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[…]

Kat Stevens joins Mark Sinker and Elisha Sessions to talk about Choose Your Own Adventure books, speaking with animals, and “Build Up Logically”, an unclassifiable short story written in 1950 by Howard Schoenfeld. It’s about two men[…]

it’s the time for tying up loose ends, setting projects on the shelf, letting bygones be bygones and preparing to go meet the world. school’s out, but not forever — who’d want that? the promise of this escape relies on being s[…]

Ken Hollings joins Mark Sinker and Elisha Sessions to talk about “The Tactful Saboteur”, a tale of civil servants and their multi-phase sexual life cycles. Written by Frank Herbert in 1964, it’s read by Elisha at the front of the pr[…]

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[…]