Books, Comics

Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson - The Boys II

8 May 2008

SUPERHERO SATIRE (Titan) Some 20 years ago Alan Moore asked the question: ‘Who watches The Watchmen?’ Garth Ennis answers the question with this anarchic superhero satire about a gang of super-powered, CIA-backed thugs who police – with extreme…

John Miller - Secret Agent: Chronicles of Doom

8 May 2008

SPY SATIRE (Small Press) You can see the work of Edinburgh cartoonist John Miller on posters and adverts hanging in the city’s Deadhead Comics, but none hint at his proclaimed double life as the template for James Bond, with inspiration imparted to…

Jordan Crane - The Clouds Above

8 May 2008

FANTASY (Fantagraphics) American cartoonist Jordan Crane’s all-ages graphic novella first published in 2005 makes its paperback debut complete with five previously unseen pages. It’s actually a follow-up to the self-published and now out-of-print The…

Richard Cowdry & Various - The Bedsit Journal No 2

8 May 2008

COMPILATION (Bedsit Journal) Marshalled together by the artist and writer Richard Cowdry whose previous comic seed bombs include Kartoon Cuts and Knucklehead, this funny, bitter and vulgar collection of new comic book talent proves what can be done…

Civil War: Iron Man

24 Apr 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) He’s an Avenger; he’s been Secretary of Defence; he’s a member of the shadowy Illuminati. But nothing exemplifies Iron Man’s key position in the world of comics more than his role in Marvel’s huge crossover event of 2006, Civil…

Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle

David Michelinie, Bob Layton & John Romita Jr

24 Apr 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) In the world of comics Iron Man is one of the main players in the Marvel Universe. As provisional leader of the Avengers for many, many years, he’s helped shape the fictional world more than most. However Iron Man hasn’t crossed…

Iron Man: Extremis

Warren Ellis & Adi Granov

24 Apr 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) This is perhaps the classic modern Iron Man tale. Warren Ellis gets his grubby hands on Tony Stark and changes him forever. Here the Golden Avenger takes on bio-chemically altered terrorists, who possess more power than even his…

The Invincible Iron Man

24 Apr 2008

DVD (12) 80 mins (Lionsgate) The new big budget feature isn’t the first Iron Man movie as this 2007 animated feature from Marvel proves. The film revisits Iron Man’s first showdown with the Mandarin. The animation is fine but overall the film…

Brian K Vaughan & Various - Batman: False Faces

10 Apr 2008

SUPERHERO (DC/Titan) Now better known for his Y: The Last Man, Pride of Baghdad and Ex-Machina titles as well as being one of the keys writers on TV’s Lost, Brian K Vaughan started off as a jobbing writer. With his star now well and truly established…

Jaime Hernandez - The Education of Hopey Glass

10 Apr 2008

SOCIAL DRAMA (Fantagraphics) This 24th collection of the three decades – and counting – run of Los Bros Hernandez’s seminal comic book series Love & Rockets, archives in handsome hardback 15 short stories focusing on the supporting and peripheral…

John Wagner & Colin MacNeil - Judge Dredd: America

10 Apr 2008

DYSTOPIAN SCI-FI (Rebellion) Neither a part of the Hollywood-friendly American comic book market nor as established in the British psyche as he was during the 80s heyday, it’s an oft neglected fact that Judge Dredd has become the focus of one of the…

Marjane Satrapi - Persepolis

10 Apr 2008

AUTOBIOGRAPHY (Vintage) In advance of the Persepolis feature-length animation to be released at cinemas at the end of this month (25 April if you want to note it in your diary) comes this welcome two-in-one paperback edition of Satrapi’s seminal…

Frank Miller & John Romita Jr - Daredevil: The Man Without Fear

27 Mar 2008

SUPERHERO CLASSIC (Marvel) There are plenty of classic titles in John Romita Jr’s back catalogue but nothing beats this 1993 collaboration with Frank Miller. In fact, The Man Without Fear is up there with the best comics of all time. Retelling…

Greg Pak & John Romita Jr - World War Hulk

27 Mar 2008

SUPERHERO RAMMY (Marvel UK) The Hulk works best when written as a rampaging force of nature, a destructive power on the scale of an atomic bomb. He is, after all, a being of immeasurable strength, an angry behemoth with the power to crush all before…

John Romita Jr & Various - Marvel Masterworks: John Romita Jr

27 Mar 2008

SUPERHERO ANTHOLOGY (Marvel UK) With the release of World War Hulk, Kick-Ass and this retrospective it’s a great time to look back at the career of one of comics’ best-loved artists. Nepotism may be an ugly word but in the case of the great John…

Mark Millar & John Romita Jr - Kick-Ass No 1

27 Mar 2008

MODERN DAY SUPERHERO (Marvel) It’s certainly not all about the past with Romita Jr as this new collaboration with Mark Millar proves. The two artists’ styles complemented each other so well on Wolverine: Enemy of the State that it’s not surprising…

Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy - Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

13 Mar 2008

LITERARY ADAPTATION (Waverley) The second One Book – One Edinburgh graphic novel adaptation was never going to be a straightforward reprise of last year’s successful Kidnapped campaign, even based around a source novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Bill Griffith - Zippy: Walk A Mile in My Muu-Muu

13 Mar 2008

CULT STRIP (Fantagraphics) Having made his first appearance in Real Pulp Comix in 1971 Zippy is getting old. For the uninitiated Zippy is a polymath, free associating pinhead who wanders the consumerist besieged wastelands of the US. Griffith’s…

Reginald Hudlin, Larry Stroman & Ken Lashley - Black Panther: Black to the Future

13 Mar 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) Marvel celebrates Black History Month with this double-sized one shot focusing on two of the highest profile black characters in comics: The Black Panther and his wife Storm (of X-Men fame). The tale is set in the fictional African…

William Shakespeare - Macbeth

13 Mar 2008

REIMAGINED CLASSIC (Classical Comics) Some stories are so good they permit retelling again and again. Classical Comics knows this and these books – the fifth in their series – recreates Shakespeare’s tale of ambition, betrayal, delusion and power in a…

Brian Andersen - So Super Duper

28 Feb 2008

INDEPENDENT (CBG Comics) San Francisco-based comics creator Brian Andersen has hit upon a winning conceit for his self-published title So Super Duper, the first three issues of which are available through his website www.sosuperduper.com. Neatly…

Chris Ware - The ACME Novelty Library Number 18

28 Feb 2008

INDEPENDENT (Chris Ware) It doesn’t get much more independent than self-publishing, and that’s what Chris Ware is now doing with his occasional title that was originally published by Fantagraphics and which initially introduced the Guardian First Book…

Malcy Duff - It’s Just Ketchup

28 Feb 2008

INDEPENDENT (Missing Twin Publishing) The modestly home-made comics of Edinburgh cartoonist Malcy Duff are abstract almost to the point of alienation, but there’s something about their cinematic grace and unashamed abstraction which sits comfortably…

Various - Blab! Volume 18

28 Feb 2008

INDEPENDENT (Fantagraphics) After an undoubtedly substantial 17 volumes, Blab! returns once more. The editor, designer and general sweetheart of the illustration circuit, Monte Beauchamp’s annual conception will be welcomed with open arms by high-brow…

Mark Millar

14 Feb 2008

Despite being one of the most successful writers of comics ever, Mark Millar still resides in Coatbridge. Like most UK writers he earned his stripes on 2000AD. ‘The older guys like Grant Morrison, Pete Milligan, Alan Grant and John Wagner had all…

Doctor Strange

14 Feb 2008

DVD (12) 74min (Lionsgate) This is the latest instalment in Marvel’s series of animated features. One of Marvel’s more out-there characters with more than a hint of 60s psychedelia about him, Doctor Strange is the world’s master of the occult and…

Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer

14 Feb 2008

DVD (PG) 88min (20th Century Fox) There are tons of big budget comics-based movies (most notably Iron Man, Wanted and The Dark Knight) on the horizon this year so it’s worth reminding ourselves of the last superhero blockbuster to hit the screens. Or…

Howard the Duck

14 Feb 2008

DVD (PG) 111min (Metrodome) Howard the Duck originally appeared in an issue of a 1973 Marvel comic entitled Adventure Into Fear, and perhaps his greatest moment came when thousands of American citizens actually voted for him in the 1976 US…

Witchblade Volume 1

14 Feb 2008

DVD (15) 100min (MVM Entertainment) The Witchblade is a mysterious ancient artefact, a weapon of immense destructive power that binds itself to the flesh of a living female host. Here the Top Cow comics series is given the anime treatment as the…

Mark Millar & Steve McNiven - Civil War

31 Jan 2008

Having dealt with DC’s ambitious crossover we have to mention Marvel’s equivalent, Civil War, a far more user-friendly prospect for the casual comics fan. The outbreak of unrest within a people is rarely less than tumultuous, and bloodshed is a tragic…

Various - 52 (Books 1-4)

DC

31 Jan 2008

The most complex and ambitious project in comics gets the graphic novel treatment printed across four books. Taking its cue from the real-time adventures of television thriller 24, each issue of 52, which was printed weekly for a full year, covered one…

Alan Grant

17 Jan 2008

We’ve passed several science fiction milestones in the last 25 years with George Orwell’s 1984, Arthur C Clarke’s 2001 and the speculative 1997 proposed in Predator 2. And, while the exact facts within these fictions may not have come to pass, there are…

Jeff Smith - Shazam!: Monster Society of Evil

17 Jan 2008

SUPER HERO (DC) Jeff Smith will forever be known for his wonderful, self-published, multi-award-winning Bone series, a whimsical fantasy tale that got the balance of childish wonder and compelling storytelling just right. Here he takes on Captain…

Rick Veitch & Gary Erskine - Army@Love: The Hot Zone Club

17 Jan 2008

WAR/SATIRE (DC/Titan) Given the irreverent nature, speedy production and counterculture placement of the medium, it’s unsurprising that comics should come in under the radar with a satirical first strike at the bogus war in the Middle East. American…

Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele - The Surrogates

17 Jan 2008

SCI-FI (Top Shelf) In the near-future cybernetic surrogates will live our lives for us, reducing humanity to a race of reclusive couch potatoes. That’s the intriguing premise of this cleverly conceived and smartly executed science fiction/crime…

Warren Ellis, Cary Nord & Dave Stewart - Ultimate Human No.1

17 Jan 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) Marvel’s Ultimate line was intended to reinvent the company’s main characters for the 21st century, to drag them out of the hands of continuity-obsessed fanboys for a while and show off how well superhero stories could function as a…

Camilla D’errico & Joshua Dysart - Avril Lavigne’s Make 5 Wishes Volume 1 & 2

4 Jan 2008

TEEN (Titan) I really wanted to hate this. I was hoping for a cheesy, corporate celebrity tie-in scamming money out of a willing fanbase. Sadly, it’s a stunningly-drawn, intelligent, jet-black study of adolescent isolation. Dammit. Hana is a…

Cecil Castellucci & Jim Rugg - The Plain Janes

4 Jan 2008

DRAMA (Minx) The latest entry in the new Minx range captures almost every chick lit cliché. High school setting? Check. Geeky girls save the day? Check. And, of course, there’s a moody pretty boy for those raging hormones. And yet it’s not terrible…

Jodi Picoult, Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson - Wonder Woman: Love and Murder

4 Jan 2008

SUPERHERO (DC) Novellist Jodi Picoult (who gave us bestseller My Sister’s Keeper) makes her first foray into graphic fiction and surprisingly she’s the first female writer to take on the monthly Wonder Woman title. This gripping work follows Diana…

Mike Carey, Louise Carey & Aaron Alexovich - Confessions of a Blabbermouth

4 Jan 2008

TEEN (Minx) Minx is a DC imprint, created as a way to entice teenage girls into graphic-novel reading, and while this may at first seem a little patronising, the genre is unfortunately still viewed by most as the preserve of speccy adolescent males.

Bryan Lee O’Malley - Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together

29 Nov 2007

MANGA ROM-COM Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together (Oni Press) Scott Pilgrim is a 23-year-old slacker with no money, no job and no hope of getting either. Luckily, in the tradition of classic gen X wastrels he is totally irresistible, which is why the…

Jason - I Killed Adolf Hitler

29 Nov 2007

IDIOSYNCRATIC SCI-FI I Killed Adolf Hitler (Fantagraphics) Having re-imagined heavyweight modernist writing icons Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound as criminals involved in a heist in The Left Bank Gang, and plundered George Romeo’s zombie…

Justin Gray, Jimmy Paliotti & Adam Archer - Friday the 13th

29 Nov 2007

HORROR Friday the 13th (Wildstorm) Movie spin-offs are often pretty ropey affairs, desperately trying to wheedle a few bucks from fans clamouring for more product while the hype is still clouding their judgement. Which is why Wildstorm’s tribute…

Simon Spurrier & Tan Eng Huat - Silver Surfer: In Thy Name No 1

29 Nov 2007

SUPERHERO SCI-FI Silver Surfer: In Thy Name No 1 (Marvel) With extensive work for 2000AD, various licensed and original novels, and his recent Gutsville series for Image already behind him, Simon Spurrier is the hottest young British writer in…

Charles M Schulz - Small world

15 Nov 2007

It’s the little things that make the difference. In the case of the Charles M Schulz cartoon strips, that could mean the smallest of pen strokes for a raised eyebrow, an extra crease on a forehead, the downward bend on the ends of a mouth. Schulz…

Jeff Lemire

15 Nov 2007

DRAMA Essex County Vol 2: Ghost Stories (Top Shelf) The second volume of an interconnected trilogy of graphic novels set in a fictionalised version of Essex County, Ontario is almost unbearably poignant. Ghost Stories follows the lives of brothers…

John Wagner, Alan Grant & Jose Ortiz

15 Nov 2007

HORROR The Thirteenth Floor (Hibernia) The 80s British comic boom is best-remembered these days as the glory days of 2000AD, when such creators as Alan Moore and Grant Morrison came to prominence. Yet, other contemporary comics from the same…

Mike Mignola

15 Nov 2007

HORROR Hellboy: The Troll Witch and Others (Dark Horse) Those lamenting the scaling back of Mike Mignola’s terrifically idiosyncratic illustrations (presumably so he can focus on comic scriptwriting, film development and other business affairs) will…

Various

15 Nov 2007

SUPERHERO Marvel Europa (Marvel UK) Last fortnight we had a collection of the UK’s best writers and artists. This issue we look at Europa a collection bringing together a selection of European creators as they tackle Marvel’s roster of superheroes.

Ian Rankin interviews Aidan Moffat about comics

1 Nov 2007

Rankin When did you start reading comics? Were you a DC Thomson lad (Bimbo, Dandy, Beano, Victor, Hotspur)? Moffat I was definitely a Beano boy because it always seemed more edgy than the Dandy, but I insisted I got the Dandy as a sort of light…