Barsoom! The word — Edgar Rice Burroughs’ name for Mars in his John Carter novels — carries this magical, mystical feel. It conjures visions of floating cities and fantastical science, of barren deserts and the alien tribes that dwell there, of ancient civilizations and epic battles of might and magic, and through it all, the … Continue reading Barsoom Attacked!
Category: Comic Books
Going through some files recently, I came across something that I wrote, showed a few people for feedback, and then filed away. Several years back, BOOM! Studios, a comic book publisher, began publishing original Peanuts comic book stories. While Charles Schulz’s comic strip has been left alone (except for coloring the dailies), there have been … Continue reading The World Famous Time Traveler
Tragically, Ian Fleming only wrote 8 James Bond short stories. (Nine, if you count the short piece about making scrambled eggs. I do not.) I say “tragically,” as I consider “The Living Daylights” to be Fleming’s finest James Bond work. (The Timothy Dalton film The Living Daylights generally does justice to Fleming’s short story in … Continue reading Things I’ve Been Reading: James Bond: Service
Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor Year Two #11-13 Titan Comics Written by Robbie Morrison Art by Mariano Laclaustra with Fer Centurion and Agus Calcagno This week, Titan Comics wrapped up a storyline in the twelfth Doctor comics, “Terror of the Cabinet Noir.” Paris, 1695. Cardinal Richelieu seems to be immortal, and there’s a darkness permeating … Continue reading Things I’ve Been Reading: “Terror of the Cabinet Noir”
James Bond: Vargr Published by Dynamite Entertainment Written by Warren Ellis Art by Jason Masters I saw my first James Bond movie before I was ten. I have no idea, at the span of decades, which film it was, but it was almost certainly a presentation of the ABC Sunday Night Movie, back when that … Continue reading James Bond: Vargr
Sometimes I get to write fun stuff. Recently a colleague at Diamond talked to me about the possibility of interviewing Berkeley Breathed by email about Bloom County and IDW Publishing’s forthcoming collection of the new comic strips, Bloom County Episode XI: A New Hope. I checked with her yesterday, and the interview was still up … Continue reading Interviewing a Personal Idol
When I saw the first trailers for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, my reaction was, basically, “That looks as much like a sequel to Watchmen as it does a sequel to Man of Steel.” To be clear, by Watchmen, I’m referring to Zack Snyder’s 2009 movie based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ 1986 … Continue reading Watchmen, Rebirth, and the DC Universe
This morning I was working on text for the UK edition of January’s catalog. (The UK has a special version of PREVIEWS with more pages and UK-specific items.) And I worked on the text for Canongate’s edition of The Complete Peanuts Volume 25: 1999-2000. The final volume. A wave of emotion washed over me that … Continue reading Thoughts About Endings
Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron Fantagraphics Books Written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz Coinciding with the release this week of The Peanuts Movie (not seen yet, though my ruminations on the kids novelization are here), Fantagraphics Books, the publishers of the Complete Peanuts, has published a collection of all of the Snoopy as the … Continue reading Things I’ve Been Reading: Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron
In the 1970s, DC Comics published a five-issue series, Sword of Sorcery, with adaptations of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series by Denny O’Neill, Howard Chaykin, and Walt Simonson. I bought the issues off of eBay about a decade ago, which left as the one F&tGM hole in my collection the Wonder Woman … Continue reading A Return to Lankhmar
Batman Adventures Volume 2 DC Comics Written by Kelley Puckett Art by Mike Parobeck and Rich Burchett If you were to ask me who my three favorite Batman artists were, you could make a decent guess at my age. Or at least, when I was really reading comic books. Those three artists would be Jim … Continue reading Things I’ve Been Reading: Batman Adventures Volume 2