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, […]

Secret Bases & Supposedly Secure HQs: A Modest Gallery Of The Out-Of-Sight Places Where Comics Characters Retreat To.

And so, with the new week thoroughly underway, might I present a modest and hopefully beguiling gallery of just a few of the kind of places where comics characters go to live and work? 1. from 2007’s X-Factor: Life & Death Matters HB, by Peter David, Dennis Calero, Cory Petit, Jose Villarrubia et al. 2. […]

A Few Thoughts On Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, World’s Greatest Paranormal Investigator.

By chance, I discovered that the second Hellboy story to appear in print, and the first that I ever saw, is now going for truly eye-watering amounts of money. A four-page black and white mini-comic that came with 1993’s Comics Buyer’s Guide #1070, it’s a slight and overly wordy tale that, for all the glee […]

On Jack Kirby In The Seventies.

A two-part essay I wrote for The Comics MNT about Jack Kirby’s work in the 70s has just been brought out from behind the sites’ Patreon paywall. I wrote it during the well-celebrated hundreth anniversary of Kirby’s birth last year, when it was heartening to see the media, mainstream as well as niche, paying respectful and […]

A Favourite Panel From 1976’s The Invaders #9, by Thomas, Robbins, Springer et al.

When the ninth issue of The Invaders arrived in 1976, Frank Robbins was already one of superhero fandom’s least favourite artists. Or so it seemed, from the anecdotal evidence offered up by fanzines and conversations overheard in London’s Dark They Were And Golden Eyed. Along with the likes of Jack Kirby and Don Heck, Robbins […]

Not Giving A Soft White Damn: A Modest Gallery of Snowbound Comicbook Pages

As the British heatwave blazes on, the most common visual theme in my recent comics reading has been snow. Here are but the first five examples of a tendency that continued incongruously throughout this week. 1. from Dudley D. Watkins’ Desperate Dan, in 1939’s The Dandy Monster Comic. 2. from Crime’s Dumbest Wise Guy: Peter […]