FLASHBACK! Recently our podcast covered Charles Burns’ Black Hole for the second time. So what did the first time sound like? Here it is, featuring Tim and Brandon. In the style of the early episodes, we spend part of the show analyzing Burns’ book through the lens of Scott McCloud’s Making Comics, chapter three: The […]

Based on the series of novels by Dan Abnett, Eisenhorn: Xenos is a one-shot comic book from TPub meant to lead into the new Eisenhorn video game. Tim and Mulele grab their swords and gird for a critique.

Fantagraphics is a comics publisher that got by on a shoestring for decades, in service of its mission to prove that comics could be equally as literary and adult as film, novels, or any other storytelling medium. Eventually, Fantagraphics’ flagship publication, The Comics Journal, became the go-to magazine for reviews of noteworthy comics and hard-hitting […]

In Black Hole, Charles Burns examined coming of age, in a new and slightly creepy way. After losing their virginity, various teens are affected by something called The Bug. Does The Bug symbolize puberty, or something else? Kumar and Dana go back to take another look at this classic graphic novel.

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, with a result that many found unexpected and disturbing, Emmet and John discuss various comics that have commented on politics and on government gone bad, including V for Vendetta; X-men: God Loves, Man Kills; Ex Machina; Prez; Transmetropolitan; Nemesis the Warlock; American Flagg; Congressman John Lewis’ March; […]

He’s taken a bite out of the moon! He’s threatening to destroy earth! He’s… teaching junior high? What is the many-tentacled Koro Sensei up to? Why is he up for letting a bunch of 14-year-olds try to kill him? Tim and Kumar talk about Yuusei Matsui’s Assassination Classroom – incomprehensible sound effects and all!

Of course she’s been around for decades, but when it comes to how the character’s been presented, there’s always been a tension between her feminist qualities and the pinup-y ones. Is she here to empower women or excite men? Can it be both? This week Emmet and John are here to talk about the genesis […]

Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ brilliant Give Me Liberty features a surreal America in the near future that is falling apart. Their Martha Washington, a young black woman raised in a housing project, is a tough, resourceful, heartbreaking heroine who journeys through and ultimately survives this America. Koom and Kumar reflect upon the neglected classic […]

Somehow, Critiquing Comics is up to 100 episodes! Tim and Mulele mark this occasion by discussing a bunch of comics picked up at New York’s MoCCA Festival and Tokyo’s Kaigai Manga Festa. 0:55 The Black Feather Falls by Ellen Lindner 12:19 Story of Stories by Tetsuya Yamamoto 17:03 On Her Mountain by Marina Julia 22:20 […]

Part two of our roundup of creators who tabled at this year’s Kaiga Manga Festa, including talks with Graeme Mc Nee, Matthew Forsythe, Karl Kerschl, and our own Mulele! Creators show their work to editors at Comitia, the larger festival alongside Kaigai on October 23, 2016 1:42 Sanmagumo, a cooperative of Finnish and Japanese creators […]