Critiquing Comics #076: Blazing Quantum

Blazing QuantumRemember that time when…. No? You weren’t there? Or maybe you were there, but the memory just isn’t that special. It’s OK to draw on your memories for your story, but is it wise to simply make your memories be the story? Tim and Mulele discuss William Keops Ibanez’s Blazing Quantum. (More sample pages on Tumblr)

Critiquing Comics #075: Viking Sky Kings

Viking Sky KingsMichael Bangert’s Viking Sky Kings features a guy looking for work to support his wife and child. Each scene is a slice of life… but maybe a bit too thinly sliced. How do these slices fit each other? The site navigation of this Web comic is not helping matters… Tim and Mulele try to piece things together.

Critiquing Comics #074: Holy F*ck

Holy F*ckA ribald, drug-using, bi-sexual Jesus who hangs out with Satan and a gun-toting nun — together they’re out to save Earth from the apocalypse! If this sentence titillates rather than offends you, Tim and Mulele have good news — the execution is as good as the concept in Nick Marino and Daniel Arruda Massa’s “Holy F*ck“!

Critiquing Comics #073: The Non-Seen

The Non-SeenIn John W. Allie’s The Non-Seen Chapter 1, a little girl finds an old book at the Salvation Army store, written in a strange language. Eventually she figures out how to read it and meets an earless cat. Tim and Mulele’s ears detect an interesting story here, but it’s a bit hard to hear over the needless noise.

Critiquing Comics #072: Lifehacks

LifehacksLifehacks, by Ovi Demetrian Jr and Jen Hickman, is “a modern noir detective story about a hacker turned private investigator.” While the story idea and the art seem solid, Tim and Mulele have to put in some on-mic detective work to understand just where it is our main character works…

Critiquing Comics #070: Terra Kaiju

Terra KaijuCritiquing Comics returns! Tim and Mulele dust off their neglected pile of submissions and look at Terra Kaiju, by Joe Badon and P.B. DeBerry — a comic with Japanese (and Chinese?) ideas, run through a Western filter.

Critiquing Comics #069: Weird Crime Theater

wct_for_ccpYou’ve heard Weird Crime Theater, the comic by our own Mulele and Kumar, mentioned a million times on Deconstructing Comics, dating back to the early shows nearly a decade ago (when the comic was known as “Rack ’em Smack ’em”!). But that’s all been discussions of collaboration and business; what’s actually IN the comic?

In this episode, Tim and Dana (together on Skype for the first time!) attempt objectivity and do their best to give their friends’ comic an honest critique!

Buy Weird Crime Theater!

Critiquing Comics #068: “Bang Bang Lucita” and “Snake”

lucitasnakeNimProd.com has sent us the first issues of two Western books, “Bang Bang Lucita” and “Snake”. Both are fairly heavy on fan service for 21st-century straight guys, anachronisms be damned, with lots of skin showing on the shapely titular (pun intended) heroines. Both ladies are drawn with care, but what’s getting short shrift here? Tim and Mulele saddle up and go take a look-see.

Critiquing Comics #067: Headshrinker’s Press Presents

Headshrinker's Press PresentsTim and Mulele look at Headshrinker’s Press Presents #1, an anthology book with stories of various genres, stories to amaze and confound. Especially confound.