Invasion 1984! Alan Grant and John Wagner (script), Eric Bradbury (art), various (lettering) Treasury of British Comics/Rebellion May 2019 A stablemate to the legendary 2000 AD, Battle was a weekly anthology that aimed to kick new life into the traditional British war comic. During its run from 1975 to 1988, it tried a number of…
The Vampyre’s Legacy, Part 5: Enter Count Dracula
The 1890s were a bountiful decade for vampire literature. This was the period that saw the publication of James Maclaren Cobban’s Master of his Fate (1890), E. E. Baldwin’s The Strange Story of Dr. Senex (1891), Cora Lin Daniels’ Sardia (1891), Julien Gordon’s Vampires (1891), Florence Marryat’s The Blood of the Vampire (1897), and Thaddeus…
British Favourites are Back in The Cor!! Buster Humour Special
The Cor!! Buster Humour Special Lizzie Boyle, Robin Etherington, The Feek, John Freeman, Paul Goodenough, Ned Hartley, Lee Langford, Gráinne McEntee, Cavan Scott, Matt Smith, Karl Stock, Alec Worley (writers), Sammy Borras, Abigail Bulmer, Mick Cassidy, Andy W. Clift, David Follett, Neil Googe, Mike Hoffman, Steve Mannion, Pye Parr, Tom Paterson, Tanya Roberts, Lew Stringer,…
The Vampyre’s Legacy, Part 4: Carmilla and Company
The previous installment of this series covered attempts to deconstruct vampire fiction during the mid-nineteenth century, with writers stepping back and seeing how vampirism could serve symbolic purposes. As the century headed towards its close, the time was right for the vampire to be reconstructed once again. With the more analytical works out of the…
Jungle Girls: Lions and Tigers and Bare Midriffs, Oh My!
Jungle Girls Various (writers/artists), Mitch Maglio and Craig Yoe (editors), Dr. Sheena Howard (introduction) Yoe Books/IDW February 12 2019 Imagine an archetypal comic hero, and you will likely picture some combination of spandex, a cape, external underpants, and a nifty set of superpowers. But for past generations, this would not necessarily have been the case….
The Vampyre’s Legacy, Part 3: Deconstructing the Vampire
We have seen how, in the first half of the nineteenth century, vampire fiction was pioneered by John Polidori and elaborated upon by later writers. These explorations continued into the century’s latter half as authors placed the vampire under the microscope, poking and prodding their specimens to work out exactly what the literary vampire represented….
The Vampyre’s Legacy, Part 2: The Feminine Touch
As the decades passed, more writers tried their hands at the vampire genre that had been established by Lord Byron and John Polidori. In the process, they came up with new concepts and new approaches. One area in which vampire literature diversified was in terms of gender. Polidori and Byron were men, as were their…
Hulk Gets Horrific in The Immortal Hulk Volume 1
The Immortal Hulk Volume 1: Or Is He Both? Al Ewing (writer), Joe Bennett (penciller), Ruy Hosé (inker), Paul Mounts (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer), Paul Hornschemeier, Marguerite Sauvage and Garry Brown (Immortal Hulk #3 guest artists), Travis Lanham (Immortal Hulk #2 co-letterer), Jim Zub and Mark Waid (Avengers #684 co-writers) Marvel Comics December 4,…
Sex, Cyborgs, and ’70s Style in Cutie Honey: The Classic Collection
Cutie Honey: The Classic Collection Go Nagai (writer/artist), Zak Davisson (translator), Bambi Eloriaga-Amago and Roland Amago (lettering/retouch) Seven Seas Entertainment August 28, 2018 Cutie Honey: The Classic Collection is a chunky hardcover that reprints Go Nagai’s influential 1970s manga series in its entirety. Cutie Honey was one of the taproots of the magical girl genre,…
Dracula’s Forgotten Sister: Florence Marryat and The Blood of the Vampire
Vampire fiction was crystallised in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Subsequent generations of writers in the genre have had to define their works only in relation to this novel, whether they were adhering to its example or departing from it. But if we go back in time, we see a different story, or rather, different stories. While…
2018 Dragon Awards: Big-Name Winners and Little Controversy
One of the attractions at this year’s Dragon Con was the third iteration of the annual Dragon Awards, presented on Sunday to another fifteen works of science fiction and fantasy across a range of media. Unlike Worldcon’s Hugo Awards—where voters require a paid membership—or juried prizes such as the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Dragons…