Dr. Strange

Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: An Appreciation of Steve Ditko

July 10, 2018 // 7 Comments

So I’m sure that, if you’re reading this, you’ve heard about the passing of Steve Ditko. A true giant of comics, Ditko stands in a position sort of opposite Jack Kirby in the funnybook pantheon. If Kirby is a pugnacious Thor, the god of a feisty heroic ideal, then Ditko is a nervous Hades, the god of dark obsessions and paranoia, his art best-suited to supernatural horror and shadowy urban crime drama. It seems ironic, then, that his most famous creation is the wisecracking [...]

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 [...]

Secret Wars, Canary Cries, and Weird Little Kung Fu Bastards

November 22, 2015 // 0 Comments

One thing I’ve learned about writing funnybook reviews over the long term is that I can never be satisfied with my approach to it. When I’m reviewing everything I read, I start to feel like I’m saying the same things about the same books over and over again. And when I focus down to discuss single books in-depth (as I’ve been doing lately), I feel like I’m neglecting a lot of really great comics. Sigh. What’s a reviewer to do? Well… maybe I could… [...]

Countdown to Halloween, Day 8: Strange

October 8, 2015 // 0 Comments

Taking a short break from the Halloween mixtape tonight to return to the thing we’re kind of known for here on the nerd farm: funnybook reviews. Or A funnybook review, anyway; I’m still spending sufficient time on the mixtape that I can’t launch into one of my usual long-winded treatises on Stuff I Like. It’ll be a Halloween-themed funnybook, as well, because the Countdown is a harsh mistress, and demands all manner of creepy stuff… Dr. Strange 1 by Jason Aaron and [...]

To Erase All Our Legacies: Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers, Part Three

May 31, 2015 // 2 Comments

Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers by Jonathan Hickman (duh!) and a Multitude of Artists And we’re back again to continue our discussion of what I’ve called the defining super hero comic of the decade (and don’t think I’ve forgotten that bold claim, either; I’ll be coming back to it before we’re done). Part One of our discussion can be found HERE, and Part Two is HERE. Alright. Last time, I got so distracted talking about the artwork in the first year of [...]

Old Magic, Young Love, and a Giant Gorilla: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!!

June 26, 2014 // 0 Comments

This week’s funnybooks this week! And lookit me! Click-Baitin’ the fanboys by leading with a shiny bit of corporate spandex craziness! New Avengers Annual 1, by Frank Barbiere and Marco Rudy I will be 100% brutally honest with you here: I bought this funnybook for the art. The art, and the promise of what looked like it might be a decent Dr. Strange solo story. Because, hey. I love Dr. Strange. He’s on my extremely short list of characters I’ll always read if [...]

Pretty Pictures (and a Time-Lost Middle Finger)

August 27, 2013 // 0 Comments

The day job continues to be super-busy, and I haven’t been able to write this week. So instead, I thought I’d share a few pretty pictures… First up, we have a pretty kick-ass drawing of Jack Kirby’s Etrigan the Demon, by Ramon Villalobos: I dig it. That’d be a cool t-shirt, that would. DC, take freaking notice! If you’d like to see more of Villalobos’ work, check out his Tumblr here: New Cool Meat. There’s some nice work there, stuff that puts [...]

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 [...]

Spandex and Realpolitik: Jonathan Hickman’s New Avengers

January 22, 2013 // 0 Comments

New Avengers #1 & 2, by Jonathan Hickman and Steve Epting I already declared that I wouldn’t be following Jonathan Hickman’s run on Avengers due to its four-dollar price tag and bi-weekly publication schedule. It would take a truly spectacular run to make me shell out eight bucks a month for corporate spandex, I declared, and Avengers‘ first issue, while entertaining, definitely wasn’t that. And I had pretty much decided that New Avengers, though only shipping [...]

Funnybooks Gone Wrong

November 25, 2012 // 0 Comments

Y’know, I didn’t think I’d find any funnybook image tonight that was more wrong than this shot of Dr. Strange using his mystic powers to voyeuristic ends while his girlfriend Clea makes out with Ben Franklin… …but then somebody had to go and draw Bueno Excellente as Star Sapphire. [...]