My youth in a comic book Detroit
Beginnings, in life and literature, make or break a story. Writers can agonize over their first line (as I, not coincidentally, just did) to ensure the reader is hooked immediately into a world about to unfold. Challenging, yet convenient, is the ability to rewrite, revise, and retcon your story until it is the perfect synthesis … Continue reading
How do you solve a problem like Siobhan?
Superheroes are for boys! With these four words, my five year-old niece Siobhan cut right through my chest and pulled out my heart. She was so adamant when she said it, you’d think it had been on the news or something. Admittedly, five year-olds tend to be adamant about everything, from why the purple crayon … Continue reading
Recreating the Golden Age
Oh, it was… err… big and bright and great and easy to understand. The world was simpler. “No adventure went on for too long, I do recall that. Things were more open and shut. And no one died. At least not often. Nowadays you fly off for a moment, you come back and two or … Continue reading
Mutants and misfits
You should know right away that I am not a fan of black-and-white comics. Oh, make no mistake — it doesn’t matter to me whether or not a book is printed on four-color pages. What I mean to say is, I like stories I read to move past the traditional good vs. evil, light vs. … Continue reading
The Phantom
Ah, the mid-to-late 1990s. It was a new Golden Age for the cinema, and 1996 was a banner year: it brought us Barb Wire, Dragonheart, and the Billy Zane superhero film, The Phantom. I have a soft-spot for The Phantom. Which should not come as a surprise, since my film collection runs the gamut from … Continue reading
Super-heroines, stains and all
My favorite comic book characters have invariably always been the ladies. Maybe because there were less of them when I was growing up. Maybe because their costumes were more fabulous than those of their male counterparts. Probably because, when written with care, the super-heroines always seemed more intuitive, more vulnerable… just more real than most … Continue reading
Not a bang, but a whimper
This week marks the full-scale beginning of DC’s Universe-wide reboot, but before we hit the reset button on every superhero’s origins and adventures, it’s worth acknowledging the end of one of the longest running comic series in history: Action Comics Volume 1. The first issue, which came out in June 1938, it the holy grail … Continue reading
Some completely biased speculation on the DC reboot
DC Comics recently shocked fans by announcing that this September the DC universe will undergo a massive reboot, quite possibly the biggest in the publisher’s history. Such big changes with so little time to adjust have led many online fans to condemn the move before it even happens. Meanwhile, rumors suggest many comic retailers are … Continue reading
The death of Superman
I was 11 years old when Superman died. I remember being at a rollerskating rink when when my mother told me. She had been reading a magazine article on the topic, and upon hearing that my favorite hero had “died” the week prior, my heart sunk in my chest. To make it worse, he was … Continue reading
What kind of man dresses up like a bat?! More to the point, what kind of director puts nipples on that man’s bat costume?
Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Since then he has been called The Bat-Man, the Caped Crusader, the World’s Greatest Detective and the Dark Knight, amongst other names. He is a character that has been lent to as many interpretations as nicknames (more, actually) over the years and has graced the silver … Continue reading
