Comics

Jeff Reads Comics: Astonishing X-Men #44

6 December 2011

A digital copy of Astonishing X-Men #44 was provided for review by the author. As a lifelong X-Men fan, I have learned that X-Men fans are, and this is putting it kindly, fickle. On top of this, they have an even more abusive relationship with continuity than most other fans of most other superhero comics [...]

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The New Reader Experiment

2 September 2011

I thought that Justice League #1 was not the sort of book that you’d want to use to wow new readers. But I’m not a new reader. I’m a very old reader, having read comics now for nearly 30 years (I started very young). I am not the target demo here, and frankly that’s as [...]

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Cry for Justice

1 September 2011

Let’s assume that you’re running a comic book publisher.  One of the big ones.  Your market share has slipped, you’re afraid you’re losing relevance and you decide that, from a marketing perspective (and likely from a story perspective, too) you need to execute a balls-crazy Hail Mary play. You decide to rejigger your entire publishing [...]

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Shields and the Weilding Thereof

26 July 2011

It is incredibly easy to get cynical about fandom. We can, collectively, be utterly joyless bastards about the things we profess to love a lot of the time. There are a lot of things we feel, some rightly and some wrongly, about Our Things – stewardship, ownership, affection, disappointment, even equivalency – but the feeling [...]

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A Renumbering, At Least

15 June 2011

If you’ve been up in the air about how exactly you should feel about the DC Comics relaunch looming in September, I think the best signal to pay attention to is Marvel’s most recent news announcement. DC: We’re restarting everything at #1.* Marvel: New Spider-Man book. Sick. Burn. It’s almost a parody of the DC [...]

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Five Terrible DC Relaunch Pitches

7 June 2011

My Lantern Pony Corps #1: In brightest day, in blackest night, no pasture shall escape their sight.  Chartreuse Harmony is a brash, fearless filly who lives in Ponytopia, a magical place where friendship is a physical object and the sun is powered by wishes. But when Chartreuse Harmony is chosen as the newest member of [...]

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Everything Will Change

1 June 2011

To be a nerd or a geek is to be a constant victim of diminishing returns, drawing Vader-like on the dark energies of the Force to sustain one’s fandom – a little more each day, a little more each day, and a consistent parade of  ‘a little more’  adds up over time. To quote Father [...]

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The Incident

3 May 2011

Comics culture is very caught up right now with Superman renouncing his American citizenship in last week’s Action Comics #900.*  David Goyer’s story, “The Incident” is perhaps the most noteworthy addition to the anniversary issue, but it’s not because of the citizenship controversy; it’s because “The Incident” is maybe the worst and most out-of-character Superman [...]

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A Quick Thought on Dwayne McDuffie and the ‘Tribute’ Issue

17 March 2011

It seems distasteful to me that DC Comics is attempting to generate profit from the death of a creator who they consistently treated poorly while he was alive and working for them and whose legacy they at times seem actively interested in mishandling. The simple solution is to simply not buy the issue, and donate [...]

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Valentine’s Day

14 February 2011
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