Yeah, Kevin, it’s me. There was a two-month break between issues 4 and 5, but it wasn’t due to any sort of publishing mishap. Rather, Matt Wagner built these month-gaps into the series schedule from the beginning in order to give himself enough time to finish everything without any unexpected delays. He takes advantage of this gap by jumping the story ahead by thirteen months. Obviously, spoilers and fan theories ahead. It opens with a five-page flashback set some time…
A short review this month simply because there’s not so much to unpack here. The Umbra Sprite, the Gracklethorns, Kevin’s wife, and Kevin’s children are all absent from this issue. Meaning that it’s just Kevin and some monster lady that we’ve never seen before (and will probably never see again). Really, this issue is meant to tie us back to themes from Hero Discovered and Hero Defined, so if you haven’t read those titles first, none of it will make…
And so the story starts moving, just as the reviews and Internet buzz for this series begins to die down. Seriously, I’ve noticed how promotion for comic books tends to really ramp up with issue 1, but fades almost immediately afterward, as if no one might be tempted to pick up issue 3 if they hadn’t already read issues 1 and 2. Generally, by the time the last issue of a series shows up, the attitude among a lot of…
So, the basic setup for the new Mage series is shaping up to be similar to the previous two volumes. At least one big fight scene and LOTS of talking. Seriously, you sign up for Mage and you’re signing up for lots of dialogue. As far as the issue breakdown goes (LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD), it’s 7 pages of Kevin and Magda arguing, tucking their kids into bed, and going up to the attic; 4 pages of evil insurance adjusters literally…
So, I’ve been meaning to get back into writing comic reviews, but there’s frankly been very little out there that got me excited. I’m more of an old school comic fan, preferring the comics that would actually take ten or fifteen minutes to read. Yeah, I’m a slow reader, but even I can push through most modern comics in two or three minutes without much trouble. All splash pages and dialogue-free scenes. It seems like most modern comic writers don’t…
Image Comics is soon releasing the first trade paperback of Kyle Starks’ Rock Candy Mountain, collecting issues 1-4. The original solicitation runs as follows: Eisner-nominated comic creator Kyle Starks would like to invite you to enter the magical world of hobos. The world’s toughest hobo is searching through post-WW2 America for the mythological Rock Candy Mountain, and he’s going to have to fight his way to get there. Lots of hobo fights. So many hobo fights. A new action-comedy series…
At the Emerald City Comicon in early March, Image Comics announced that starting in August they’d be publishing writer/artist Matt Wagner’s Mage: The Hero Denied, a 15-issue series with a half-length 0 issue and a double-sized conclusion. Hero Denied will be the final part of a trilogy Wagner began over thirty years ago, and I want to prepare for that last installment by looking back here at the first parts of the saga. The Mage books are two of the…
Superheroes rule at the box office, and have for nearly a decade. They’ve pretty much conquered television as well. And of course, they’ve been the predominate genre in American comics since the 1960s. But novels? Not so much. For whatever reason, the massive popularity of American superheroes just hasn’t translated to prose. There have been some solid attempts, however, perhaps most notably Peter Clines’s Ex-Heroes series and George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass’s long-running Wild Cards shared universe (now in development…
Last fall, Image released a new comic book series by Jim Zub (Wayward and Thunderbolts) and Djibril Morissette-Phan (The Ultimates, All-New Wolverine) called Glitterbomb, a horror story about fame and failure. The first four issues are out, and a collected trade paperback of those 4 issues is hitting comic book shops and book stores in March. I read Glitterbomb, really enjoyed it, and got a chance to talk with the creators. Here’s the synopsis: Farrah Durante is a middle-aged actress hunting…
One of Ponting’s iconic images from the expedition is the Terra Nova stuck in ice. The crew had to cut away the ice immediately around the ship every day so that it wouldn’t crush the ship, a fate suffered by several other Polar expeditions. When I’m in London I love to catch the shows at the big galleries, but I also like to check out the auction houses. Although I can’t afford to buy anything, places like Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and…