“Advice From Galactus” – AN extract from ‘Shameless?: The Comics Of Mark Millar’

Comics, wrote Marvel editor Tom Brevoort in 2007, “tend to be a young man’s game”. It was true, he contended, for film and TV production, and comics were no different. And even more so than for artists, Brevoort added, it was writers that were most likely to fall foul of premature obsolescence. One day, they […]

“Shameless?”: New Found Lands

In this extract from “Shameless?: The Comics Career Of Mark Millar”, I’m sketching out Millar’s remarkable success as an independent comics creator and publisher. To do so, I’ve taken one of the early chapters of the book and jumped ahead to 2012, an absoluely key year in Millar’s career. The intention is to introduce a […]

Another Glimpse Of “Shameless?”

Chapter 2 It’s far too good a story not to be treated with suspicion. Asked to recall his first comic by Lee Randall of The Scotsman in 2009, Mark Millar declared that he could remember it “exactly”. (*1) Despite the passing decades, this life-transforming event would always remain eidetically vivid in his memory. Time and […]

On Pages 11 to 15 of 1973’s The Defenders #4: One Page, One Thought, More Or Less. (3/4)

Continued from here: Page 11: Even at my most shamefully contrarian, I’d struggle to argue that the scene of The Enchantress’ violating transformation of Barbara Norris into The Valkyrie is anything other than fabulously well-worked. If the preceding pages could be said to suffer from the over-simplified designs and the sparsely detailed artwork, the very […]

On The Defenders #4 Pages 6 to 10: One Page, One Thought, More Or Less (2/4)

continued from the post discussing the first five pages of Defenders #4 here And so to page 6, which reveals little that’s new and absolutely essential bar the Executioner’s identity and his somewhat amped-up power set. Yet if the plot is little advanced, it is a sequence that sees Englehart and Buscema reconciling Namor’s fiercely […]

One Page, One Thought, More Or Less: On 1973’s The Defenders #4 (1/4)

In which the blogger does something he’s always wanted to do, namely, working through a comic and offering one brief thought, mostly, for each of its pages. Page 1: The splash of The Defenders #4 is a prime example of how colour can inadvertently diminish the virtues of black and white art. By this, I […]

On “New Gods” #7: 10 Key Superhero Titles From 1971/2: What Else Was Around When The Defenders First Saw Print? (3/4)

By chance, as I was rereading New Gods #7 for this post, some stills from the upcoming director’s cut of 2017’s Justice League by Zack Synder were released. Several of them featured the new version of the film’s take on Darkseid and his court: All of which prompted me to post a brief Twitter thread,: […]

An introduction to ‘”Shameless”?: The Comics Career Of Mark Millar’.

INTRODUCTION “But no one is well served by history in the style of super-hero comics.” – Alex Ross, (*1) This isn’t a biography of Mark Millar, although it will inevitably seem to be one in places. To discuss thirty years and more of a writer’s career is to unavoidably appear to be sketching out their […]

On One Aspect Of Sal Buscema’s Storytelling in 1972’s The Defenders #3.

We rather take it for granted that Sal Buscema was a superb storyteller, but what exactly does that mean? Why was it that his art, even when little more than sparse layouts turned out by necessity at speed, was adored by many of the writers who collaborated with him? We share general points about the […]

At Last, The Sub-Mariner!: On 1972’s The Defender’s #2

On The Secret Of The Surfer from 1972’s The Defenders #2 by Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema, John Verpoorten, John Constanza, Roy Thomas et al. The Sub-Mariner had spent most of The Defender’s debut issue trapped and unconscious in a magically-created prison of water. Worse yet, it appeared that the Silver Surfer was part of the […]