We turn our attention to comics lettering this week, and longtime letterer Rus Wooton. Rus worked on a lot of Marvel books in the 2000s, and his work can currently be seen on numerous Image titles, including Black Science (left). Tim talks with Rus about what makes lettering good or bad, how to get lettering […]

A parkour manga from Greece is the topic. A parkour manga featuring a French high school student in suburban Tokyo, and a mysterious punk-ninja-parkour gang. What could go wrong? In fact, Tim and Mulele find, surprisingly little! R.U.N. by Kariofillis Chris Chatzopoulos, Rafail Voutsidis, Lagouvardos Manos, and Nikitas Efimidis

Critiquing Comics returns at last, with a look at Mike Dawson’s Angie Bongiolatti, a story of twentysomethings in New York just after 9/11. The book has been published by Secret Acres, and Tim and Mulele can see why: the art and scripting are well done. And yet…something about this book is not quite there.

FLASHBACK! From 1985 to 1995, Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes challenged newspaper readers with imaginative stories, beautiful art, philosophical discussions, and ROTFL gags. Watterson famously eschewed commercialism, not only in the strip, but in real life, approving no C&H tie-in products other than books of strips and a calendar or two. Tim and Kumar discuss […]

In the world of corporate comics, creators are challenged to put together a run on a given book that will stand out against everything that’s come before in that book, and leave a mark on the series that will last well beyond their run. Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run, from 2001 to 2004, met that […]

Perhaps one of the most puzzling comics releases in years was The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb. While it’s a virtuoso art performance, the exact purpose of the book was puzzling to Crumb fans (“It’s not a parody?!”) and religious readers (“This comic is not for kids?!”) alike. Both groups have been taken […]

Big sweaty muscles, huge breasts, decapitations, and general dark ages carnage. Sounds like another everyday barbarian comic. That is, until you find out about the feminism, Celtic folklore, unreliable narration, matriarchy, humor, and unpredictable art. Kumar and Dana hew and cleave their mighty battle axes through Pat Mills and Simon Bisley’s 2000 AD classic Slaine The Horned […]

In May, comics creator and educator Ben Towle wrote a post on his blog entitled “Let’s Stop Using Film Terminology to Talk About Comics,” in which he suggested that using terms like “camera angle” and “shot” to describe comics storytelling may prevent creators from innovating new storytelling ideas that couldn’t be done in film. The […]

This week, Tim talks with two women who are mixing Japanese and Western influences in their comics! First, Ana Moreno, former US Marine and writer of Marine Corps Yumi, drawn in a gag-manga style by Takeshi Nogami. A gag manga about joining the Marines?! (available in both English and Japanese) Then, Aussie Madeleine Rosca, creator […]

You may have been vaguely aware that a number of non-Japanese are drawing very manga-esque comics that are published in English only. They’re known as Original English Language (or “OEL”) manga, and many of them are published by Seven Seas Entertainment. Is this an area of comics worth exploring? This week, Kory and Tim randomly […]