Daredevil

More Shades of Gray: The Pencil Art of Gene Colan

September 3, 2019 // 3 Comments

So it was Gene Colan’s birthday earlier this week, and in marking the occasion over on our social media (shameless plug), I realized that we haven’t done a proper Colan post in SEVEN FREAKING YEARS. I figure that means we’re overdue, so I thought we might take a look at the great man’s work in pencil. Because Colan’s pencils were sublime, full of shading and graceful, swirling lines that… made his art difficult to ink. All that delicacy and grace were hard to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Funnybook Heart of Darkness: If You Could Only Have Ten Comics, What Would They Be?

December 19, 2017 // 3 Comments

So I know I promised the second part of our look at Alan Moore’s Twilight of the Superheroes this week, but well… There’ve been some technical difficulties. I had that column almost entirely written, but it was lost in a hard drive malfunction, and I don’t have time to recreate it tonight. So instead, I thought I’d plug in a question a friend asked last week on social media that completely distracted me for two or three days: If you could only have ten single [...]

The Worst Comic I’ve Read in a While

June 28, 2017 // 14 Comments

So I’ve got a lot of comics to get caught up on reviewing. Most of them, I really enjoyed. But before I get to those, I just have this one bit of vitriol to get out of my system… The Defenders 1&2 by Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez Holy crap, this book is awful. I wanted to give it a shot, because… Hey. It’s Bendis, back writing street-level super heroes. He used to be good at that. Plus… I like these characters, and I know he loves at least three of [...]

The Funnybooks of My Birth

August 9, 2016 // 1 Comment

It’s my birthday today, so I hope you don’t mind if I slack off a bit this week, and do another picture post. Inspired by this Bleeding Cool article featuring a list of the 100 best-selling comics of June 1984 (a cool read if you’ve got the time), I decided to look tonight at the covers of the funnybooks released in the month of my birth: August 1968. Or at least, the books cover-dated August 1968. These books likely came out three or four months earlier, depending on where [...]

Big Shoes to Fill: Daredevil Comes to Television

April 14, 2015 // 0 Comments

This week, we give proper funnybooks a rest to discuss (Good Lord! *choke!*) a funnybook TV show… So, yeah… I watched Daredevil this weekend, just like every other dork in America. What can I say? For once, we got a funnybook adaptation that actually looked like it might not suck. And lord knows the source material is impeccable. I’m not sure there’s been a more consistently good corporate spandex comic in the last 35 years. I mean, sure, it’s had its down periods. [...]

Dork Awards: The 25 Greatest Super Heroes of All Time (Part One)

June 19, 2013 // 6 Comments

Recently, a friend showed me a mainstream entertainment site’s list of the 25 Greatest Super Heroes. I approached the list cynically, of course. As a funnybook connoisseur (read: DORK), I automatically assumed that the straight world just wouldn’t get it right. And I was correct to some extent, but as I went through their list, I also found myself becoming fascinated. Because it wasn’t really a list of the best super hero characters. It was a list of the best versions of [...]