// Category Archive for: Comics

Afrodisiac, A Graphic Novel By Jim Rugg & Brian Maruca

By Danny R. Phillips

Graphic novels are a guilty pleasure to which I have only recently returned. I have always been an avid reader as well as a lover of art, but when I turned 35, I started to think my comic book years were behind me. Then I re-read Watchmen and V for Vendetta and remembered the comic greatness that I had let gather dust in the back of my memories.

Thanks to my returning jones for the graphic novel, I discovered Afrodisiac, a book based around a Shaft-meets-Superman character straight out of the blaxplotation genre of the 1970s. I mean, this cat would make Dolemite and Superfly look like Wayne Brady. With his stable of white “bitches” working the streets for him, his magic pimp cane, his Cadillac, and his tingling Spider Sense-like street smarts, he is both the protector of his city and its sweet, sweet daddy.
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Top Ten Of 2009: By Darick Robertson

Darick Robertson is a comic illustrator and writer, and co-creator of Transmetropolitan and The Boys. He has just written and drawn a one-shot Conan the Cimmerian story called “The Weight Of The Crown” for Dark Horse Comics.
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Best Of 2009—Cities: By Shannon Wheeler

Image from Smaddy

1. New York

The city gets better with every visit. Art, food, parks, architecture. . . the city is amazing. The subways are a wonder; that I can go out and drink beer until 4 a.m. and take a subway home insures this city the number one spot in my book. The best and brightest people gravitate to New York to test their merit and make their mark and my nightly excursions give me some of the best conversations I’ve had. And the more I visit the city the more people I befriend. It’s a plus to travel to places where you know people—it’s an event when you arrive and party while you’re there.
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Best Of 2009: By Drew of Toothpaste For Dinner

I’m Drew, writer and illustrator of the comics Toothpaste For Dinner and Married To The Sea. I live in Columbus, Ohio and stay inside most of the time. In February 2010, I’ll be releasing my rap album CRUDBUMP: NA$TYJAM$. You heard.
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Best Of 2009: By Danny R. Phillips

These are my favorite albums in no discernible order.
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From The Daily Cal To The New Yorker: Q&A With Shannon Wheeler of Too Much Coffee Man

Interviewed by Christian Lipski

I first encountered Shannon Wheeler’s work when we were undergraduates at UC Berkeley and he drew a strip called Tooth & Justice in the school paper, The Daily Californian. He’s best known now for the character Too Much Coffee Man, who became Wheeler’s voice for social commentary and satire.

The TMCM comic series earned an Eisner award in 1995. Wheeler’s current home, Portland Oregon, saw the premiere of the Too Much Coffee Man opera in 2006 (and its extended “refill” in 2008). Wheeler also created Postage Stamp Funnies for The Onion’s print edition, and is publishing his cartoons in The New Yorker.
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A Taste Of Terror: Graphic Novels And Horror Comics

By Laura Thomas

October has long been associated with horror movies, Halloween outings, scary music and more, but what about graphic novels? Horror comics are a popular genre of graphic novels that have been popular since the 1940s. They have managed to survive to this day, despite the Senate subcommittee hearings of the 1950s that saw the end of many other genres of comics. In the last ten years or so, horror comics have exploded in the market with one-off graphic novels and ongoing comic book series. So strong is their hold that many movies are being produced based on these graphic novels and comics, and they are often greeted with great success at the box office.
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Doin’ Alright With The Boys: Q&A With Comic Creator Darick Robertson

By Christian Lipski

Darick Robertson has been creating and illustrating comics since the age of 17, when he first published the cult favorite Space Beaver. Now an established force in the comics world, Robertson has collaborated with some of the medium’s finest writers and brought life to such larger-than-life characters as Wolverine, Nick Fury, and Spider Jerusalem. Currently he’s drawing the series The Boys, which he created with writer Garth Ennis (The Preacher, Hitman). The Boys takes a realistic (if sometimes slightly tongue-in-cheek) look at superheroes and how they would operate in our modern-day world.
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Escape With the Runaways

By Todd A. Brownlie

Stepping into a comic book series can be confusing and frustrating for most newcomers. Big name heroes, like the X-Men and Captain America, have been around for decades, with story arcs and characters so fleshed-out, it requires constant research into their past history. Maybe it’s the lack of dialogue or even a thin, uninspired plot in a series that will instantly cause you to set the issue down and just walk away.
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We’re All Watching The Watchmen

By Danny R. Phillips

Many times when a book is foolishly adapted for the big screen, the story becomes changed, warped, rearranged, and in the process, the fans of the original work leave the theater saying to themselves, “What was that?!?” Luckily, for director Zach Snyder, the film version of the so-called “greatest graphic novel of all time” is not one of those times.
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