Critiquing Comics #057: “Sortafellas”

sortafellasSortafellas, a comic submitted to us by Ed M., is set on the mean streets of 1970s New York; a police “bag man” goes to “Junkie Central” to pick up bribe money for his superiors. Having seen only 10 pages, Mulele & Tim aren’t quite sure where it’s going, but would like to see more!

Critiquing Comics #050: “Shattered with Curve of Horn”

shatteredwithcurveWhat happened on that night eight years ago? An experimental drug was tried by four friends, leading to widely contrasting outcomes for each. That’s the premise of Shattered with Curve of Horn, by Max Miller Dowdle. Tim and Mulele critique.

Critiquing Comics #049: “Utopiates”

utopiatesA near-future scenario where contractor-employed soldiers are administered a certain drug before going into battle… Tim and Mulele take on Utopiates by Josh Finney and Kat Rocha. Will they get addicted, or have a bad trip?

REVIEW: Supergods – What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

By Grant Morrison

Spiegel & Grau 2011

Grant Morrison is a decisive subject in comics. Many love his work. Many love to hate his work. Many just don’t know what to think of him.

What Morrison delivers with Supergods is a unique text about comics. It is part history, part deconstructionist analysis, part personal memoir, part reflexive view of his own work. It is a varied and interesting book that provides some fascinating insight into his ideas about the superhero.

The book follows a basic chronological structure that is divided along 4 ages: Golden Age, Silver Age, Modern Age, and Renaissance (starting the late 1990s). He deconstructs covers of famous comics such as Action #1, Detective #27, and The Dark Knight Returns #1. Certain key characters and stories are reflected on. It is not really any unique ground that is tread as far as the history of comics is concerned, were it not for Morrison’s uncanny intellectualizing of the materials in a way that augments their historicism with a psychological attention reflection on the material. Continue reading REVIEW: Supergods – What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human