Recent Posts
Barbara Slate Week! – Archie Comics
Barbara Slate Week continues, which is a (work) week’s worth of spotlights on the work of Barbara Slate, an underappreciated comic book creator who I’ve long been a fan of.
Today we take a look at a variety of comics that Slate has worked on for Archie over the last twenty or so years…
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Say It With Manga – Assassins Edition
There are a lot of manga series about assassins. Kazuo Koike has penned several, in fact, including Sanctuary, Crying Freeman, and Lone Wolf and Cub, one of the more famous series. But there are many titles with assassins in them, a few that deal with killers of men, and a handful with an assassin character, who may be serious or a joke. Sometimes the assassins are somehow benevolent, sometimes they’re disturbed individuals, and sometimes they’re just professionals. But here are three series, all of them quite good, that deal with three different types of assassins.
Week of Cool Comic Book Moments – The Fall and Rise of Rikard the Brave
Every day this week will see me feature a brand-new Cool Comic Book Moment. For this week only, I’ll be specifically featuring cool moments that happened just this year. Here is an archive of all the past cool comic moments that I’ve featured so far.
Today we continue with the not-so-final fate of the heroic warrior Rikard in Helheim #1 by Cullen Bunn and Joelle Jones (note he isn’t actually called Rikard the Brave in the comic. I just felt weird simply saying “Rikard,” so I added the “the Brave”)…
Cover Theme Game for 5/15
Every week you’ll get a brand-new comic cover theme game! The game works like this: I’ll show you three covers. They all have something in common, whether it be a character, a trait all three characters share, a connection between all three characters, a locale, a creator, a trait all three creators share, SOMEthing. And it isn’t something obvious like “They all have prices!” “They all have logos!” “They all feature a man!” “They are all Avengers (who ISN’T?)!” “They’re all dead (who HASN’T been killed off?)!” “They’ve all been cloned (who HASN’T been cloned?)!” “They’re all mutants! (who ISN’T a mutant?)” “They’re all legacy heroes (who ISN’T a legacy hero nowadays?)!” etc.
In addition, please note that you must have some familiarity with comic book history to correctly guess these comics. You cannot guess the connective theme just by looking at the covers solely, you must have some knowledge beyond just the covers. The connections will ONLY have to do with connections in the actual comic books (so no incidental connections like “they share the same last names of Vice Presidents,” etc. Now, if the three characters were each named Gerald Ford, that’d be another story, as that’d no longer be incidental).
If you come up with an answer that works outside of what I intended, I’ll give you credit (well, provided I think it fits, of course).
One more thing – if there are floating heads on the cover, ignore them! They don’t mean anything! Same thing with corner boxes!
If you think you know the answer, e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com. Don’t answer in the comments. This way, people who check in at different times of the day can still get credit for answering it correctly!
Here is an archive of all the past cover theme games, plus their answers. Before each new installment, I’ll post the answers to the previous week’s game.
Good luck and enjoy! Continue Reading »
Barbara Slate Week! – Sweet XVI
Barbara Slate Week continues, which is a (work) week’s worth of spotlights on the work of Barbara Slate, an underappreciated comic book creator who I’ve long been a fan of.
Today we take a look at Slate’s 1991 mini-series Sweet XVI about a group of teens in ancient Rome…
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The Great Comic Book Cover Homage Streak: Week 34
It occurs to me that it seems like many comic book covers are homages. Which is fine with me. I have no problem with it. It just made me think, though, how long could I go before I hit a week where NO new comic book was released that had a cover that was an homage to something? Let’s find out! Here is an archive of all the cover homages featured in the streak so far!
Manga in Minutes: Atomcat
Atomcat
By Osamu Tezuka
DMP, 200 pp
Rating: All Ages
Created nearly 35 years after Astro Boy, Atomcat tells the tale of a lovable feline turned superhero after a horrible accident and a hilarious mix up! Gifted with the powers and abilities of Astro Boy, the adorable Atomcat protects his friend Tsugio from threats both big and small!
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Committed: Science Fiction Action Movie Music Guilt
Last weekend, a friend who works on music for television and film took me to a concert commemorating the 35th anniversary of a publisher of film scores. She warned me that it would be kind of industry-heavy evening for her, lots of people for her to talk to who I wouldn’t know, basically something like a comic book launch party but with a different kind of nerd (though as it turns out, music nerds aren’t that different from comic nerds, they just wear cocktail dresses and button down shirts instead of pink hair dye and Adventure Time T-shirts). The concert comprised of a massive orchestra (she did tell me that they weren’t quite a “full orchestra” but they looked huge to me) who played a wide range of scores, as well as guest starring some of the composers to play or conduct their music. Continue Reading »
Comic Book Easter Eggs – Easter Eggs from Grant Morrison’s Action Comics!
In this feature, I share with you three comic book “easter eggs.” An easter egg is a joke/visual gag/in-joke that a comic book creator (typically the artist) has hidden in the pages of the comic for readers to find (just like an easter egg). They range from the not-so-obscure to the really obscure. So come check ‘em all out and enjoy! Also, click here for an archive of all the easter eggs featured so far! If you want to suggest an easter egg for a future column, e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com (do not post your suggestion in the comments section!).
Today, based on suggestions from Travis Pelkie, we take a look at a collection of Easter Eggs from Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics!
Enjoy!
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Barbara Slate Week! – Yuppies From Hell
Barbara Slate Week continues, which is a (work) week’s worth of spotlights on the work of Barbara Slate, an underappreciated comic book creator who I’ve long been a fan of.
Today we take a look at Slate’s 1989 one-shot at Marvel Comics titled Yuppies From Hell…
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Week of Cool Comic Book Moments – Superman Doing the Impossible
Every day this week will see me feature a brand-new Cool Comic Book Moment. For this week only, I’ll be specifically featuring cool moments that happened so far this year. Here is an archive of all the past cool comic moments that I’ve featured so far.
Today we continue with how Superman finally defeats the villainous Vyndktvx in Grant Morrison, Rags Morales and Rick Bryant’s Action Comics #18…
Review time! with Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes
Or, to put it more bluntly: WHY I HATE MATT KINDT!!!!
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Barbara Slate Week! – Angel Love
Welcome to Barbara Slate Week, a (work) week’s worth of spotlights on the work of Barbara Slate, an underappreciated comic book creator who I’ve long been a fan of.
I’ll be going at this chronologically, so we begin with Slate’s acclaimed off kilter 1986-87 DC Comics series Angel Love, about a group of young people living in New York City during the 80′s.
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Week of Cool Comic Book Moments – Daredevil’s New Nemesis Comes With a Twist…
Every day this week will see me feature a brand-new Cool Comic Book Moment. For this week only, I’ll be specifically featuring cool moments that happened so far this year. Here is an archive of all the past cool comic moments that I’ve featured so far.
Today we look at the twist in Daredevil’s new nemesis in last month’s Daredevil #25 by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee…
Comic Book Six Degrees: Miss Fury to Deathcry
I name two comic book characters. You then have to connect the two using only shared appearances in comic books (official appearances in comics only – no cameos like Terry Austin sneaking Popeye into the background of a panel and no outside comic book appearances, like cartoons and the like). You have to do so using less than six comics total. Covers and pin-ups do not count – only actual appearances in the same comic book story (so it doesn’t count if they each appeared in separate stories inside the same anthology). Mythological characters, public domain characters (other than public domain comic book characters, they’re free game) and real people (by the way, unless a fake name is used for a real person, like Ronald Raygun or whatever, you can use the person even if they are not officially named in the comic) are unique to their own comic book appearances (so DC’s Thor is different than Marvel’s Thor, DC’s Ronald Reagan is different from Marvel’s Ronald Reagan, etc.). But a licensed character is the same in all of their various comic book companies (so the Marvel Red Sonja is the same as the Dynamite Red Sonja) and approved appearances by a real person can go across comic book companies, as well (so, for instance, you can use Marv Wolfman from his Teen Titans appearance to connect with Marv Wolfman in his Fantastic Four appearance). Approval tends to be the key (except for public figures, of course).
Every week, whoever connects the two characters in the least amount of turns gets to pick the next week’s match (in the event of a tie, the winner is chosen randomly). Last week was X-O Manowar to X-Wing Rogue Leader (Wedge Antilles). A few people got it in five moves. The original fellow who I randomly picked as the winner never got back to me with his challenge, though, so I had to go to a back-up. Eric Henry was one of the people who got it in five moves, and since Eric had a few suggestions that I never used (since he did not win that week), I just chose one his old suggestions. First, here is how Eric connected the two…
X-O Manowar was in “X-O Manowar/Iron Man: In Heavy Metal” with Baron Zemo
Baron Zemo was in “Thunderbolts Presents: Zemo: Born Better” #3 with Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” with Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones was in “Star Wars Tales” #19 with Chewbacca
Chewbacca was in “Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron” #28 with Wege Antilles
Eric’s challenge is…
Miss Fury to Deathcry
E-mail me your answers at bcronin@comicbookresources.com. Do NOT post your answers in the comments section!
Whoever connects the two characters in the least amount of comics gets to pick the connection for next time around (I’ll pick a random winner in the event of a tie)!
Remember, only authorized appearances in comic books count (for instance, all the Marvel characters in Savage Dragon/Destroyer Duck do not count)!
