What Happens When A Novelist Tries To Write A Comic?
Things I’ve written: a few novels, a few short stories, a column on this very website extolling the virtues of comics as a medium for speculative fiction. Now, for better [...]
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Words and Pictures
[Words and Pictures] Conan: Queen of the Black Coast
We’ve arrived at what’s going to be the last of these columns for a while, quite possibly for good. But we’ll get to the signing off bit at the end. First, a comic that [...]
Words and Pictures: An Interview with John Higgins
John Higgins was an important part of the process that turned younger me into a dedicated fan of comics. The truth is, though, that back then I probably didn’t really [...]
Words and Pictures: Knights of Sidonia and Attack on Titan
When I first started reading manga, I had a self-imposed rule (more of a guideline, I suppose): don’t start reading a series unless you’ve got a pretty good idea how many [...]
[Words and Pictures] Indestructible Hulk and Thor: God of Thunder
First a quick PSA: Commenters on the last W&P column harangued me into buying and watching the movie Dredd, so if anyone wants to know what I thought of it, I’ve [...]
Words and Pictures: Judge Dredd
In its mere fourteen or so years of existence, IDW has become one of the success stories in US comics, having already established itself as the 4th biggest publisher of [...]
Words and Pictures: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
As a paid up member of the geek squad, there are two animation studios that I naturally revere above all others: Pixar and Studio Ghibli. Studio Ghibli is, I don’t suppose [...]
Words and Pictures: Living Dead Special: “Revival” and “The New Deadwardians”
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 [...]
Words and Pictures: Daredevil, Then and Now
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 [...]
Words and Pictures: Prophet
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, [...]
Words and Pictures: B.P.R.D. Plague of Frogs
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 [...]
Words and Pictures: The Manhattan Projects
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 [...]
Words and Pictures: Saga
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 [...]
Words and Pictures: A Conversation with Paul Cornell
I talked about Demon Knights, the Paul Cornell-scripted series from DC, in this column not so long ago, and thought it’d be fun to follow that up with a chat with the man [...]
Words and Pictures: Horrific Geometries in Junji Ito’s “Uzumaki”
In 1954, Fredric Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent was published, and the US comics industry was never the same again. His angst over the corruption of young minds [...]
[WORDS AND PICTURES] Sampling DC’s New 52: Catwoman
As I said the other day, this was meant to part of a single post about a couple of comics from DC’s relaunched ‘New 52’ line, but I fumbled the well-intentioned ball of [...]
Sampling DC’s New 52: Demon Knights
Last year DC Comics – one of the two corporate behemoths dominating the monthly comics market in the US – cancelled all their superhero titles, some of which had unbroken [...]
This Product Is Specifically Designed To Be Addictive: The Walking Dead
Sooner or later, if you’re talking about comics with speculative fiction elements, the conversation’s going to get to The Walking Dead. This right here is that point. [...]
Words and Pictures: Enter the Superheroes, in Gotham Central and All-Star Superman
Superheroes are going to feature in this column quite a bit over the next few installments. Not exclusively, but pretty regularly. I could waffle on at length about the [...]
WORD AND PICTURES: “Finder” and its Footnotes
Finder is sf of a very distinctive kind that isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste. I’m not even certain it’s wholly, or always, to mine. But do I [...]
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