Title page of episode 1 of “The Private Eye”. Used with permission.
With the plethora of social media outlets combined with the ease of content creation brought on by mobile devices, faster networks and better cameras, it grows more difficult to keep one’s information private. Some people that I know (my college-age son included) have started a backlash by deleting their Facebook and other accounts, citing their distraction, invasion of privacy and questionable content as reasons not to invest time. And once your data and information is out there in the great wide Intrawebs that Al Gore invented, it is near impossible to retract it, or delete it. Thanks to Google et. al., it gets easier and easier for anyone to find it. The viral nature of the Internet can make anyone a celebrity, and the lack of privacy can make many wish they were not.
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Our zombie overlords have stuck around as an all-conquering pop culture meme a whole lot longer than I thought they would, to be honest. Although I’m not instinctively fascinated by the entire sub-genre, I do like certain iterations of zombie fiction. I’ve even kind of written some myself.
But I don’t read the head honcho of zombie comics, The Walking Dead, any more (all that suffering finally became too much for me, delicate little flower that I am). Fortunately, there are other takes on the risen dead out there in the world of comics, so I thought I’d take a look at a couple of them.
One, Revival, is the first volume of a new continuing series which is perhaps not strictly about zombies, but definitely about the living dead. The other, The New Deadwardians, is a self-contained story, complete in one volume, that’s certainly about zombies but also about vampires, thereby doubling its quotient of zeitgeisty pop culture icons.
They both demonstrate that a bit of imagination and lateral thinking can squeeze fresh and interesting blood even from a stone that’s been pretty much squeezed to death already .
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Any period of superhero comic addiction, such as I briefly enjoyed in my youth, leaves you with one or two favourite characters. It’s kind of the point: these characters are immortal, corporately-owned properties, their value to their owners largely measured by the persistence and financial implications of the attachment they instil in readers.
For me, there were plenty of favoured characters back in the day, but there was only one true favourite: Daredevil.
So here comes a look at three different takes on Daredevil: one from the 1980s, one from the 2000s and one from right now. I don’t let my nostalgic inner fanboy out to play in these columns very often, so just this once I thought I’d give him some air.
I could offer the further justification that it’s a simple little case study in the extended life of corporate superheroes, and the effect story-telling trends and gifted writers have on them. It kind of is, but honestly I’m just a bit of a DD groupie.
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A while back, I said 2012 was notable for two things in comicsworld: Image Comics and sf. (Advance publication schedules suggest 2013 will also be notable for two things, btw: Image Comics and sf.)
I also said Saga, flagship of the trend, was a certainty for a Hugo nomination and a potential winner. Still true. If Saga doesn’t get a graphic story Hugo nomination I’d be a bit uncertain about the point of the category, to be honest (but I’m sure it will, so no worries). If it doesn’t win … well, tastes vary and webcomics have a heavy advantage over print. But it’s certainly the most accomplished sf/fantasy comic, of the broadest appeal, I saw last year.
So Saga’s probably my favourite 2013 Hugo-eligible comic. But only by the narrowest of margins, because it was not the most unexpected, exhilarating, deep-genre Hugo-eligible comic I’ve read. That prize goes to yet another Image sf product: Prophet.
It too would be a worthy nominee or even winner of the Hugo. It won’t win, may well not get nominated (but there’s still time to get those nominations in!), because not enough people are reading it; it’s nevertheless remarkable, and feels more deeply rooted in the soil of the sf genre – prose, film, everything – than any comic I’ve read in a while.
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Legendary comic book illustrator/scribe Steve Ditko, most famously known as the co-creator of Spider-Man, is the subject of the Jonathan Ross documentary.
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When I started writing this column, I had a handful of comics I knew wanted to talk about. Stories that had affected me so much I wanted to tell the world about them. Elmer is one of those books I couldn’t forget.
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Over on the Kirkus Reviews Blog today, I have a post about the three-volume set of graphic novels based on Charlaine Harris’ Grave Sight.
Charlaine Harris is probably best known for her Sookie Stackhouse books, which serve as the foundation for HBO’s popular True Blood television show. But another fan favorite is the Harper Connelly series (four books) that follow title character Harper Connelly and her stepbrother, Tolliver Lang. Harper has the power to find the dead and see their last moments, revealing how they died. She uses that power to eek out a living by sharing the information with the living.
Click here to read more…
Generally speaking, the physicality of comics is quite a big deal to me. I don’t get the same satisfaction from reading this stuff digitally as I do from the paper and ink version. To be honest, if money was no object I’d be reading all my favourite series in hardback, since a hardback collection or graphic novel that’s had care and consideration lavished upon its production is one of (my) life’s minor delights.
Alas, money is an object, so my collection of hardbacks is strictly limited. The most satisfyingly chunky and heavy of all are the four volumes of B.P.R.D. Plague of Frogs. You could kill a decent-sized rat with one of these things. Possibly even a small dog. You can get the story in other more modest formats but I happened to get the first volume in hardback, and couldn’t bring myself to switch thereafter. (Hang-ups about format continuity = sign of slightly nerdy fanhood, I suspect).
Fortunately, I’ve not regretted that choice, since it’s been a very entertaining and interesting fictional journey.
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REVIEW SUMMARY: The first issue of Dark Horse Comics latest Star Wars offering, returning to the characters from the original film.
MY RATING: 
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Shortly after the battle at Yavin IV, both the rebellion and the empire struggle to recover from their losses and make headway in their campaigns. A rebel scouting party is ambushed, leading to the conclusion that something threatens the rebellion from within.
MY REVIEW:
PROS: An interesting glimpse at our heroes, and some great scenes communicating just what a galactic rebellion entails.
CONS: Uneven pacing, with a lot of soul-searching and catch-up information interrupting the narrative and sapping the story of momentum. By issue’s end the story has barely started. It fails to feel like a continuation of the movie.
BOTTOM LINE: An imperfect first issue showing hints of promise, but its too early to judge. Not quite up to the standards Dark Horse has maintained with the property.
Warning: spoilers ahead.
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The holidays are a time to be thankful, to remember what was good about the year, and to give to others. Personally, I am thankful that I get to read ground-breaking comic books and talk about them every week on a Hugo-award winning fan site. While fans of mainstream comics had several reasons to be disappointed with the decisions made by the DC and Marvel – Before Watchmen, the New 52, Marvel Now!, and the Batgirl firing/rehiring of Gail Simone are just a few of the controversial choices - 2012 was a great year for independent and small press comics. I looked back over my notes and put together a list of my favorite comics in case you missed something you’d love.
If you didn’t happen to find these great titles under the tree, you can always get them for yourself now (I won’t tell).
They’re listed in alphabetical order because all of these books are amazing, and it’d be difficult to rank them any other way. I’ve already reviewed a couple here at SF Signal (Click on the links to read my full reviews):
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Archaia Entertainment not only produces some of the most beautiful work in comics today, but they helpfully allow you to search their titles by genre (see the list here) so you can pick out a new book based on what you’re in the mood to read, even if you’ve never heard of the creators. Fantasy, Noir, SciFi/Adventure, Horror, and even Historical Fiction comics are neatly organized for your reading pleasure. That their catalog includes works from Jim Henson, Alethea Kontis, and a guy who wrote about a missing shoggoth tells me they’ve got a good sense of what genre fandom wants to read.
A prime example is volume one of Rust, by Royden Lepp.
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With DC’s relaunch of its entire line-up under the “New 52″ umbrella, several Batman-related titles were announced, no less than ten of them! We have the main Batman title, Nightwing, Batgirl, Batman and Robin, Detective Comics, Batman: The Dark Knight, Red Hood and The Outlaws, Batwing, Batwoman and Birds of Prey. That’s one heck of an overdose of everything Batman. Plus the fact that the first twelve issues of most of these titles came under the Court of Owls crossover event, and keeping track of the various appearances and stuff is pretty overwhelming. At least, that’s one of the reasons why I avoided reading anything other than Batman by Scott Snyder, Birds of Prey by Duane Swierczynski and Nightwing by Kyle Higgins until now.
Recently, it was as if there was more and more praise for writer Gail Simone, who is penning Batgirl at the moment. It made me curious. I’ve never had much of an interest in Batgirl, a character little seen in the movies and the various TV shows alike. Duane and Kyle have both featured her quite a bit in their ongoing series, with Batgirl being one of the core members of the current incarnation of the Birds of Prey, so I wondered how she would be written in her own solo series. And how it would all tie to the various crossovers that are ongoing for all Batman-related titles. As I said above, first we had the Court of Owls crossover, and now we have Death of the Family, in which Joker returns to Gotham with a vengeance and an axe to grind.
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REVIEW SUMMARY: Comic book in prose sends us inside the heads of heroes and villains fighting for the world and those they love.
MY RATING: 
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A mysterious threat to Arcadia forces the last superhero to choose between being a husband and saving the world.
MY REVIEW
PROS: Superhero adventure with heart, mystery, and immersive action that makes reading about these characters a moving experience.
CONS: The prose may take too many liberties in what the reader understands to be happening, and the mystery of The Blue may be too slow of a burn to hold some reader’s attention.
BOTTOM LINE: May require more concentration and patience than some readers will give, but if they do, they’ll be rewarded with a philosophical gem on heroes, sacrifice, and the meaning of life in a corrupt world.
I don’t read comic books and I’m not really a fan of superheroes. That said, I can appreciate a tremendous cover, and was intrigued by the premise of a world where all but one of the superheroes gave up their powers to save the world.
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Before I get into the specifics of The Manhattan Projects, a new series from writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Nick Pitarra, one passing observation: The Manhattan Projects exemplifies a couple of notable trends in comics in 2012 (the flagship for both of which is Saga, discussed last time around).
The first is the resurgence of its publisher, Image Comics, which has become the vehicle of choice for a pretty dramatic new wave of creator-owned comics from well-known writers and artists. The second is the dominance of speculative, and especially science, fiction as the genre of choice for those talented creators. 2012 has been, in part, the year of those two things in comicsworld: Image Comics and sf. If you’re not an habitual comics reader you won’t have noticed, of course; but the comics industry as a whole sure has.
Even if they’re both part of a bigger pattern, though, Saga and The Manhattan Projects are as different as different can be. If Saga was all about understated, relaxed mastery of the medium, The Manhattan Projects is crazy, dense, inventive, satirical, provocative, flashy and all about being uniquely itself. It’s really a whole lot easier to experience the thing than to describe it, but for my sins I’m here to attempt the latter.
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This past August, Digger by Ursula Vernon won the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story, beating out comics published by Vertigo and IDW, including such heavyweights of genre comics as Fables, Locke & Key, and The Unwritten. Before that, Digger had won the Web Cartoonists’ Choice Awards in the categories of Outstanding Black and White Art (2005, 2006) and Outstanding Anthropomorphic Comic (2006). It was also nominated for the 2006 Will Eisner Comics Industry Award for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition.
Now available as six trade paperbacks from Sofawolf Press, the series began first as a collection of illustrations, then as a webcomic through the Graphic Smash website, before Vernon started her own website to host the comic online. Digger has evolved, over the last several years, both in how the comic was presented to its readers and in Vernon’s drawing style.
But how does a comic that first became popular six years ago end up winning the Hugo in 2012?
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Marvel Comics is shaking things up with their new Marvel Now! Among the changes comes some huge stuff for the mutants of the X-books following the events of Avengers Vs. X-Men. Enter X-Men Legacy #1, kicking off the all-new ongoing series from acclaimed writer Simon Spurrier and Eisner Award Winning artist Tan Eng Huat!
Legion, the most powerful and unstable mutant in the world and son to Professor Charles Xavier, has killed gods and reshaped the face of the universe. Now, Legion will finally attempt to conquer his demons and establish his place among mutantkind!
Trailer is after the jump.
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Richard Sala is a prolific artist of the weird and fantastical, with a varied collection of tales that feature detectives, witches, zombies, fairy tales, cat women, and more. Beginning with his 1984 Night Drive, Sala has drawn a new comic title nearly every year. His work has appeared on RAW, BLAB!, and even serialized as an animated cartoon for Liquid Television. Today, I want to take a look at his series Delphine.
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Ethan Young, whose comic Tails I reviewed in my last column, is a Chinese-American artist born and raised in NYC. He’s worked on a wide array of illustration projects, including: comics books, storyboards, t-shirt designs, video games, character designs, print ads, book covers, album covers, logos, and much more. Thought there are similarities between himself and his cartoon namesake “Ethan” – who takes his work at an animal shelter, relationship troubles, and veganism from Young’s own background – the two are different enough that you can’t know the artist simply from reading his work.
Young was kind enough to sit down and answer a few of my questions via email…
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Before I even laid eyes on the first collected edition of Saga, by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples, I had it pegged as a certain nominee for and potential winner of the 2013 Best Graphic Story Hugo. The online comics commentariat had greeted the series rapturously. The internet was awash with folks calling it the best sf comic of 2012, and there were plenty calling it the best comic of any kind.
I already knew Brian K Vaughan has some remarkable technical gifts as a comics writer, and therefore pretty much believed the hype. I was prepared to be entirely blown away by Saga. When I did read it, though, I was not blown away. I liked it well enough, but was not struck dumb by its awesomeness.
Then I thought about it for a bit, I read it again, and – belatedly – I got it. Saga is very good, just not in quite the dramatic ways I was half-expecting. It’s not wildly innovative in technique or narrative; it’s not a revolutionary statement of new possibilities for comics. Rather, its goodness – perhaps even greatness – is of the comparatively quiet, unshowy sort, making the difficult and sophisticated look simple and effortless (and thus, perhaps, invisible). It’s all about the craft, this one.
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Even superheroes have 
