Writer: Kieron Gillen Artist: Jamie McKelvie Colorist: Matthew Wilson Letterer: Clayton Cowles Published by Image Comics Over in the backmatter of The Wicked and the Divine, Kieron Gillen describes his new series with Jamie McKelvie as the “evil twin” to their masterful “music-as-magic” series Phonogram. The phrase is partially meant as a quick response to […]
American Elf Servers Shutting Down, to be Archived by Library of Congress
It came as a shock to many when James Kochalka hung up his elf ears on December 31, 2012, and declared an end to his daily diary strip that had been running since 1998. Although the cartoonist had flirted with the idea of taking leave of American Elf on occasion, he always came back. With […]
The Spider-Verse Spinoff Marvel Won’t Make
Last week, images of a brand new Spider-Woman design hit the internet, compliments of Robbi Rodriguez. Calling the fan response anything less than excited would be the comics understatement of 2014. It had people like me, who are currently only reading Hawkeye, pause and take note. It had artists like Ramon Villalobos knocking out a […]
Having Your CAKE and Eating it Too
As a lifelong Illinoisan, Wizard Worlds and hotel lobby “cons” served as my only respite for the drought plaguing the midwest comics scene. Cholera-laden wells if ever there were any, I quickly learned that there were few other options than to either drive or fly a significant distance from Central Illinois or to accept the […]
Damaged Goods: What Amazon’s Battle with Hatchette Could Mean for Comics
It’s been about a month since comiXology’s decision to no longer allow in-app purchases made the comic news rounds. The story never exactly went away so much as commentators became newly distracted with things like that vague Alan Moore announcement for Electricomics, an app that appears to allow you to purchase hype. But in that same amount […]
Reviews in the Panel Panopticon: Trees, Doktor Spektor and C.O.W.L
In Panel Panopticon, Nick Hanover and friends talk about the comics they’ve picked up for the week, good, bad or otherwise. This week, Warren Ellis makes a triumphant return at Image, Mark Waid can’t quite make me care about an old Gold Key character and I may have found a new favorite artist in […]
Burn Down the Superhero Ghetto and the Graphic Novel Library
There’s a pretty good chance many of you have already seen Rolling Stone‘s “50 Best Non-Superhero Graphic Novels” list. If you haven’t, I invite you to go read it before continuing on; it’s a nice profile of some of the better work in comics. As with all such lists, even allowing them to expand to […]
52 Pickup: What DC Could Learn from Marvel
Confession time: the last DC title I bought on a regular basis was Dial H. It was cancelled almost a year ago. I hadn’t really thought about this until today, when I was reading the AV Club’s comics reviews round-up and was blown away by Oliver Sava’s description of DC’s new weekly event comic Futures End, a series seemingly […]
Box Brown, Andre Giant, and Wrestling Reality
Every single professional wrestling enthusiast has heard the question, ”Isn’t it fake?” Or, if they’re being a dick, “You know it’s fake, right?” Sometimes, if you ask, you might just get slapped across the face. If you’re talking to me, you’ll get a complex response*. Yes, the outcomes are predetermined. And yes, they’re not really […]
Anatomy of a Page: Afterlife with Archie #5
Comics are a visual medium, but so often criticism of the medium hinges on narrative, ignoring or minimizing the visual storytelling and unique structures that make comics so different from cinema and photography. We’ve decided to change that up with a feature in Loser City that we’re calling anatomy of a page, in which we explore pages […]