Humanity uses fiction as a means of escape; it’s a pretty old refrain. At the same time, that doesn’t necessarily mean the realities of our world don’t bleed into the margins. Certain environments, foods, educational systems, and the general laws of physics are common enough to be negligible, for example. We structure ourselves around these…
Comics and Kink: The Erotica Side Hustle of Superman Co-Creator Joe Shuster
The starving artist is one of the most curiously enduring cultural images of the last four centuries or so. Its Romantic origins established a sense of noble prestige to the cycle of poverty, sacrifice, and professional obscurity in which many artists found themselves in the pursuit of a career. These days, there’s more scorn behind…
The Comic Book History of Comics #4: Capitalism and Piracy
The Comic Book History of Comics #4 Fred Van Lente (writer and letterer), Ryan Dunlavey (artist), Adam Guzowski (colourist) IDW Publishing 21 March, 2018 The comics industry, as it stands now, was pretty much established in the 1960s. At the time, comics were hard to come by for readers, who had to scour every single…
The Comic Book History of Comics #3: Disney, Manga, and Piracy
The Comic Book History of Comics #2 Fred Van Lente (Writer and Letters), Ryan Dunlavey (Artist), Adam Guzowski (Colours) IDW Publishing 21 February, 2018 The third issue of Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey’s The Comic Book History of Comics moves away from the US and UK to focus on Japan and the rise of…
The Comic Book History of Comics #2: Into the Murky World of Copyright
The Comic Book History of Comics #2 Fred Van Lente (Writer and Letters), Ryan Dunlavey (Artist), Adam Guzowski (Colours) IDW Publishing 24 January, 2018 Following The Comic Book History of Comics’ fun first issue about the birth of graphic novels, the series moves into much darker territory in issue #2 – copyright and rip-offs.
The Comic Book History of Comics #1: Fun, Detailed but Limited
The Comic Book History of Comics: Comics For All #1 Fred Van Lente (Writer and Letters), Ryan Dunlavey (Artist), Adam Guzowski (Colours) IDW December 20, 2017 We all know the term “graphic novel.” Most of us have graphic novels on our bookshelves. But where did this term originate? How did comic strips lead to comic…
Ed Piskor’s Grand Design for the X-Men
The first 30 years of the X-Men, including Chris Claremont’s record-setting run, is legendary. With almost two decades and 200 issues within Claremont’s tapestry alone, it’s hard to imagine how all of that could be condensed into a mere six books. For someone to even think of doing so, they would have to be either…
Political Comics: Why We Should Take HYDRA-Magneto Seriously
This month, the news broke that Marvel’s latest event will have a series of variant covers of HYDRA-styled bad guys. Included among the lineup will be Magneto, a character whose origins as a Jewish Holocaust survivor should set him in direct opposition to the Nazi-influenced HYDRA. As we enter the cycle of discourse around why…