Pól Rua
SPACE RAOUL! SPACE RAOUL! SPACE RAOUL!
- by Pól Rua
- in General
- 2 Comments
You may or may not have noticed that I’m actually supposed to be posting here. I’m kinda the Halley’s Comet of the CSBG crew. I turn up very rarely, there’s a brief flurry of excitement and then I vanish for an interminable period of time. Anyway, one of the reasons for this is that, well, [...]
Two Out Of Three Should Be Good
- by Pól Rua
- in General
- 5 Comments
I work in a comic shop, and I try and take at least a cursory look at everything. I admit, I’m pretty damn jaded with maybe 90% of comics these days. Of the other 10%, maybe 9/10ths is fun, entertaining stuff. It massages my brain in a pleasant way… so yeah, I’d definitely call it [...]
Review: Dare Comics’ ‘The Hunter’
It’s always nice to receive mail. Especially unexpected mail. And one of the perks is that sometimes, lovely people all over the world will send me things in the hopes that I’ll say something about them (hopefully nice) here. And so, we come to ‘The Hunter’. ‘The Hunter’ is a prestige-format comic from Dare Comics. [...]
Emo is dead, thanks to Marvel Comics.
- by Pól Rua
- in General
- 59 Comments
Marvel hasn’t had a lot of luck with trends. For decades now, they’ve given us a bunch of series based on ‘that kooky stuff the young’uns seem to like s’much’ with the result that they usually come in at least a year after the trend’s been relegated to the 5 for a dollar bargain bin. [...]
‘Lucha Libre’ is Good, or, Hoopla Gumbo
- by Pól Rua
- in General
- 3 Comments
I picked up the first issue of ‘Lucha Libre’, a new prestige format 4-part miniseries from Image. It’s not the greatest Luchador comic I’ve ever read – that honour goes to the magnificent ‘Sonambulo’ by Rafael Navarro (http://www.sonambulo.com/) – but it was good. Now, it’s no secret that I’m a big wrestling fan, and the [...]
This Comic Is Good: Brandon Graham’s ‘King City’
- by Pól Rua
- in Comic Reviews
- 6 Comments
It’s not going to be easy to be objective with this, because it’s really hitting on a lot of my major comics pleasure centres. It’s like Warren Ellis/Masumone Shirow-style technofetishism married to Paul Pope-style post-Cyberpunk romanticism, and Bryan Lee O’Malley-style absurdism with art by some sort of ungodly mutant artbaby spawn of Dan (Amazing Joy [...]
Analogy Munky strikes back, or ‘The Mainstream Superhero Comic as Slot Machine’
- by Pól Rua
- in General
- 15 Comments
A couple of weeks back, I did an interview with a local journalism student on the current state of superhero comics, with particular reference to the Death of Captain America. We got talking about the spate of crossovers recently, Civil War and Infinite Crisis, mainly, but I got to thinking about the way the current [...]
Analogy Munky talks crap, or, ‘The Superhero as Playground Equipment’
- by Pól Rua
- in General
- 57 Comments
A little while ago, I was waffling on (as is my wont) on the topic of the inherent ‘darkness’ of magical do-gooders who wear brightly coloured costumes and fight monsters, when my brane wandered down a previously unexplored pathway and came up with this. Many of you may have already read it, but here it [...]
This Comic Is Good – ‘The Mighty Skullboy Army’
‘Mighty Skullboy Army’ is a comic by Jacob Chabot (http://www.beetlebugcomics.com) which I first spotted in a Dark Horse anthology trade highlighting up-and-coming cartoonists. For ages, I mourned of ever seeing more. The art was crisp, the gags funny, and hell, I have a real weakness for monkeys and I’ll be damned if Unit 2 isn’t [...]
A Bad Mother(watch yo’ Mouth) of a Comic called ‘Stagger Lee’
- by Pól Rua
- in Comic Reviews
- 5 Comments
Those who pay attention to such things may have noticed that I don’t tend to write a lot here. Mostly because I’m trying not to wallow in cynicism and, to be perfectly honest, there really isn’t much in comics at the moment to really spark my interest. That said, I received a review copy of [...]
A Brief Question for Anyone Who’s Ever Heard ANYTHING About Norse Mythology
- by Pól Rua
- in General
- 23 Comments
Seriously. Why should ANYONE be surprised by Thor killing a Giant? If he had a business card, it’d be the second thing on it, right after ‘making it rain’.
Homogeneity is The Enemy, musings on Comics & Hollywood
- by Pól Rua
- in General
- 19 Comments
So anyway, I was thinking about Chow Yun Fat. He’s great, isn’t he? Cool as hell, and with charisma to burn… yet he doesn’t seem to be able to make it in Hollywood. Why is that? Some people put it down to him being Asian, and Asians are usually shoved into stereotypical ‘silly Chinaman’ roles… [...]
Walk, Don’t Run
- by Pól Rua
- in General
- 13 Comments
Besides being my personal favourite surf guitar classic, this sums up one of the things I think is making comics at the moment not so good.
