Review: Daybreak by Brian Ralph

Daybreak – Brian Ralph (w/a) Drawn & Quarterly, $21.95, ISBN: 978-1-77046-055-3 Just when you think zombies have run their course, and the horror genre has flogged that reanimated horse back to death, then some artsy comics guy comes along and offers something new.  It’s true that Brian Ralph is all-too aware of how cliché zombies have become, and that the familiar tropes of the survival narrative have no surprises left.  So,...

Read More

Review: The Last Pamphleteer

Whither the humble alternative comic book? R. Crumb gave birth to the form in the sixties, selling his self-published ZAP comix out of a baby carriage in the Haight. It entered arrested adolescence with Peter Bagge’s Hate in the nineties, and achieved maturity at the turn of the century. Now nearing 50, the idiom is in danger of a premature death. Affectionately known as floppies or pamphlets in the industry, changing economics and readership trends...

Read More

Interview: Josceline Fenton

English designer and illustrator, Josceline Fenton is a relative newcomer to the comics world, but has gathered a dedicated following with her webcomic, Hemlock. Like the Brothers Grimm filtered through shoujo manga, it’s a charming and increasingly dark fantasy tale.  As she had recently wrapped-up the third chapter and announced some fairly high-profile anthology appearances, I decided to speak to Josceline over email to find out more...

Read More

Comics: All the Dead Superheroes #4

Click for full-size image All the Dead Superheroes is a continuing strip in fortnightly installments.  Full issues of the comic can be found at: www.allthedeadsuperheroes.blogspot.com Story and art © 2011 Iain Laur...

Read More

Feature: Trina Robbins talks Nell Brinkley

For over 40 years, Trina Robbins has been a vital, almost unstoppable force in comics.  It would be hard to overstate her importance in raising the profile and treatment of women in comics -- from forming the first all-women anthology to championing some of the lost voices in the history (or, as she would have it, "herstory") of comics.  The latter drive led her to produce The Brinkley Girls with Fantagraphics Books -- a gorgeous...

Read More

Review: Catwoman #1 by Judd Winick and Guillem March

Catwoman #1 – Judd Winick (w) Guillem March (a) DC Comics, $2.99 If we are to believe the hype and marketing machine of Time Warner, all their future movie comic properties are returning to square one with the “New 52”.  That adjective is supposed to instill us with confidence, like New Coke and “Nu” Metal — remember how much you loved those?  But, snark aside, labels are the least of the problems facing DC’s relaunch. More problematic...

Read More

Review: Troop 142 by Mike Dawson

Troop 142 - Mike Dawson (w/a)Secret Acres, $20, ISBN: 978-0979960994 There are two distinct voices at work in Troop 142 — Mike Dawson’s latest graphic novel about, of all things, a Boy Scout camp.  There is the authorial voice of Alan, father of two of the scouts, and awkward chaperone of the camp. For him, the experience is uncomfortable, seemingly casting him back to his own adolescence and much of his narration deals with his...

Read More

Comics: All the Dead Superheroes #3

Click for full-size image All the Dead Superheroes is a continuing strip in fortnightly installments.  Full issues of the comic can be found at: www.allthedeadsuperheroes.blogspot.com Story and art © 2011 Iain Laur...

Read More