Comics in 2012: Three Recommendations so Far
April 22, 2012
What to read, what to read, what to READ?! Seriously though, unless you’ve got a disposable income and can drop forty bucks every week, you’ve got to be pretty selective on what titles you snag. Personally, I’m a sucker for mainstream titles with good creative teams behind them, and I’ve always been more loyal to a good writer or artist than to a particular character or genre. In the past few months, my comic consumption is steadily on the rise. Here’s what has kept my interest so far this year.
Superior
This is a darker, edgier superhero mini-series written by the colorful and often outspoken Mark Millar. The artist is one of my favorites, Leinil Yu. It’s the story of a young, handicapped teenager who is given the powers of Superman (Superior=Superman, get it?!) by a small, astronaut monkey demon. Yeah, that’s right. Read on…
Injustice, Like Clockwork…
March 26, 2012
In fashion now woefully typical, Marvel has 86′ed Thunderbolts
Welp, Thunderbolts is over.
Last week at Wondercon, Marvel announced that this summer, Thunderbolts, a title that has weathered success in fits and starts for 15 years, would be retitled, recast, and, for all intents and purposes, rebooted as a new Avengers title. Comics and Hollywood have learned a lot of PR vocabulary from each other recently, so allow me to borrow some industry terms that really apply here: Thunderbolts is cancelled. Axed. Shelved. Shit-canned. It will not be picked up for another season. Read on…
Beautiful and Troubled: The heroines of Habibi and Blankets
March 16, 2012
Any author who chooses to tackle a setting or culture very different from their own is open for criticism. That seems to go double for an American talking about the Middle East. An overly critical author will bring forth howls of racism, jingoism, or Islamaphobia. An author who highlights the beauty in Islam winds up accused of Orientialism, as if just writing about Islamic characters is equal to European imperialists taking a hookah and harem holiday in the Orient.
This is a first-world problem and doesn’t mean that the plight of Craig Thompson, author of new graphic novel Habibi, is comparable to those of a Syrian refugee. He chose to write a novel (or rather a tome) about Islamic girl Dodola and her friendship with Zam, a young slave. In it he does his best to walk the middle ground between reverence and criticism. Read on…
Three Reasons You Should Be Reading Animal Man
October 31, 2011
Back in August, DC Comics initiated a massive reboot of nearly every single franchise under its belt. The relaunch, called “The New 52″, has received mixed reviews from diehard and new comic book fans alike. Flagship series such as Superman and Batman have gotten some high praise, but some of the second tier heroes have been rushed, given uninteresting plot lines or poor villain choices. Franchises like Hawk and Dove, Catwoman, and Green Arrow have suffered from stiff releases, leading some fans to lose heart. There is, however, one reboot that stands head and shoulder above the rest:
Animal Man Cover by Travel Foreman