Books, Comics

Preview of the year 2007

2007 is about the future. And about the past. It’

3 Jan 2007

THE FUTURE Cyberspace invaders We may not be flying around in hover cars or wearing spangly all-silver outfits, but thanks to the internet the future has truly arrived. And the revolution will continue apace in 2007, argues Suzanne Black. A…

Bat's Life - Dark Knight

17 Jul 2008

Leigh Rafferty traces the highs and lows of the caped crusader’s cultural career

No more heroes - graphic novels

Edinburgh International Book Festival

22 Jul 2008

The Book Festival is once again acknowledging the rapid expansion in graphic novels. Henry Northmore chats to a number of comic book guys (and girl) to ask what the future may hold for the superhero While graphic novels may be still be a minority…

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…

Alan Moore & Brian Bolland - Batman: The Killing Joke

17 Jul 2008

SUPER VILLAIN (DC) New blockbuster Dark Knight is all about the Joker. At first glance he’s almost a comedy character, but in the right hands he can be genuinely terrifying. As a character, The Joker represents insanity at it’s worst; a gibbering…

Junko Mizuno - comic review

Junko Mizuno

19 Dec 2006

MANGA/SCI-FI This is the debut graphic novel from Japanese illustrator Junko Mizuno, best known for her garish hyper cute art with twisted dark edges, as wide-eyed, sexy Japanese girls are wrapped in the trappings of fetishism, drugs and death (the…

Stranger in a strange land

17 Jul 2008

Amazingly, Strange & Stranger is the first critical retrospective of the life and work of legendary American comic book artist Steve Ditko. The shy son of Eastern European immigrants who was born in Pennsylvania in 1927 may have languished in relative…

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…

Oor Wullie Annual 2007

(DC Thompson)

11 Dec 2006

COMIC ANNUAL ‘Wullie and his pals still look nifty, They still live in 1950’ As a nation, we Scots take great pride in the technological achievements of our forebears: John Logie Baird, inventor of the TV, Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of…

Batman: Gotham Knights

17 Jul 2008

Intended to fill the gaps between Batman Begins and Dark Knight, Gotham Knights offers us six animated shorts, much in the same way as The Animatrix did for The Matrix. Each story is self-contained and created by a different writer (including Greg…

Comic - Jim Krueger, Alex Ross & Doug Braithwaite

Justice (DC/Titan)

22 Nov 2006

SUPERHERO The creators of Earth, Universe and Paradise X reunite (with Braithwaite providing pencil base for Ross’ glorious painted panels) for another heavily religious, wholly apocalyptic adventure involving DC’s greatest heroes and villains. This…

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…

Beano Annual 2007

(DC Thompson)

11 Dec 2006

COMIC ANNUAL It’s pretty much business as usual in Beano-land, you’ll be glad to hear: we open at the ‘Softies Fashion and Fabric Show’ where Walter and a couple of equally flamboyant chums vie for the lead in The Naked Civil Servant. Inside…

Broons 1939 Annual, The

The Broons 1939 Annual

11 Dec 2006

COMIC ANNUAL Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a Broons Annual under the tree and this reproduction of the very first annual from 1939 finds Dundee’s favourite family getting caught in the same situations they have been re-living over and…

Steve Niles & Kelly Jones - Batman: Gotham After Midnight No 1

19 Jun 2008

SUPERHERO (DC) In the arena of American superhero comics, Batman and the X-Men’s Wolverine are probably the most over-saturated characters. It can be a minefield trying to guess which titles featuring either character on the cover are actually…

Nicolas de Crecy - Glacial Period

Graphic novel

4 Oct 2007

Being branded an enfant terrible is too often faint praise for some artists but it poses no problems for Nicolas De Crécy who goes to great pains not to conform to stereotypical comic boy clichés and in doing so has produced a distinct body of work that…

Ghost Rider

As the new movie roars onto the big screen,

26 Feb 2007

COMICS IIt’s 1972. Evel Knievel was the most famous man in America; films like Blacula, Deep Throat and Deliverance were topping the box-office; events like Watergate and Vietnam meant there was a darker edge in the air. Marvel were running stories…

Winsor McCay

Editorial Works (Checker BPG)

12 Feb 2007

NEWS/REPORTAGE Better known for his groundbreaking 1930s animated film Gertie the Dinosaur (a film so exquisitely animated that it upped the game for Disney at the time), and comic strips Little Nemo in Slumberland and Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend…

Dan Slott & Juan Bobillo - She-Hulk: Single Green Female

5 Jun 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) Finally how could we ignore She-Hulk? After receiving an irradiated blood transfusion from her cousin, Bruce Banner, Jennifer Walters inherited some of his powers and strength. However, she’s in control of her emotions and isn’t…

Alan Grant, Jamie Grant & Various - Wasted No.1

22 May 2008

ANTHOLOGY (Bad Press) Devised by sometime 2000AD writer Alan Grant, and the artists at Glasgow’s Hope Street Studios (which includes the All-Star Superman team of Jamie Grant – no relation to Alan – and cover artist Frank Quitely), Wasted is the…

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…

Steve Niles & Ben Templesmith

30 Days of Night: Return to Barrow (IDW)

18 Oct 2007

We’re back in Alaska for this outing, as a new sheriff takes over the unenviable task of keeping law in Barrow, three years after the events of the first book. As soon as we touch down in Barrow the claustrophobic edge reappears as the month of darkness…

Pat Mills, Kevin O'Neil, Jesus Redondo & Bryan Talbot

The Complete Nemesis the Warlock Book 1 (Rebellion

12 Feb 2007

SCI-FI Rebellion continues its gorgeous repackaging of classic 2000AD stories. And Nemesis the Warlock is perhaps one of the greatest stories to ever grace the pages of the erstwhile sci-fi compendium, being a biting satire of racial intolerance and…

Fountain, The - Darren Aronofsky feature

Waves of mutilation

12 Jan 2007

Speaking to the website Comic Book Resources in May 2005, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky said: ‘I knew it was a hard film to make, and I said if Hollywood fucks me over at least I’ll make a comic book out of it.’ They did, and so he did.

Michael Green & Denys Cowan - Batman: Lovers and Madmen

17 Jul 2008

SUPER VILLAIN ( DC ) The main problem with Lovers and Madmen is that in many ways it is contradictory to the events in The Killing Joke (which have become accepted as the origin story to the Joker over the years). It depicts the Joker as far…

Bob Levin - Most Outrageous

3 Jul 2008

NON-FICTION/BIOG (Fantagraphics) Looking for a suitable subject for the follow-up to his book The Pirates and the Mouse – a wickedly funny account of a gang of comic book creators who satirised themselves into court with the Disney Corporation, Bob…

Steven Deighan & Terry Cooper - Feels Like Stephen King

19 Jun 2008

HORROR (Steven Deighan Publications) Small press printing of young Edinburgh horror author Steven Deighan's short story adapted to comic format. Telling a morbid tale of the publishing industry as a young writer is approached by a jaded publisher with…

Bruce Jones & John Romita Jr - The Incredible Hulk: Return of the Monster

5 Jun 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) This year’s blockbuster roster is jam packed with comic adaptations, and Marvel’s second big hitter of the year, The Incredible Hulk (after the considerable success of Iron Man) smashes it’s way onto the big screen this…

Various - The Definitive Iron Man

22 May 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel UK) With Iron Man proving to be the first genuine blockbuster of the summer season (and a fantastic adaptation of the source material) Marvel UK presents the ultimate introduction to ol’ Shellhead. The collection offers slices of…

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…

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…

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…

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.

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…

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…

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…

Fuyomi Kuono - Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms

Historical manga

4 Oct 2007

Set ten years after the US dropped the ‘Little Boy’ atomic bomb on Hiroshima, decimating the city, these two stories follow the lives of the Hibakusha (‘explosion-affected people’). ‘The first story, ‘Town of Evening Calm’, details the descent into…

Captain America: The Chosen No 1

David Morrell & Mitch Breitweiser

20 Sep 2007

In the current Marvel universe, Captain America is dead. Still, that doesn’t stop him being reincarnated when David Morrell – the novelist who created Rambo – comes calling for a scripting job. The majority of this first issue of six is about as…

David Kendall

(Robinson)

23 Aug 2007

This really is a weighty tome with over 500 pages of war comics culled from across the world and through the ages (from 1965–2006). Keiji Nakazawa sets the mood with his personal account of the bombing of Hiroshima in I Saw It, a poignant tale that…

Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy - comic review

Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy

29 Jan 2007

LITERARY ADAPTATION Robert Louis Stevenson’s celebrated historical adventure doesn’t need pictures to enhance its power. But this graphic novel adaptation, produced as part of the One Book ?" One Edinburgh reading campaign, successfully captures the…

Gail Simone, Dale Eaglesham & Val Semeiks

Villains United (DC)

11 Nov 2006

SUPERHERO Seemingly an excuse to reel out every other car boot sale bad guy that the archives of DC forgot. A bunch of vaguely uninspiring villains are banded together as the Secret Six by a mysterious power to challenge Lex Luthor’s Society, an army…

Various - Superman: Emperor Joker

17 Jul 2008

SUPER VILLAIN (DC) Despite an impressive writing team – including Jeph Loeb, JM DeMatteis and Ed McGuinness – Emperor Joker is a mess. This time, Superman takes on the harlequin of hate in a reality-warping tale as the Joker takes on God-like…

John Whalen & Mike Hawthorne - The Un-Men: Get Your Freak On

3 Jul 2008

MURDER MYSTERY (DC/Vertigo) The Un-Men were deformed approximations of man brewed up with a mix of science and sorcery by Swamp Thing’s arch-nemesis Anton Arcane back in 1972. They’ve cropped up several times through the years, and now launch their…

Leah Hayes - Funeral of the Heart

19 Jun 2008

SHORT STORIES (Fantagraphics) Welcome to the weird world of Leah Hayes. Where an elderly couple digs mysterious tunnels at night. Where a young male kitchen hand becomes a duck-slaughtering expert when his girlfriend develops an unusual illness. Or…

Greg Pak, Carlo Pagulayan & Aaron Lopresti - Planet Hulk

5 Jun 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) We reviewed World War Hulk in issue 599 ( ••• ) but let’s go back to the story that launched Hulk on his revenge fuelled tirade against planet earth. The Illuminati (a secretive cabal of superheroes that includes Iron Man, Mr…

Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale - Hulk: Gray

5 Jun 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) He’s probably as famous for his tough green hide as his anger-management problems but the Hulk has spent several years as a grey goliath (in fact he was grey in his first ever appearance in 1962). Some creative teams work…

The Best of Roy of the Rovers: The 1980s

22 May 2008

Forget Teddy Sheringham or Craig Brewster. Each would have to play on for almost another 20 years to match the footballing career of Roy Race, who turned out for and then player-managed the famous Melchester Rovers from 1954 to 1993 (with a brief…

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…

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…