception, let alone any continuity between issues. They were also a muc[…]

There’s a limited amount of pleasure to be had in the really early superhero comics (1938 onwards), but there was a real leap forwards in the early ’60s, thanks to two people at Marvel comics – and no, I am not including Stan Lee in[…]

There’s nothing in comics of any kind that I love more or regard more highly than two very old newspaper strips.
Krazy Kat
This strip started in 1914 and ran for thirty years, until the death of its creator George Herriman. The Sunday strips st[…]

I routinely review what I read on my LJ blog. After a recent comic review, one friend asked for a dummies’ guide to comics. It’s not the first time I’ve come across someone interested who doesn’t really know where to start. I […]

When I was a kid, I paid less attention to writers than to artists – the latter are easier to notice, I guess. Also, not only did the Lee-Kirby comics look spectacularly exciting, they were great stories too, and Stan Lee didn’t seem to w[…]

(I’ve written notes on this series before – 500+ pages of reprints of old comics for around £11. First batch of volumes / Second batch. This volume came out today.)
I think this is my favourite continuing war series ever – the[…]

I was looking foward to DC’s cheapo B&W reprint series, Showcase Presents, getting to Metal Men, as I enjoyed a few issues as a kid back in the ’60s and had barely read any since. It’s actually rather less fun than I had anticip[…]

The above is the title of a rather lovely new show at the British Museum (open until October 21st), exhibiting I believe a hundred works from the last fifty years or so in various crafts categories. There are lots of spectacularlt beautiful pieces, p[…]

Last July I ranked and annotated the first dozen volumes in DC’s Showcase Presents bargain vintage reprint series (500pp, B&W, about £11). Time for another look. In approximate order of preference since then:
Superman 3
This is wonderful m[…]

The Guardian reports a very amusing scandal in Ghanaian football. If two teams both won on the last day of their season, promotion to the top division would be decided by goal difference. At half-time it was 1-0 to the promotion hopefuls in each game[…]