For those of you who didn’t read the previous entries, this series of posts is related to a bit of pop-culture archaeology I did a few months past, trawling Netflix for a bunch of movies that I’d been meaning to watch but never quite got around to seeing. On the logic that if I was […]

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There are some comic creators out there that I feel don’t get the praise they deserve not because they’re unrecognized, but because it’d be really hard to imagine what comic books would be like without them. Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, Julius Schwartz, Neal Adams…lots of people who have been so influential and prolific […]

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So, um, right. Where was I? Oh, yes. ‘John Dies At the End’. Simply put, this is great. It’s great in that weird, quirky, cult way that ‘Army of Darkness’ or ‘The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai’ is great…well, in that way that ‘The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai’ should be great but isn’t in any kind […]

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I’m really hesitant to recommend ‘Super’ to anyone. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked the movie a lot; the performances are all great, from Rainn Wilson’s painfully awkward, possibly mentally ill superhero to Ellen Page’s fantastically creepy amoral turn as a sidekick who’s just fine with crushing bad guys’ legs with a car to […]

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I recently spent a weekend playing with Netflix, catching up on some of the movies that I’ve been meaning to watch for ages and just hadn’t gotten around to for one reason or another. It’s actually kind of nice to be too busy to watch something right away, in some ways; sure, you miss out […]

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Jim Shooter, for all that he is a legendarily controversial figure who was practically burned in effigy when he was booted out of Marvel and who made life miserable for a lot of people during his time as editor-in-chief, was a very smart guy and a pretty good writer. Dialogue was never his strength, but […]

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Deltarno, in a comment on my ‘Defense of Onslaught’ post, asked what I thought of the Marvel titles these days. My honest answer is that I’m not really prepared to comment, because I don’t read Marvel anymore. It would be unfair of me to say, “The books all suck these days,” because I don’t really […]

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I’m going to need to lay a little groundwork for this one. Back in the early Nineties, a group of superstar creators rose to prominence at Marvel. They practically reinvented storytelling in comics, breaking a lot of rules that the established writers, artists and editors at Marvel believed at the time were vitally important to […]

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I just found this comment added to an incredibly old thread (link removed): “Debora said on August 10th, 2013 at 1:14 pm If i could possibly clone myself ten times the will perform all other Search-engine Optimization business I require by hand. I can’t therefore I exploit Ultimate Demon in place my homepage: freelance blogging […]

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Back in 2007, when I was writing about the death of the original Green Goblin, I described how shocking it was to see him die in the classic “Death of Gwen Stacy” storyline. I pointed out that he was impaled on-panel, just to make it clear that he was really dead and there wasn’t going […]

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Mark Gruenwald was one of those wonderful, mad, quixotic people who actually wanted the Marvel Universe to make sense. Obviously, he was aware that there were limits to this dream; in the real world, people cannot turn into solid steel simply by willing themselves to do so, or stick to walls with their bare hands […]

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There’s nothing comics fans love like “badasses”. Wolverine, the Hulk, the Punisher, Batman…all of these characters’ popularity depend on their ability and willingness to kick ass in a fight. Anytime someone wants to take an obscure character and make them into a fan favorite, their first step is to give them a “take no prisoners” […]

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Dear Mr. Card, I wanted you to know that I recently read your statement regarding the proposed boycott of ‘Ender’s Game’, and I can understand where you’re coming from in your plea for tolerance. Believe me, I can understand what it’s like to worry that your livelihood will be affected by the intolerance of others. […]

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I just added my name to John Scalzi’s pledge (original pledge here, place for others to co-sign here) to refuse to attend any convention that does not have a clearly defined, well-publicized, rigorously enforced harassment policy. Admittedly, John Scalzi would be refusing to attend as a Guest of Honor, while I would be refusing to […]

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I always feel like I should begin a review like this with a disclaimer, so full disclosure: I’ve been reading Paul Cornell’s books since he was transforming Doctor Who novels into something utterly beyond awesome with ‘Timewyrm: Revelation’. I’ve been on a few mailing lists he was on, and there’s a non-zero chance he might […]

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