Tag: comics

A review of Only the Dead by Wolfgang Carstens and Janne Karlsson

I would say that this book isn’t for the squeamish, or those who prefer to think about death as something that doesn’t really happen. I personally think it would make a superb birthday card – a day when everyone needs a little extra reminder that life is worth living “to the point of tears”. Maybe don’t give it to anyone under ten (though I knew a few canny nine year olds who would love it).

A review of The Silver Age of DC Comics by Paul Levitz

This Brobdingnagian book measures about 24cm by 33cm across and has 400 or so pages, pretty much all in colour.
At the very start there is an interview with the great Neal Adams, a comic book artist with a cinematic style who graced Batman with a sinister elegance (his Batman was modelled on Christopher Lee’s Dracula, if I remember aright), paving the way for Frank Miller’s later and even more radical reimagining of the Dark Knight.

A review of It Came! by Dan Boultwood

Dan Boultwood’s endearing homage to British science fiction films of the 1950s and ‘60s (perhaps above all to The Day of the Triffids) is a wonderfully entertaining read. Jokes aplenty lie on every page, many arising from the xenophobic, sexist attitudes of our hero, a smug scientist and period cad named Dr. Boy Brett.

A review of The Flash Gordon Serials, 1936-1940 A Heavily Illustrated Guide By Roy Kinnard

The Flash Gordon Serials, 1936-1940Flash Gordon rocketed onto the movie screen in 1936, in a serial of the same name which ran for 13 episodes. He appeared in two further movie serials – a now defunct format, killed off by television – in Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938) and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940), the latter title indicative perhaps of America’s new-found confidence as an emerging superpower.  Most of us who went to Saturday Matinees as a child, to a Rialto or a local Odeon, will have seen some of these episodes, along with (say) a Laurel and Hardy short, a Disney film or a George Formby feature. 

Flash Gordon: On the Planet Mongo: The Complete Flash Gordon Library, Volume 1 by Alex Raymond

The full-colour comic strips (this was way before comic books, never mind graphic novels) have been beautifully restored by Peter Maresca, and for those who were introduced to Flash Gordon by watching black and white serials on a Saturday morning in the local cinema (it was The Rialto in Salford and Bury Odeon for me), Alex Raymond’s artwork will come as a revelation as well as a return to childhood.

A review of Gandhi : A Manga Biography by Kazuki Ebine

The best part of the artwork in Gandhi: A Manga Biography is that Kazuki Ebine creates characters that are true to life rather than being the large eyed cutesy figures of many of the Manga tales. Kazuki Ebine shows many scenes of action and pain and suffering as well as determination and the will to continue.

A review of Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon: 1947

As an artist, Caniff uses square or rectangular panels, nothing fancy, about three or four to a row. The panels show a continuous change of perspective, to involve the viewer in Canyon’s world and create the impression that you inhabit the same space. There are wordless fight sequences and car chases; gorgeous, high-kicking, high-cheek-boned femme fatales; the use of montage and other cinematic effects.