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The Golden Age Girls: Understanding Age and Identity: Insights from Comics
An examination of ageing in comics via Cliff Chiang’s Catwoman Lonely City, Jaime Hernandez Locas and Alison Bechdel’s The Secrets of Superhuman Strength. Ursula K. Le Guin was one of the greatest authors of the Twentieth Century. She was thoughtful, critical and often years ahead of her time. Her astonishing book The Left Hand of Darkness written in the 1970s imagined a society with no … Continue reading The Golden Age Girls: Understanding Age and Identity: Insights from Comics
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With a KMRIA – Poguetry in Comics
The music of The Pogues and comics. When people think of the Pogues and especially the band’s astonishingly gifted Bacchanalian frontman Shane MacGowan, they might think of drunken Irish jigs with a sprinkling of censored Christmas tinsel. But look beyond the greatest hits served up by the algorithm and you will find songs of astonishing beauty, poignancy and sometimes anger. I personally consider The Pogues … Continue reading With a KMRIA – Poguetry in Comics
You & Me Remembering
So Buttons 14 Nostalgia. A perfume that Alan Moore teased us with in Watchmen. A dangerous force that points us towards an unobtainable past that never existed. An essential part of being human that keeps love alive and people in our lives long after they are gone. The latest issue of Jonathan Baylis’ So Buttons is really a book of two parts. One part deals … Continue reading You & Me Remembering
Carpal Tunnels and Trolls
Underground Kingdom Comix Fantasy Matt Greaves, Samuel Hickson, Josh Hicks, Jonny Brokenbrow, Harry Dean Willmott, Matt Simmons and Ethan Llewellyn Having already covered the genres of crime and horror, the Underground Kingdom clan have turned their attention to Fantasy. The genre that has filled bookshops, charity shops and landfill sites ever since those Lord of the Rings movies came out and George R. R. Martin … Continue reading Carpal Tunnels and Trolls
Against the Tide
Drops Issue 2 Matthew Cooper and Connor Montgomery I covered the first issue of Drops a while back. Now writer Matthew Cooper and artist Connor Montgomery are continuing the story with a second issue. Dystopian doesn’t really begin to describe the type of society described in Drops. Not just a fascist police state, but also a satanic occult conspiracy. Dog headed torturers and goons in … Continue reading Against the Tide
Cyber Conquistadors and Cuisine
Anticucho & Other Peruvian Cyberpunk Stories Created by Gustaffo Vargas Colour Flats – Laura Dragon, English language adaptation – Fraser Campbell, Proof Readers – Tom Woolnough, Gab Contreras As I look out of the window the rain drizzles down on a grey Scottish Sunday in June. It feels like summer is a fiction, a concept that belongs to the past. Something stolen from us by … Continue reading Cyber Conquistadors and Cuisine
Dreaming and Drowning
In Our Dreams Awake Issue 2 I reviewed the first issue of In Our Dreams Awake back in 2022. The book tells the story of Jason Byron a man living in a mediaeval theocracy where technology both mundane and exotic is forbidden. But when he dreams, he seems to slip into a very different world. This realm is a post-apocalyptic flooded city and Jason is … Continue reading Dreaming and Drowning
Descend into the Dark
The United: Going Underground by Jonny Cannon Who doesn’t love a slightly-off alt-historical setting for a comic? Nostalgic but unsettling. The near future as someone from the 70s or maybe the 80s might have viewed it. If this sounds like the type of vibe that Alan Moore consistently went for in strips like Captain Britain and V for Vendetta, then you would be on the … Continue reading Descend into the Dark
Seven Times Seven
49 Days by Agnes Lee Published by Levine Querido Kit is on a journey and it is not an easy one. It begins with an unpassable cliff set beside a roaring tidal sea. Every time she tries to pass, the sea smashes her against the rocks. The only way to move forward is with patience, care and perfect timing. But it is too easy to … Continue reading Seven Times Seven
Collision Course
Gareth Hopkins has always gone his own way in comics – which has always made his books like Petrichor and Explosive Sweet Freezer Razors amongst the most interesting to read. Gareth has now come together with his daughter Martha to create a new publishing imprint, Absolute Collider. The press has published works featuring art by Gareth and Martha as well as writing from rapper Andrew … Continue reading Collision Course
Safety Dance
Safe From Harm by Joan Edam One of the first books I reviewed on this blog was Safe From Harm by Joan Edam. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Lockdown, war, pandemic, inflation, fire and flood. Comics have come and gone. But, lo! Joan Edam has completed and collected his book. If, like me, you are going to Thought … Continue reading Safety Dance
Daredevils and Warriors 