SUPERHEROES, RELIGION, POLITICS: ANOTHER EXTRACT FROM “SHAMELESS? THE COMICS CAREER OF MARK MILLAR”.

Just as Millar remains staunchly supportive of his hometown, so too he’s always ready to challenge claims that his beloved mediums and genres are any way inferior and corrupting. As he underscored to Abraham Riesman in 2013 when responding to a playful suggestion that the very idea of the superhero is “fundamentally fucked up”: “Actually, […]

NOVEMBER 1986: THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN COMICS?

Nostalgia, and no little measure of it, seems to engulf comics readers of a certain age whenever the mid-80s come to mind. But was it really such a great time to be a fan of the medium, and if it was, when precisely in the period was the Golden Age? Is it true that the […]

A GALLERY OF 16 DEPICTIONS OF DAREDEVIL, THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR, FOR YOUR DELECTATION ON THIS TUESDAY 8TH NOVEMBER 2022

There’s nothing like the seeming demise of Twitter to underscore how I miss The Golden Age Of Blogging. So for several times a week at least, I think I’ll share some galleries of comics art scans that I’ve accumulated over the years. If the omens are right, I’d like to write a few things here […]

THE STARS ALIGNED PERFECTLY: ON THE BOYHOOD MAKING OF MARK MILLAR.

By contrast, there’s never been the slightest confusion about Millar’s date of birth: December 24th 1969. Arriving on the last Christmas Eve of the Sixties was, in Millar’s estimation, a monumental stroke of good fortune. Others sharing his birthdate might bemoan the closeness on each year’s calendar of Christmas, and with it, the possibility that […]

Tradition & Change: a section of a new introduction to “Shameless? The Comics Of Mark Millar”.

Having recently found myself writing, to my surprise, what appeared to be another introduction to “Shameless?”, I thought it might be helpful to get some perspective by posting part of this new section here on this blog. If you’ve stumbled upon this post, I hope that what follows makes some kind of sense and appears […]

Mark Millar’s Childhood TV Favourites: “SHAMELESS?: THE COMICS OF MARK MILLAR”

1. In order to break up the text of Shameless? and, periodically, to give readers a little breathing space, in addition to hopefully providing a measure of fun too, the book’s chapters are broken up by what I’ve called interludes, or short pieces on different aspects of Mark Millar’s tastes and experiences. It’s amazing how […]

“Like BILKO in colour!”: another chapter from “shameless? – the comics of mark millar”

“I only had a plan in comics to do the stuff I loved growing up“. Mark Millar, Cartoonist Kayfabe podcast, 17th May 2020 At first, the young Millar was a Marvel fan. On Twitter in 2020, he recalled Marvel UK’s “huge range” of weekly titles in 1976 and how it enthralled him. In that year, […]

“Coatbridge, Scotland, where super-heroes are just part of the landscape …” – AN extract from ‘Shameless?: The Comics Of Mark Millar’

Thank you for popping over to this blog. Below is another extract from my book about the comics career of Mark Millar. As work-in-progress, I place it here in an attempt to clear my head about a section I’m a touch concerned about. For ease of reading, I’ve removed the references & footnotes which will […]

“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 […]