Meanwhile, in “mainstream comics”…

 (image from Countdown #13, copyright DC Comics) 

Swamped

No updates for Thursday this week. I’ll try to make it up too all, uh, five of you who have been coming back everyday with a big update tomorrow.

Steve Gerber 1947-2008

One of my favorite comics writers passed away on Monday. Tom Spurgeon put together a wonderful obituary for anyone interested.
I was a fan of Howard the Duck long before I discovered comics, my childhood taste in movies being only slightly worse than it is now. The original comic series is stupefyingly subversive compared to […]

Yep, we’re boned.

Shiggy and the Gooch have encountered technical difficulties and will return tomorrow will be on hiatus until next week. I’m trying one of those “backlogs” I hear so much about. I didn’t plan this out so well, so mind the bumps over the next few weeks.

Tokyo manga street performer

I found this story via Kotaku, the clip below is of a man in Tokyo who is a manga street performer. Rikimaru Toho reads manga aloud to passerby in the same way musicians perform in subway stations in NYC (you can ever hear trains in the background). My reaction went from “hey, that’s cool” to […]

“The Unbearableness of Being a Webcomic”

Good day, and welcome to my humble art piece. I am Julian D. Shmidt, great recontextualizer of the arts. See, I can use the word “recontextualizer” because as such a great artist I can just make up words on the spot, and *poof*, they exist! Since they are still simpletons in this world who do […]

Dave Stevens 1955-2008

Best known for his gorgeous pin-up girls, The Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens has died after a long battle with Leukemia. Mark Evanier has an excellent obituary.
I was introduced to Stevens’ work through the 1991 Disney movie adaptation of The Rocketeer. Like Disney’s Dick Tracy film of the previous year, it was a fun popcorn flick with […]

Damn Marvel!

Ugh, I’m going to go lie down now…

Shonen Jump Heisei 20, Issue 21

I pick up a few Japanese manga magazines whenever I have the chance. I like to try to figure out the story using just the images and see what the future might bring to North America. So let’s take a spin around the April 21st Weekly Shonen Jump (with much help from the Weekly Jump […]

What!? Not another new release column?

Look on the bright side: most weeks there won’t be enough good new releases to bother with.

Osamu Tezuka’s Dororo is a supernatural adventure series about a boy who must recover 48 of his body parts from 48 devils. There’s a generous preview available online. Tezuka can make gore seem brutally charming. If anyone has played […]