The Best Historical Graphic Novel Pages That Never Were.

The above page comes from Jim Harter’s ‘Transportation – A Pictorial Archive From Nineteenth-Century Sources’ (1984). It’s a collection of more than 500 largely anonymous and copyright-free illustrations from a variety of American and British publications of the period. I picked it up some weeks ago from a charity shop for the meagre sum of […]

I Have Slipped The Surly Bonds: A Modest Gallery Of Fine Comicbook Pages Featuring Military Airpower.

Sometimes a week’s comicbook reading doesn’t immediately suggest a common thread. But on consideration, the closest to a shared thread over the past seven days has been air power. Hence the examples in the modest but admiring gallery below; 1. from 1972’s The Incredible Hulk #148, by Archie Goodwin, Herb Trimpe, John Severin. and Aenie […]

Maximum Impact! Speedy, Impactful Storytelling In Gerry Finley-Day & Dave Gibbons’ Dan Dare, from 1978’s 2000 A.D. #50

It’s common to hear that the storytelling of a particular period in action/adventure comics is all of one piece. ‘I don’t like the comics of today’, goes the lament, ‘but I still like the way that they used to be’. A few qualifiers might be added to explain the more obvious differences – country of […]

‘The Thing That Makes Captain America Great’: On ‘Captain America Comics’ #1 (Part Two Of Two)

Continued and concluded from yesterday’s piece, which can be found here. 2. Worst of all, Robinson’s script displays a fatal misunderstanding of how Steve Rogers needs to be portrayed in the period prior to his transformation into Captain America. There are, after all, limits to how far a reinterpretation can go before it starts to […]

What Not To Do With Captain America’s Origin: On 2009’s ‘Captain America Comics’ #1. (Part One Of Two.)

James Robinson, Marcos Martin, Javier Rodriguez and Cory Petit’s What Makes The Man, from 2009’s Captain America Comics #1, is a fond and respectful tribute produced for the 70th anniversary of Marvel Comics’s precursor publisher, Timely. Fleshing out the period immediately prior to Steve Rogers’ transformation into Captain America, it strives to add to his […]

The Vikings Are Coming!: A Modest Gallery Of Comicbook Reimaginings Of Viking Age Culture.

Every week’s comics reading seems to bring its own unexpected theme. Recently, I’ve been repeatedly bumping into takes on Vikings in the stories I’ve been reading. None of them have lacked charm … 1. from 2012’s The Judas Coin by Walter Simonson with Lovern Kindzierski and John Workman. 2. from 1949’s Radio Fun Annual, creator/s […]

I’m Sorry That I Can’t Throw A Dinosaur For You: A Modest Gallery Of Comicbook Terrible Lizards

And so, to the first of what I imagine will be, over time, but the first of many galleries of comics pages featuring dinosaurs … 1. from 1978’s Devil Dinosaur, by Jack Kirby with Mike Royer and George Roussos. 2. from Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes, from 1995’s The Calvin & Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book, […]