Of the big three pamphlet comics publishers who launched their own comiXology apps in 2010, Image Comics came the closest to achieving the storefront and selection that I would like to see as a reader and iPad owner. $1.99 is pretty much the ceiling for what I’m willing to pay for a 24-page digital edition … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #96: ‘Morning Glories’ #’s 1-3
I’m sure that if William S. Burroughs had ever been given the opportunity to direct a Ziegfield Follies segment featuring a thousand performers playing Tintin and Rosebud from “Citizen Kane,” audience members would have walked away with approximately the same sensation that reading Charles Burns’ graphic novel “X’ed Out” from Pantheon leaves on the mind. … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #95: ‘X’ed Out’
You know those montage pages at the end of DC books like Superboy #1 this week that foreshadow a couple of storyarcs worth of major events? That’s sort what this $3.99 first issue of Captain America: Man Out of Time from Mark Waid and artist Jorge Molina felt like. Waid’s dialogue was in great form … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #94: ‘Captain America: Man Out of Time’ #1
DC’s new Jeff Lemire-scripted Superboy series has been one of their most anticipated launches of the year, and after reading through issue #1, you’ll probably see the common ingredients it shares with Grant Morrison’s All Star Superman and Smallville and immediately understand exactly why that is. That’s not to take anything away from the original … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #93: ‘Superboy’ #1
Beetle Bailey eclipsed the 1,000-newspaper mark with its circulation in 1965 and was only the second comic to do so after Blondie. For a year marked by Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” declaration, conflict in Vietnam, and marches in Selma, Alabama, Beetle Bailey: The Daily and Sunday Strips, 1965 from Titan Books presents a artifact … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #92: ‘Beetle Bailey: The Daily and Sunday Strips, 1965’
Two of my favorite moves Marvel has made in the last few years involved relaunching their What The–?! brand as a Robot Chicken-styled absurdist take on their universe and re-introducing Strange Tales as a vehicle for indie creator populated anthologies. The initiatives asserted an awareness of Marvel’s places in the broader ecosystems of online media … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #91: ‘Strange Tales II’ #1
Paul Cornell and Jimmy Broxton’s Knight and Squire #1 was a rare breed of launch to see up on the shelves this week. In fact, it wasn’t on the first shelf I scoped out in my neighborhood Wednesday evening. Luckily, I put a call in to the crack team down at Chicago Comics, who had … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #90: ‘Knight and Squire’ #1
There’s a lot going on in The Bulletproof Coffin, and while the coloring choices remain the most compelling component of the artwork for me, the stocky manchild proportions and occasionally anatomically indifferent depictions of women really throw some rust on the story’s flow from time to time — and I can’t figure out if that’s … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #89: ‘The Bulletproof Coffin’ #2
In the age of the $3.99 30-page comic, it almost seems to take a Matt Fraction/Pasqual Ferry team to get me to pick up the first issue in a new run on a mainstream superhero comic these days. Fraction has become a dependable source of researched character and story depth in recent years, and Ferry … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #88: ‘Thor’ #615
I’m going to miss Buenaventura Press books now that they’ve closed shop. That may mean that Ted May, M. Jason Robards and Jeff Wilson’s Injury Comics vol. 1 #2 was the last BP book I ended up buying new, which is a shame since they were one of the first shopping stops at about any show … Read more100 Days, 100 Comics #87: ‘Injury Comics’ vol. 1 #2