“The superhero genre is a cavern almost completely excavated of anything of value. It is very difficult to discern any glimmers of gold left in the dark. So much of the material, with its parameters of good against evil, superpowers, ritualised combat, and fetished costumes, has been sifted through and sorted to such an extent…
REVIEW: The Best of Sugar Jones
Sugar Jones is a girl comic from a 1970s teen magazine, Pink (1974-(1979?), and at first glance, this volume of collected strips is all about commonly denominated ~girl stuff. Fashion! Make-up! Great big hair and enormous eyelashes, size-threatened only by the circumference of her bellbottoms! And these excellent and diverting aspects are certainly present throughout….
Bob Harras: An Oral History in Collage
Bob Harras was fired last year from his Editor in Chief role at DC. Unfortunately, this came with a passel of other job losses and under circumstances apparently unrelated to conduct. Harras’ removal stands out, as his editorial career has been particularly long, and particularly marked by visible allegiances and times of strife. Let’s examine…
I Wish I Could’ve Given Everyone Hugh Madden’s Treasure Island for Christmas
Hugh Madden started cartooning his adaptation of Treasure Island on the eighteenth of March, early in the Irish Lockdown. As I write, he’s completed two hundred and twenty-seven pages, all free to read in one mega-thread on Twitter, and has covered everything up until Hawkins’ joining, under sufferance, Silver’s pirate gang now marooned on the…
WandaVision: What’s the Source?
Back in September, two trailers came out on the same day, and I tweeted, “Wanda’s thinking of ending things.” It’s a joke that works because in later years Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, has been given tremendous reality-adjustment abilities (she could end anything in a blink, including the Mutant Menace), and because the glitchy visuals,…
Find Modern Peace with Pipette and Dudley Charming Dog Adventure Comics
A comic I return to again and again is Baby Bun, by Yoyo, a mini-mini mini comic I picked up — for 50p — in passing on my way out of OK True Believers in its first or second year. It’s a panel per page sequence of what appears to be a large ice cube…
Crystal is the Worst Person in the Inhuman Royal Family, Change My Mind (You Can’t)
This is a story about a girl named Crystal.
Crying Freeman by the Numbers: Rhythm in Panelling
As a critic, I am called to say things that will irritate and annoy people and as such I would like to begin here by graciously sharing that I hate it very much when writers say things like, “I keep my panel per page count low, because someone has to draw it!!” I appreciate all…
REVIEW: Hellcop #1: Not Great, but Quite Foxy, and Very 1998
The immediate value of Hellcop and the reason for my enduring interest in a late ‘90s character with five published appearances is his head: it’s done, excessively. Hellcop not only has red-tinted sunglasses, which he wears without arms (a sort of cyber pince-nez?); he not only has a clifftop flop of thick blond certified-dreamboat hair….
REVIEW: The Art of the Darkness: I Have No Mouth and I Must Screw
2007’s The Art of the Darkness (I’m looking at the 2017 ten year reissue) is one of the coffee table burlesque publications you’re likely familiar with—most local comic shops, or comics sections of chain bookshops, will have at least one Frank Cho Heteronomicon on offer and/or display, for example. Many superhero artists who gain acclaim…
Political Cartooning: Steve Sack for the Star Tribune
Veteran, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Steve Sack takes a straightforward approach. Instantly recognisable: the police car, the state, the policeman kneeling on the neck of a downed person, that person’s embodiment as Justice, the mode of that murder. The message is just as easy to parse when you’re aware of the subjects of reference: The Minneapolis…
Cover Girl: Shadow Service #1
Welcome to Cover Girls. Each month, we gather a team of WWAC contributors to analyze a new and notable comic book cover featuring one or more women. This month Claire, Nola, Wendy, Louis, Kate, and Elvie look at the cover of Shadow Service #1 by Corin M. Howell, with colours by Triona Farrell.
