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 […]

Foistered on an unsuspecting public like an epidemic of ebola, an occasional writer of this parish has hit the BIG TIME. Al Ewing has written a book which has been considered to be so awesome that the UK’s Flagship Sc-Fi, Fantasy, Comics and bi[…]

On a recommendation from Martin Skidmore, last night I read all of Junji Ito’s horror manga Gyo: The Death Stench, which is out in English now. It was very impressive and entertaining. I’ll try to keep spoilers in this review to a minimum[…]

For my next go at manga I decided to try one that isn’t famous – Addicted To Curry in fact hasn’t been licensed for publication in English-speaking countries, so I was reliant on online “scanlations” – fan transla[…]

I decided last year it was time I read some manga, so I set myself a project: read 10 different ones – at least a “book” of each title. Manga have monstered the US comics market: they sell huge amounts, and they sell them to the peo[…]

Al Ewing joins Mark Sinker and Elisha Sessions to talk about “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, the famed 1952 story about a dinosaur safari gone wrong. Lots of other Bradbury and time travel tales get a look in, and Elisha reads the s[…]

(This post contains spoilers for SECRET INVASION#1, but not the spoilers about who is or isn’t a SKRULL, just general ones about the tone of the comic)
Listeners to Lollards will be aware that the nefarious shapechanging alium Skrulls are invad[…]