Chip Zdarsky

Departures

November 17, 2020 // 0 Comments

So I’ve still got a buncha funnybooks here that I read while I was on blog vacation, and a bunch more that I’ve read since, and I don’t know which ones are which anymore, but I’ve got a buncha categories to put ’em all into, starting this week with… DEPARTURES All good things must come to an end, and that includes funnybook series. In the last few months, we’ve had a few of the good’uns say goodbye, so I thought I should maybe devote a column to [...]

Strange Spaces and Weird Sex: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

August 25, 2020 // 0 Comments

So here we are again, with a whole big pile of funnybooks to discuss, and not much time to do it in. Last week, I handled that with just a couple of full-length reviews. This week, though, I think it’s time for the opposite approach. Which means, of course, that CAPSULEREVIEWSAREGO!! Decorum 4 by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Huddleston Sometimes, I think I don’t really understand what’s going on in this book. That usually happens a few pages into any sequence involving the Church [...]

Sex and Crime and Magical Bastards

June 30, 2020 // 3 Comments

So… I was going to say something here about the subject matter of the comics we’re looking at this week. But for once, I think I summed that up in the title pretty well. So all I’ll add now is that we’ve got new Hellblazer and Hulk, the latest chapter of Donny Cates’ Redneck, a new Texas crime comic, and the book we’ll be starting off with today… Sex Criminals 29 by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky We’re two issues from the end on this book, and I [...]

Endings and Beginnings

September 10, 2019 // 5 Comments

So we’ve got a couple of weeks of funnybooks to get caught up on today, and for the first time in more than a month, we actually WON’T be starting off with Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men. But that is in the mix, along with the finale of Zdarsky and Bagley’s Spider-Man: Life Story, a new season of Pretty Deadly, the opening issue of Something is Killing the Children, and the book we’ll be starting off with… The Wicked + The Divine 45 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie [...]

All That Mainstream Nonsense

August 13, 2019 // 1 Comment

So a weird thing happened at the funnybook store last week: everything I bought was published by Marvel and DC Comics. I couldn’t tell you the last time that happened. I mean, there’s usually a couple of Big Two books in my stack. But not this many, and not to the exclusion of any other publishers. So let’s take a look at this pile of corporate spandex, and maybe see what the attraction is… House of X 2 by Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz I usually try to start these [...]

Horror, Crime, and Spandex: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

May 21, 2019 // 1 Comment

So last week, I said I’d catch up on some older reviews this week, unless something amazing came out. Well, nothing amazing hit the stands, really, but SO MANY BOOKS came out that I just decided to cut bait and move on. Seriously, we got new Gideon Falls, Immortal Hulk, Superman, Pearl, Daredevil… and the book we’re going to start out with below. So here we go, with LAST WEEK’S COMICS TODAY! Spider-Man: Life Story 3 by Chip Zdarsky and Mark Bagley This issue takes [...]

Dreams and Things

March 26, 2019 // 3 Comments

So it’s a good week for funnybooks. We got Spider-Man’s Life Story, we got the return of Greg Rucka and Michael Lark’s Lazarus, and we got some Criminal proceedings from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. But first, as is often the case, we got ourselves a little Batman to discuss… Batman 66 & 67 by Tom King, Jorge Fornes, and Lee Weeks My new reading pattern for Tom King’s Batman run is to pop in and out, depending on whether or not I like the art. Because what [...]

A Strange Definition of Hope: Family, Death and Denial in the Super Hero Set

March 5, 2019 // 1 Comment

So we’re back to our usual reviews of week-old funnybooks this week, with another deep dive into Tom King’s Heroes in Crisis, a farewell to Matt Wagner’s Mage, and whatever else we can manage to stuff in here before deadline. But first, here’s a comic that’s become an unexpected favorite… Daredevil 2 by Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto Often, a new series will start off in high gear for the first issue, then throttle back for the second, taking time to [...]

THE LIST, Part Two

February 26, 2019 // 3 Comments

So last week, we looked at the first half of The List. All the comics I’m currently reading on the regular, alphabetical by title, with a discussion of why I’m reading it, and whether it’s a “keeper,” a book that goes into the permanent Nerd Farm collection, or whether it’s something that I’ll read once and then put aside to sell at some future date. Which brings up an interesting thing that happened after last week’s column: I got feelers from people [...]

Science, Crime, and Hobbits: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

February 12, 2019 // 3 Comments

So I’ve gotten sufficiently distracted by a sufficient number of things here lately that I’ve gotten terribly far behind on the funnybook reviews. Which is the story of my blogging life, of course, but I took a good hard look at the stack this weekend and decided it was time to just go ahead and file most of it, and soldier on to the new stack of books I bought last week. Warts and all… The Green Lantern 4 by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp Four issues in, I’m starting [...]