Atomic Robo

Since 1923, a nigh-unstoppable robot has been working, first with inventor Nikola Tesla, and then the fighting scientists of Tesladyne Labs, to protect the Earth from weird science menaces like giant monsters, ancient robots, vampires from another dimension, giant insects, gangsters in the Old West, ancient conspiracies, artificial intelligences, Nazi mad scientists, and dinosaur mad scientists. (Among others.) He’s been assisted, at various times, by spies, action scientists, masked crime fighters, and a squad of female fighter pilots in the South Pacific during WWII. Atomic Robo is one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite comics, told by the same writer and artist team since 2007. And it’s all available for free.

The Shadow

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”

I first encountered the Shadow, the pulp hero, in the pages of Comics Scene Magazine, I think. They had a new item about a movie in development, accompanied by a reproduction of one of the pulp covers. I couldn’t tell you which one. It doesn’t matter; it was the look of the Shadow that caught my imagination—that face with the intense eyes, the eyebrows and aquiline nose, both of which went on for miles, the rest of the face hidden by the broad-brimmed hat and the red scarf, the only color in an otherwise black costume—and I was hooked.

Marvels Snapshot: Sub-Mariner and 2000 AD Regened!

It’s been three weeks since my last post, and I feel like the entire world has changed during that time. As I write this, my wife and I are in our seventh day of self-quarantine. My work is closed until at least mid-April, although my wife is able to work from home. While sometimes it feels like there’s too much big, crazy stuff going on to talk about comics and stuff, I’ve been finding that I need to find whatever corners of normal and familiar that I can. For me, that means watching a TV show with my wife, playing with my kitties, walking on the treadmill, listening to audio dramas, and reading comics. So I thought I would talk about a couple of those comics this week, starting with Marvels Snapshot: Sub-Mariner, drawn by Jerry Ordway and written by one of my favorite writers, Alan Brennert.

Booster Gold

Last time around, I talked about how I’m not feeling particularly interested in reading contemporary superhero comic at the moment. My focus seems to be more on reading new creator-owned or creator-driven comics, rather than corporate-owned ones (with some exceptions; Star Wars, Doctor Who, Conan, and Immortal Hulk, I am looking at you). So, ironically, this week, I am going to talk about a character who has become one of the most mainstream of mainstream superhero characters. But he arguably wasn’t always that way, and that’s what I was reminded of when I recently read a collection of the first 12 issues of Booster Gold, written and drawn by his creator, Dan Jurgens. That, and how much I enjoyed these comics when they were first released.

Trekker: Battlefields, New Kickstarters to Back, and Comics

Last November, comics creator Ron Randall released Battlefields, the latest volume in his long-running series, Trekker, about future interplanetary bounty hunter Mercy St Clair. I have written many times on this blog about how much I enjoy this series (I have added a Trekker label to those posts, rather than put all the links here). This volume continues to demonstrate all the qualities that make this a great series, but while I do want to talk about this book, they also connect to some larger thoughts I’ve been having about comics in general.

2000 AD Bumper Year-End Prog for 2019!

Happy New Year! Between a Christmas visit from my wife’s family, followed immediately by a trip to visit my family, things have been pretty busy since my last post. Next post, in about two weeks, I hope to have more to say about looking forward to the New Year. This time around, things are going to be a little more brief. Mainly, I want to talk about the latest issue of 2000 AD, the annual bumper year-end issue.

Scary Godmother

Jill Thompson’s Scary Godmother series is something of a Halloween touchstone for us. I’ve been a fan of the graphic novels and comics since she first created the character in 1997. While we took a bit of a break from watching the TV specials every year, we’ve put them back into our Halloween viewing rotation. The stories of Scary Godmother and her friends occupy a pretty unique niche in terms of Halloween stories, and that’s why I love them.

Toys R Me

This week, I wanted to showcase some fun toys I’ve recently received. (Well, some not so recently.) So this will mainly be a short photo gallery while I recover from a frustrating couple of weeks, and prepare for another frustrating week coming up.

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Fiction

As someone who enjoys both Star Wars and the Disney Parks, I’m pretty excited about Galaxy’s Edge at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. However, we are currently on a Disney Parks break; we haven’t been to one since last fall, and we probably won’t go to one until next spring. That doesn’t mean I haven’t visited Galaxy’s Edge, even if it’s only in my imagination. Disney and Lucasfilm have published a number of stories set in Black Spire Outpost, on the planet Batuu, which is the setting for Galaxy’s Edge, and I’ve been enjoying them all.

Before I go any further, just a warning that there are spoilers after the jump.. And also, I would remind readers that this isn’t a review of these stories, because this blog doesn’t do reviews.

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, AZ

At the end of July, I took a quick trip to Tucson to attend the Botany 2019 conference. Well, to attend just a tiny bit of it: my dad was a prominent botanist, and my family is funding an award to help fund the work of graduate students in his name. That award was announced at the Botanical Society of America’s annual conference this year. My mother and brother weren’t able to attend, so I decided to head out there to represent the family.

I Decorated a Sushi Roll Cake!

Due to traveling out of town for a few days (which I will probably talk about in my next post), I have neither the time nor the energy to write about comics this week. Well, more like I lack the energy to pull together the images for any comics-related posts. Fortunately, this isn’t a comics blog, it’s a “things that make me happy” blog. And my wife and I had an experience recently that was a lot of fun that I want to tell you about: we took a cake decorating class at Freed’s Bakery, where we decorated a sushi roll cake.

Roy of the Rovers

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am not much of a sports person. I don’t play any, and I don’t really follow any. However, I am obviously a comics person, and a fan of British comics on top of that. Even so, it surprises me a lot that one of my current favorite comics is a series about soccer (or football, in the UK). But that is exactly the case with Roy of the Rovers, the recent revival of the classic British football comic.

Stumptown

I’ve been a fan of Greg Rucka’s writing since his first comic, Whiteout. He was a novelist before that, but I came to his novels after his comics. I loved them, too. He’s done a lot of work for DC, and some for Marvel, but what I love the best are his creator-owned comics. Right now, he’s got two series ongoing: Black Magick, a supernatural thriller about a cop who is also a witch, and Lazarus, a series set in the near future where a handful of ultra-rich families own and control the entire world, with the rest of the world entirely subservient to them. (My joke is that I like Lazarus just fine, but I prefer reading fiction.) Truth is, both those series are fantastic. But I think my favorite Greg Rucka comic may be his Portland-set private eye series Stumptown.

Newbury & Hobbes

As I write about some of my favorite things here, over and over again I find myself feeling as if they were created just for me. I guess I feel lucky that I can find so many comics, books, movies, TV shows, and more to enjoy and talk about, rather than complaining about not being able to find any. (Seeing complaints like that was the impetus for creating this blog, after all.) A favorite book series of mine is Newbury and Hobbes, by George Mann, which feels as if he went into my head, picked out some of my favorite things, and put them altogether into one steampunk-y stew. I don’t talk a lot about books here, because they're not very visual. However, since Titan Comics has just published the collection of Mann’s (hopefully first) Newbury and Hobbes comic book miniseries, so now I can finally showcase it.

Trekker:Darkstar Zephyr

Trekker is back! Ron Randall has launched a Kickstarter for the next book in his science fiction series about bounty hunter Mercy St Clair, so this seems like an opportune time to talk about the most recent volume, The Darkstar Zephyr. I’ve written about the previous stories here and here, so I’m going to focus less on the background and more on the current book. Also, I have a pretty cool personal connection to this one.

Doom Patrol on DC Universe

I have a new favorite TV show, and it’s the Doom Patrol. It streams on the DC Universe streaming service, which combines DC’s digital comics library, a large library of TV shows and movies based on their superheroes, and original series, both animated and live action, created specifically for the service. Doom Patrol follows the live action Titans and the animated Young Justice: Outsiders (a revived version of a show which originated on Cartoon Network), and while I’ve really enjoyed those other two, Doom Patrol is the one that has won my heart.

Batman 217

Several years ago, I set out to read the Bronze Age Batman comics (or at least Detective and Batman) straight through in publication order, and blog about my thoughts as I went. I didn’t get too far, and not long after, the external drive I had stored the electronic copies of those comics on pooped out on me. In recent months, DC Comics has been making most of those issues available on Comixology, so I’ve been thinking it’s time to start that read up again. Because I didn’t have much opportunity to write anything else this week, I’m going to start off by reposting those earlier posts. 

I started my Bronze Age Batman reread with Batman 217, written by Johnny Hazard creator Frank Robbins and drawn by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano. The Batcave Companion listed this issue first in their Bronze Age checklist, so that's my guide.

Graham Nolan's Monster Island

It’s been a few weeks since I announced that I was taking a stress-related break from this blog. I’ll give a bit of an update towards the end of this post where things are with that, but the bottom line is, I think I’m ready to come back on a regular basis. And the first book I would like to talk about is an old favorite: Monster Island, by Graham Nolan. Partly because it’s a great comic, and partly to bring attention to the Kickstarter currently running to fund the creation of the next volume.

Section Zero

There is no Section Zero.

That’s the tag line for the comic book series from writer/inker Karl Kesel and penciler Tom Grummett. The book tells the story of a team of United Nations operatives tasked with investigating the weird and unexplained. It’s kind of like the X-Files, if the X-Files had been created by Jack Kirby along the lines of Challengers of the Unknown and Fantastic Four. It’s a big, bold, beautiful comic full of intriguing characters, larger than life monsters, high adventure, drama, mystery, and humor. And, for too long, it felt like “There is no Section Zero” was sadly more than an apt tag line.

Trekker: Chapeltown

Earlier this year, I wrote about Ron Randall’s Trekker, a longtime favorite science fiction series telling the adventures of Mercy St Clair, a future bounty hunter, or trekker. At the time, Randall was raising funds on Kickstarter to self-publish—for the first time—the latest volume in the series, Chapeltown. That campaign was a rousing success, and the resulting publication is a fine one indeed. He is currently raising funds for the next volume. That campaign blew past its initial goal in less than a day, so its success is already a sure thing. But the more money he raises, the nicer the book will be. So I thought this would be a good time to talk about Chapeltown, to help shine some more light on the series.

Spoilers after the jump; this book has a bunch of pretty drastic changes to the status quo of the characters, and I don’t think I can discuss the book effectively while trying to tiptoe around those.