Comics, Reviews

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…

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…

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…

Mark Evanier - Kirby: King of Comics

3 Jul 2008

BIOG (Abrams) As befits a book about the man who reinvented comics with the most dynamic artwork the medium had ever seen, friend and colleague Mark Evanier’s biography/critical commentary is a large format coffee table hardback full of big and…

Mark Millar & JG Jones - Wanted

3 Jul 2008

THRILLER/SUPER VILLIAN (Top Cow/Titan) As yet another comics-based blockbuster hits the big screen, Titan brings us this timely repackaged re-release. Wanted was written by one of the comics world’s leading lights, Scotland’s own Mark Millar, a…

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…

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…

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…

Various - Fantasy Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 15

19 Jun 2008

HORROR (Eureka Productions) Graphic novel adaptations of classic works of literature are becoming more popular these days, and American series Graphic Classics pack in more updating for your buck with an anthology format. They’re not quite in the…

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…

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…

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…

Jason Lutes - Jar of Fools

22 May 2008

TRAGEDY/NOIR (Faber) First serialised in Seattle’s alternative newspaper The Stranger back in 1993, and anthologised in the US in 2003, Lutes’ remarkable graphic novel is long overdue a decent European release. Jar of Fools tells the story of…

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…

Matt Groening & Various - Big Brilliant Book of Bart Simpson

22 May 2008

COMEDY (Titan Books) The boast that The Simpsons is now the longest running animated TV series of all time is a bit of a double-edged sword. For as it rolls out episode after episode, into the multiplexes and beyond, the permutations for new plot…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.

Denise Mina & Leonardo Manco - review

Horror

1 Nov 2007

While Ian Rankin is writing his own Hellblazer story, due in 2008, the current scribe bringing occult anti-hero John Constantine to life is fellow Scots crime author Denise Mina. In this direct sequel to her Empathy is the Enemy collection, the Empathy…

Steve Niles & Ben Templesmith

30 Days of Night (IDW)

18 Oct 2007

Once upon a time uptight Americans thought gruesome moral tales of things that crept and slithered through the world of comics might bring down society. EC Comics and their Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror and Haunt of Fear titles caused a moral…

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…

Steve Niles & Ben Templesmith

30 Days of Night: Dark Days (IDW)

18 Oct 2007

After reading 30 Days of Night it’s hard to think where Niles could take the characters he’d created next. Here he moves the action from Alaska to LA, where one of the survivors of the initial assault continues her war on the vampires and her campaign…

Steve Niles & Various

30 Days of Night: Bloodsucker Tales (IDW)

18 Oct 2007

Here Niles extends his own mythology with more tales of vampires, this time with the loosest connections to the original trilogy. Kody Chamberlain handles the art for ‘Dead Billy Dead’, while in the second story, ‘Juarez’, Templesmith returns on art…

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…

Dan Dare Rogue Planet

Frank Hampson & Don Harley

20 Sep 2007

Purists might be shocked by the news that Dan Dare is to return in a new series written by Preacher’s iconoclastic author Garth Ennis, yet no update could surely go further than Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes’ Dare , which saw our despairing hero…

Spent

Joe Matt

20 Sep 2007

The confessions of a self-justified jerk-off continue in this follow-up to The Poor Bastard, which collects the next four issues of Matt’s ongoing comic Peepshow. If anything, Spent (as in ejaculated and knackered) is an even more brazenly confessional…

The Saga of the Blood Benders

Rick Geary

20 Sep 2007

Rick Geary has produced stories and art for everyone from Heavy Metal and National Lampoon to Disney. However, recently he’s been focusing on his ‘Treasury of Victorian Murder’, which has covered Jack the Ripper through to The Murder of Abraham Lincoln…

Silverfish

David Lapham

16 Aug 2007

CRIME DRAMA Comics can be amazingly astute when it comes to capturing the teen experience. Charles Burns’ sublime Black Hole (surely one of the greatest comics of all time) and last year’s Sloth by Gilbert Hernandez offered strange and distorted…

The Other Side

Jason Aaron & Cameron Stewart

16 Aug 2007

WAR Traditionally, comics that deal in war have been of the GI Joe/Commando camp, revelling in the glory of battle and the heroics of the average man on the frontline. The Other Side, on the other hand, deals with the Vietnam War and the moral…

Batman Black & White Volume 3

(DC/Titan)

9 Aug 2007

Usually at home as a simple back-up slot in the monthly Batman: Gotham Knights, Batman Black & White has taken on a life of its own and has quickly become a jewel in the crown of DC’s myriad caped crusader titles. A creative playground for various…

Second Sight

(Orion)

9 Aug 2007

PSYCHIC AUTOBIOGRAPHY Mind invasion from strange voices; spooks that go bump in the night; Zulu warrior spirit mates: it’s all a day in the life for Sharon Neill, and, whether you believe in it or not, her autobiography makes for fascinating reading.

Comics - Jonah Hex: Guns of Vengeance

2 Jul 2007

WESTERN Westerns were once a huge subgenre in comics, and with Loveless and Jonah Hex back on the shelves there’s a bit of a resurgence in sequential stories of cowboy folk. Making his first appearance in 1971, Hex is basically a disfigured take on…

Comics - World War Hulk No.1

2 Jul 2007

SUPERHERO Any follower of Marvel’s output over the last year might have found themselves growing tired of the almost relentless, ashen-faced politicking of Mark Millar’s ubiquitous Civil War crossover. In which case, this return to the company’s…

Comics - Spider-Man & Black Cat

Kevin Smith & Terry Dodson

23 Apr 2007

SUPERHERO There has been some amazing creative talent on Spider-Man through the years. Comics bad boy Todd McFarlane (Spawn), Jeph Loeb (Lost), Pete Bagge (Hate) and John Byrne have all thrown in their artistic tuppence worth, while even Frank Miller…

Comics - Spider-Man Family 1 & 2

Various

23 Apr 2007

SUPERHERO Some may call it cynical marketing that Spider-Man is ‘back in black’ just as the new film hits the screens, but hey he looks cool as hell so we’ll forgive Marvel. Spider-Man Family is the latest monthly to hit the shelves, an anthology…

Comics - Spider-Man: Skin Deep

J Michael Straczynski & Mike Deodato Jr

23 Apr 2007

SUPERHERO Jump cut to the latest collection from Marvel UK of exactly the same title (Amazing Spider-Man, now running at issues 515-518 in this compendium). Now married to Mary-Jane, this is more the world of Spidey we know and love. Dipping back to…

Marvel Masterworks

Comics

23 Apr 2007

SUPERHERO Spider-Man is Marvel’s mascot, one of the most recognisable superheroes of all time. With the latest huge blockbuster on the horizon there’s bound to be a lot of interest in everyone’s favourite webslinger. Created back in 1962 by comics…

Golgo 13

Comics

11 Apr 2007

DVD A kind of nascent animé James Bond, the re-release of this 1983 action film was based on the long-running Manga comic of the same name. When taciturn, Asian super-assassin Golgo 13 is hired to bump off a Mafia boss, the job leads him up an alley…

Hellboy

Comics

11 Apr 2007

DVD The first of three feature length television cartoons adapted from Mike Mignola’s marvellous comic book series, Sword of Storms takes Hellboy and his Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence colleagues east to Japan where they duke it out with a…

Karas

Comics

11 Apr 2007

DVD From the opening battle sequence, the action scenes in Karas are a retina-searing blend of CGI and slick animation with dazzling sci-fi imagery and videogame aesthetics. Edited at a dizzyingly fast pace, it’s just a shame that when the action…

Ultimate Avengers 2

Comics

11 Apr 2007

DVD Taking its cues from Mark Millar’s The Ultimates, Marvel returns to the animated world with the second part of their Ultimate Avengers series. The alien menace has now reached Africa and is threatening the small but technically advanced nation of…

Comics - Chicanos

Carlos Trillo & Eduardo Risso

26 Mar 2007

CRIME Fellow Argentineans Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Risso’s fourth collaboration, originally published in Italy and France, is a New York City-set crime comic featuring a pointedly unconventional protagonist: a short, fat, ugly Mexican female…

Comics - Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere

Mike Carey & Glenn Fabry

26 Mar 2007

FANTASY The presence of Neil Gaiman’s name is going to have an army of vaguely gothic comic geeks turning out in their droves to buy it. Even if his writing doesn’t actually appear therein. This is an adapted version of Sandman scribe Gaiman’s…

Comics - S&BvP&A and MZvAD

Mark Schultz & Ariel Olivetti

26 Mar 2007

CROSSOVER MANIA John layman & Fabiano Neves Marvel Zombies v Army of Darkness (Marvel/Dynamite) Every now and then you get an Abbot & Costello meet Frankenstein or Freddy v Jason, but it’s comics that have truly embraced the crossover.

Comics - Captain Britain Volume 1

Chris Claremont & Herb Trimpe

14 Mar 2007

SUPERHERO It may have stemmed from a slightly cynical, ‘lets see if we can cash in on the British market with a thinly disguised take on Captain America’ but Chris Claremont may well be one of the greatest comics story tellers of his time (admittedly…

Comics - The Blackest Gnome

Malcy Duff

14 Mar 2007

ABSTRACT/SURREAL More dreams, schemes and half remembered memories from Edinburgh based cartoonist Duff. This, his 31st comic book is, according to the press notes, ‘inspired by the cancellation of the last black and white minstrel show in Scotland…

Comics - 300

Frank Miller & Lynn Varley

12 Mar 2007

EPIC Re-reading Frank Miller’s graphic novella in its landscape format hardcover edition (it was originally serialised as a five-issue comic book in 1998/99), it’s clear just how perfectly suited 300 is for the Hollywood blockbuster film…

Harvey Pekar

Ego and Hubris (Ballantine Books)

12 Feb 2007

BIOGRAPHY/LIFE STORY Meet Michael Malice - childhood immigrant, dreamer, short-ass and egotist. In some ways he’s just another mildly schizophrenic man, raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, but to Pekar (the graphic novel’s greatest navel gazer) he is…

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…

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…

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…

Chris Ware - comic review

Chris Ware

29 Jan 2007

WARPED HUMOUR The 17th volume of Chris Ware’s now self-published irregular comic continues the sad tale of Rusty Brown, a pre-pubescent dork who lives in a snowbound small town in America’s mid-west, where he stubbornly clings to his best friend, a…

Denise Mina & Leonardo Manco - comic review

Denise Mina & Leonardo Manco

29 Jan 2007

HORROR Bitter mage John Constantine makes his way to Scotland, as crime writer Denise Mina (Field of Blood/The Dead Hour) makes her first foray into comics, bringing Constantine onto her home territory, Glasgow, the setting for most of her mystery…

Warren Ellis & Mike Deodato Jr - comic review

Warren Ellis & Mike Deodato Jr

29 Jan 2007

SUPERHERO Having run for the past few years as a fanboy-friendly graveyard for all of Marvel’s most colourful and perhaps least inspiring villains, this first issue of Warren Ellis’ tour of duty as writer promises to make it a title worth…

Ed Brubaker & Trevor Hairsine - comic review

Ed Brubaker & Trevor Hairsine

9 Jan 2007

SUPERHERO Comics have embraced and pioneered the ret-con more that any other artistic medium. For the less geeky amongst us, a ret-con is ‘retro continuity’, the art of going back and retelling the past so it vaguely makes sense with what’s gone…

Batman: Gotham County Line

(DC/Titan)

19 Dec 2006

Location. Location. Location. Or how to bring a neat twist to Batman by sending him to the ‘burbs. Asked to investigate a spate of mysterious killings in Gotham City’s suburbs by a retired Commissioner Gordon, the story shifts from Manhunter-esque…

EC Segar - comic review

EC Segar

19 Dec 2006

CLASSIC COMIC STRIPS Mainly remembered for his eating habits rather than his comic prowess, Popeye has been about since 1929, as a character in the cast of Thimble Theatre, EC Segar’s farcical, vaudevillian comic saga that was initially published in…

Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi - comic review

Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi

19 Dec 2006

MANGA/CRIME This is the crime manga that inspired South Korean director Chan-wook Park’s acclaimed Cannes Grand Jury prize-winning film of the same name. Translated into English for the first time since it was published in 1997, Dark Horse have…