52/1: The varieties of horror
I’d like to clear up a bit of a myth — you can actually follow either Animal Man or Swamp Thing without reading the other. Writers Jeff Lemire and Scott Snyder have clearly spent the first year of the two titles building a common world with a number of common elements and themes, but they … Continue reading
52/1: The girl most likely to
I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’ve wanted to write this column since before I had a column to write. And I’ve had butterflies in my stomach about it for almost just as long. Batgirl, and by extension its cowl-bearing character Barbara Gordon, isn’t just my favorite book on the stands. She’s my … Continue reading
52/1: The Bat
One year into DC’s reboot of their primary continuity, known as the New 52, Idler comics writer Matt Santori-Griffith and co-editor Gavin Craig are taking stock of some of the high points. This week, at Gavin’s insistence, they’re starting things off by talking about Batman and Batman and Robin. — Matt: Jumping right in, have … Continue reading
Bogey men
When I was a little kid, probably about six or seven years old, I had this recurring nightmare: A tall thin man would float outside my second floor bedroom window. He was always dressed in a black business suit, and had a gaunt profile with thinning white hair. I could never quite make out his features through the … Continue reading
Hopelessly devoted
Anyone who knows me at all knows I am not particularly musical. It’s not just that I can’t play an instrument or carry much of a tune. I don’t even have much of an ear for music. My iPod, at any given time, has about a dozen songs on it — ones that would make … Continue reading
Night of the Walking Dead
I can only imagine what Southern U.S. moviegoers must have been thinking when Night of the Living Dead, George Romero’s seminal zombie horror film, lit up the screens in late 1968. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated earlier in that same year and the Fair Housing Act had just been enacted during … Continue reading
Law and order on trial
The morality of comic book characters never used to be up for debate. If you were a superhero, you wore a bright costume, helped kids rescue kittens and shook hands with the police when you dropped off the criminals you apprehended, sometimes without even having to land a punch. If you were a supervillain, you … Continue reading
Stories for all your various summer needs
While summer reading lists tend to put one in mind of trashy paperbacks stashed away in canvas bags for beach reading, not many of us will spend the entire summer in a folding chair. Thus, a good set of summer reading suggestions will include options suitable for a variety of situations and pursuits. Whether you’re … Continue reading
My summer stack of comics
Did you know that scientists recently calculated how much we actually read in our work and personal lives? It seems a typical person today consumes the equivalent of 174 full newspapers a day in information — nearly five times as much as 25 years ago. Between email, print material, internet browsing, and advertising, we are literally inundated with text … Continue reading
Drawn out
If there were a single lesson to be learned from the collective knowledge unleashed at University of Chicago’s Comics: Philosophy and Practice conference, it would be that drawing is deeply democratic. To hear many of the 17 world-famous cartoonists in attendance tell it, no other action exists that retains as much validity without the burden … Continue reading
