Oni are mythical monsters similar to the ogres of Western tradition. Like many of the legendary Japanese creatures, their characteristics are often adopted for manga characters, including series such as Lum, The Promised Neverland, and Demon Slayer. Our own Patrick has compiled a lot of data on them, and he’s here this time to fill … Continue reading #828 Japan’s mythical “oni” in manga
The second omnibus volume of Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game focuses largely on a scrimmage between the varsity team and the “portables”, which doesn’t go how anyone expects it to. Things are shifting subtly under the surface; we’re pretty sure what the series is leading up to (it’s a baseball manga, after all), but it’s fun … Continue reading #827 “Cross Game” Omnibus 2: Subtle Shifts
When Hugh D’Andrade was ten years old, his next door neighbor was mysteriously murdered, and he saw the body. In his forthcoming graphic memoir The Murder Next Door, he explores the trauma this caused him as the experience stuck with him over decades, and he explores the question: If someone else has had a worse … Continue reading #826 Hugh D’Andrade’s “The Murder Next Door”: Your trauma is your trauma
Brad Guigar, creator of Evil Inc., has been putting his comics on the Web for over 20 years, and this week he’s here to talk about how he made that his day job, the challenges of promoting your work in a changing media environment, how making an erotic comic (his Patreon-only spinoff Evil Inc. After Dark) … Continue reading #825 Brad Guigar talks promoting your webcomic, even (especially?) if it’s NSFW!
Tim is now completely caught up with the MCU! Mulele joins him to discuss the most recently released (as of this episode’s recording) Marvel Cinematic Universe film, last summer’s Spider-Man: Far From Home! (Originally published on Patreon March 28, 2020) Brought to you by: The Law of Equivalent Exchange: A Fullmetal Alchemist manga podcast Our … Continue reading “Spider-Man: Far from Home” (2019)
Now that we’ve become familiar with Jack Kirby‘s original Eternals comics, repeatedly referring to the 2021 MCU film along the way, it’s time to sit through all two hours and 37 minutes of it again and evaluate it anew. Unfortunately, as a movie, it still has just as many problems, but at least now Tim … Continue reading #824 “Eternals” (2021): Where it went wrong (and right!)
Samuel Edme’s comic The Shapes is… a bit hard to pin down. It looks like notebook scribblings, it has its faults, but it seems to have found an audience, which is all a comics creator can ask for. Bad? No. Not for us? Probably. Tim and Adam attempt to describe it anyway.
We’ve reached the end of Jack Kirby‘s Eternals series. Sure, it was a weird series, but introducing a Hulk robot apparently did little for the sales numbers. How did Kirby wrap things up? For a series that featured so many characters (though not as many as the freakin’ movie, which we’ll get to soon!), he … Continue reading #823 Jack Kirby’s “Eternals,” #17-19: Lots o’ Ikaris (or Ikarus?)
The 1994 film The Fantastic Four seems to have been made with the expectation, at least from producer Roger Corman on down, that it would be released. While some interested parties have claimed that it was only made to help Constantin Film’s Bernd Eichinger keep his option to make an FF film from expiring, others … Continue reading #822 The Fantastic Four on Film: “The Fantastic Four” (1994) (part two) Why wasn’t the film released?
By the early ’90s, Superman and Batman were blockbuster movie franchises, but Marvel had yet to find a way to get a big-budget film made based on their characters, let alone succeed at the box office. Bernd Eichinger of Constantin Film owned the film rights to the Fantastic Four, but those rights were soon to … Continue reading #821 The Fantastic Four on Film: “The Fantastic Four” (1994), a Roger Corman production (part one)
Jack Kirby‘s The Eternals was not a conventional superhero book. It didn’t even seem to take place in the Marvel Universe. By issue 14, it appears that Marvel editorial must have been pressuring him to make it more Marvel Universe-y, which would account for the appearance of the Hulk in issues 14-16… except it’s not … Continue reading #820 Jack Kirby’s “Eternals,” #14-16: The Coming of…. The Editor!
This week we catch up with the work of two DCP favorites, Chad Bilyeu and David Dye! Chad’s series The Re-up, about his time as a pot dealer 20 years ago, continues and has overcome the skepticism Tim had of the series at the start. David has released three more issues of Amazing Tales and … Continue reading #819 We catch up with “The Re-up” and “Amazing Tales”
If you’ve ever felt like your city left you before you left your city, Jason McNamara’s Ghost Band is for you. Tim and Emmet discuss this post-apocalyptic look at San Francisco. Jason then taps in to explain the inspiration for the book and what happened to artist Vincent Gladnick 2/3 of the way through. Meanwhile, … Continue reading #818 Requiems: “Ghost Band” and “Grimm’s Assistant”
Tim gets ever closer to catching up with the MCU! Tim and Mulele discuss Avengers: Endgame‘s time-travel explanation (and problems), Captain Marvel’s relative irrelevance to the film, how this movie set the stage for the upcoming TV shows, and much more. (Originally published on Patreon March 14, 2020) Brought to you by: Bat Bits podcast … Continue reading “Avengers: Endgame” (2019)
FLASHBACK! Sports have rarely been subject matter for comics in the US; perhaps comics’ inherent static-ness has seemed antithetical to an activity with so much movement. But Japan has seen comics about various sports, and some of them have been quite popular, even iconic. Takehiko Inoue’s Real is not only about basketball, but about physical … Continue reading #437 “Real” is a slam dunk
Most Americans know little about the Crimean War (1853-1856). Adam McGovern and Bruno Letizia’s The Night Brigade may go some way toward filling us in on that conflict, and it does give us several historical figures, including Florence Nightingale – but it also features a werewolf. Tim and Adam critique. Asante Amani‘s Joe Mallard gives … Continue reading Critiquing Comics #240: “The Night Brigade” and “Joe Mallard”
We left the Eternals joined together in the Unimind. The 1977 Annual doesn’t clearly fit into continuity, but features only one Eternal, Thena, together with Deviants Karkas and the Reject against a time-traveling threat! Back in the regular series, issue 13 gives us exactly two Eternals, trying to stop a Deviant attack on the Celestials. … Continue reading #817 Jack Kirby’s “Eternals”, 1977 Annual + #13: Fun “Eternals” stories with few Eternals...
Chester Brown’s work has come up on this show a number of times over the years. We’ve discussed Ed the Happy Clown, Louis Riel, and Paying for It. He’s actually published 10 graphic novels since 1989, some of which are collections of his comics series. In connection with the recent premiere of the movie version … Continue reading #816 Chester Brown interview: “Paying for It,” the movie
FLASHBACK! A comic strip gag can be a deceptively simple thing. Once you take it apart — “deconstruct” it, one might say — you find that it actually has many moving parts. Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden‘s How to Read “Nancy” takes a close look at each of those parts — as well as arguing … Continue reading #593 “Reading ‘Nancy’”, plus “Cat and Mouse”!
What does an 11-year-old do when her “only friend” moves away? In Coco Fox’s “sorta” memoir Let’s Go, Coco, she joins the basketball team. But when you’re a pre-teen, everything’s fraught with challenges. Tim and Adam discuss this book – aimed at middle schoolers, but recommended for all ages. As far from that world as … Continue reading Critiquing Comics #239: “Let’s Go, Coco” and “Digital Bardos”
FLASHBACK! It’s been more than 70 years now since the debut of Archie comics, featuring (though not quite from the beginning) America’s favorite love triangle of Archie, Veronica, and Betty. Along with Jughead, Reggie, and the rest of the gang, these characters keep us coming back for more, changing with the times while still presenting … Continue reading #338 Everything’s Archie!
Eternals are only human, I guess! In Eternals issues 9-12, many of the Eternals exhibit a segregationist attitude toward the Deviants, and just about everybody assumes Karkas is going to kick the Reject‘s butt in a fight based solely on how they look. Meanwhile, are the Celestials kind, or sadistic? Tim and Emmet discuss Jack … Continue reading #815 Jack Kirby’s “Eternals”, #9-12: Judging books by their covers
FLASHBACK! A then-recent R. Crumb compilation is reviewed by a Crumb connoisseur (Kumar) and a Crumb newbie (Tim). The book features Crumb at his sweetest and his most shocking. But can this (or any book) claim to be the perfect Crumb compilation? (Originally published June 30, 2008.) Brought to you by: To the Batpoles! podcast … Continue reading #134 “The R. Crumb Handbook”
Once again we take a look at some comics submitted by their creators; we talk about what we liked about them and what could have been better. Jane Jet book 1: Nuclear Shadows, by writer Amal Desai and artist Paul Essenson, recalls Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer — the art, the jet-pack concept, the time period — … Continue reading Critiquing Comics #238: “Jane Jet” and “The Fog Within”
FLASHBACK! While Alan Moore and J.H. Williams’ Promethea, published from 1999 to 2005, is not one of Moore’s most remembered works, it’s not because the author wasn’t at the top of his game. Kumar and Emmet find it to be entrancing, even if you don’t buy into the various magical and spiritual elements that Moore … Continue reading #591 “Promethea”: A mind-bending, life-changing comic
FLASHBACK! Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie debuted in 1924 and was a big success. FDR having not yet turned him against organized labor, Gray shows hardworking Annie going on strike in one of her many jobs. Tim and Kumar discuss the ’20s strips, their strengths and idiosyncrasies (one strip=one day?!), and how Gray’s outlook changed … Continue reading #296 “Little Orphan Annie”
Back in Critiquing Comics 154, Tim and Mulele discussed 2019’s Captain Marvel; Tim enjoyed it, Mulele did not. Now that we’ve arrived at the time to give it a full review as part of “Tim Catches Up with the MCU,” another viewing has helped us both to clarify our positions and see things we didn’t … Continue reading “Captain Marvel” (2019)
FLASHBACK! Twenty years after the first collection of Hicksville was released, creator Dylan Horrocks talks to Emmet about how the comic looks to him now. Some of the work’s commentary on the comics industry turned out to presage subsequent developments, and in some cases he ended up not going far enough! Also, his source for … Continue reading #598 Dylan Horrocks looks back at “Hicksville”
Reading the original Jack Kirby iteration of The Eternals shows that the MCU movie based on the title was rather dour, where Kirby’s version veers into wackiness! Sersi shows quite the sense of humor. SHIELD agents appear who just can’t seem to accept that they can’t get the upper hand on giant space gods! People … Continue reading #814 Jack Kirby’s “Eternals” 5-8: As wacky as they wanna be
Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game is a baseball manga for people who don’t care about baseball. A tragedy early in the story helps to shape the narrative, but there’s also a good dose of unexpected comedy, and sequences that really make us want to cheer for Ko and his friends as they work toward the goal … Continue reading #813 “Cross Game”: Baseball manga that’s not about baseball (much)
