Critiquing Comics #134: “Fallen Ones” and “The Five of Us”

Fallen Ones - The Five of UsA werewolf. A female assassin. A grieving father. Varga Balint Bank and Vadas Mate’s Fallen Ones weaves their stories together in a well-thought-out way.

The Five of Us: It All Starts Here, from Sean Conway, Bangkit Myarso, Arief Reza Erlangga, and Dreadink, gives us a group of young African-American men who happen onto Power Rangers-type powers. Yeah, but what’s the actual story here?

Tim and Mulele review.

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.

#229 Thoughts on thought balloons

In a recent interview, Steven King is quoted as saying that a Vertigo editor asked him not to use thought balloons in his work on American Vampire. An article in Comics Comics Mag brought this to our attention, and sparked discussion. Why do some editors now discourage, or even ban, thought balloons — even when the writer is Steven King? Are they perceived as being cheesy, and if so, why? Tim, Kumar, and Mulele discuss. Also: The Walking Dead, Billy Bat, and Gin-Tama!

#219 Asterios Polyp

Reviews of Asterios Polyp blanket the Internet; why need we pile on? Well, for starters, to counteract all the reviewers who think that giving a story synoposis = explaining what the book’s about. That approach falls far short with Polyp, so Tim and Kumar are here to explain what they feel David Mazzucchelli’s masterwork graphic novel is really about!

Stumptown annotations of Polyp