X-Amount of Comics
20 September 2023
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For The Comics Journal a read of the suitably over-titled X-Amount of Comics: 1963 (WhenElse?!) Annual, Don Simpson’s aerated parody-roasting of
Stan Lee
20 June 2023
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For The Comics Journal an attempt to write sensibly about Stan Lee, which The Walt Disney Company of Burbank is framing as an official documentary
I Am The Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future
2 March 2023
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For The Comics Journal a read of I Am The Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future, which is 2000AD’s new non-fiction book of…well what exactly?
Comics of the year 2022
5 January 2023
Art
A reissue of Caza’s Kris Kool from 1970 was on my list of the year’s best comics for The Comics Journal. So was a big collection of Gerry Anderson
The Legend of Luther Arkwright
18 October 2022
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For The Comics Journal a read of The Legend of Luther Arkwright, only the third full length story Bryan Talbot has published in 46 years about the
Luda and Grant Morrison
9 September 2022
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For The Comics Journal a review of Grant Morrison’s novel Luda, about a Scottish pantomime dame tipped into a camp psychodrama and war with their
Acting Class and Nick Drnaso
18 August 2022
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For The Comics Journal a review of Nick Drnaso’s Acting Class. Praise for Drnaso’s last two books was so stratospheric it would have made some
Project MK-Ultra
8 April 2022
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For The Comics Journal a review of Project MK-Ultra: Sex, Drugs and the CIA Volume 1, a book on my radar ever since its creator Stewart K. Moore
Comics of the year 2021
3 January 2022
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Farewell, Brindavoine: early Jacques Tardi from 1972 but peering at it looking for unrefined skill is wasted effort. A fully formed cartoonist is at
Judging Dredd
18 August 2021
Art
At The Comics Journal a review of a new book of critical essays on the subject of Judge Dredd, which can’t really be tackled without a pop at the
Celestia, Zig Zag
22 July 2021
Art
For Tripwire a review of Manuele Fior’s Celestia, a major work by an artist with a few of those already on the shelf. Some of them contain bits of
Dr Divinus and S Craig Zahler
12 May 2021
Art
No point blaming Tarantino for everything (apart from Death Proof which is still criminal) but what is this if not a comic caught in the eternal
Monsters
4 May 2021
Art
Barry Windsor-Smith emerges from many years of silence with a style you recognise in a nanosecond and a book so intensely focused on the despair of
Film directors writing comics
27 March 2021
Films & Art
Madi: Once Upon a Time in the Future (2020) Duncan Jones with Alex De Campi and in this bit James Stokoe Noah (2011
Peter Milligan and Jamie Hewlett
17 March 2021
Art
in The Warhol Dimension Hewligan’s Haircut in 2000AD #703 (1990)
Revere, Mysterious Travelers
30 January 2021
Art
In 1991 Revere was good news if you wanted 2000AD to look over the Channel at slick painted European things like Métal Hurlant and less great if you
The Biologic Show
6 January 2021
Art
The reissue of The Biologic Show, reviewed for The Comics Journal. When I first saw this book in 1995 and then later emerged from under the bed the
Comics of the year 2020
20 December 2020
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Some comics of the year: What We Mean By Yesterday by Benjamin Marra, who called it “Degrassi High on mescaline” but whose sympathetic skewering of
Shintaro Kago
5 December 2020
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Family Portrait (2019)
Raqib Shaw
10 November 2020
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Last Rites of Artist’s Ego (2016). Been there
Judge Dredd America, Perramus
16 October 2020
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For Tripwire some words about the latest reissue of Judge Dredd: America, the thirty-year-old story that’s become its own cottage industry; the most
Crash Course, Mtsyry Octobriana
22 September 2020
Art
For The Comics Journal a review of Crash Course, a righteous and angry activist comic by Woodrow Phoenix which starts off being about bad driving
Candyman, Savage
18 September 2020
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Candyman (1992) Bernard Rose/Clive Barker Savage from 2000AD (2016) Pat Mills/Patrick Goddard
Grok by Will Sweeney
6 August 2020
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Will Sweeney’s latest self-published retrospective art book Grok, reviewed by me for The Comics Journal. There’s some anti-establishment aggro in
Portrait of a Drunk
7 July 2020
Art
The 18th-century lush who stumbles around plastered in Portrait of a Drunk inflicting misery and death on everyone he meets is named Guy, so readers
Tank Girl, Shaky Kane
26 May 2020
Art
Idly re-reading 30 years of Tank Girl comics during a dire pandemic and political meltdown is to watch writer Alan Martin tend his holy flame
Masters of British Comic Art, Jamie Hewlett
30 April 2020
Art
At The Comics Journal: a review of David Roach’s Masters of British Comic Art book, which takes up a fair portion of any coffee table it sits on.
Mitchum, So Long Silver Screen, LAAB
8 April 2020
art
For The Comics Journal a review of Mitchum, a new edition of the French anthology by Christian “Blutch” Hincker which arrives now pretty much like a
Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot
13 March 2020
Art
Bodies in motion with Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot
Assassin Child
6 March 2020
Art
For The Comics Journal a review of Assassin Child, the latest of Tatsunori Tawaraya’s comics to appear in English from Hollow Press, and another of
Fanzine culture
23 February 2020
Films & Art
Accidentally admitting you’re dubious about video-essay film criticism is a quick route into an argument, but let’s at least agree that the field is
Dan Brereton and Nocturnals
20 February 2020
Art
If horror comics have to chill the blood or be disqualified from the club, then Dan Brereton’s Nocturnals stories might not count. They do have
Stuart Davis
18 February 2020
Art
Robert Hughes, as close to a house deity as this blog has, stuck some 24-carat quotes from artist Stuart Davis into The Shock of the New and
Jacques Tardi and Adèle Blanc-Sec
12 February 2020
Art
For the Solrad site, an article about The Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, or at least those first four of Jacques Tardi’s stories that Fantagraphics
Tatsunori Tawaraya, Will Sweeney
22 January 2020
Art
Tetsunori Tawaraya Fuzzy Cat
7 November 2019
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Studying the scratchwork of Tetsunori Tawaraya
Erik Davis High Weirdness
12 September 2019
Art
Erik Davis wrote TechGnosis which should be read by all pop-culture critics before they process the nature of pop-culture or anything else. His new
Rebellion and the Treasury Of British Comics, TCJ
11 September 2019
Art
For The Comics Journal I wrote about Rebellion’s republishing of old British comics and the overlap with 2000AD, which follows up on things I’ve
Jack Kirby, George Bellows
28 August 2019
Art
John Wick 3 and John Wick minicomic
13 July 2019
Films & Art
John Wick 3: Obey the rules, swear your loyalty, pay for your transgressions, beg others for redemption, peace through suffering, mutilation as
Raqib Shaw
22 June 2019
Art
Godzilla In Hell
15 June 2019
Films & Art
Godzilla: King of the Monsters does that sequel thing where no one is ever outdoors, and the director has to treat characters in corridors as the
Brendan McCarthy, Counterfeit Girl
5 June 2019
Art
Dark Horse recently put out a chunky archive of comics drawn by Brendan McCarthy and written by Pete Milligan, which made a lot of current British
Octobriana Hammer
10 May 2019
Art
Octobriana rides again, again, in Octobriana: Hammer, John A Short and Andrew Richmond’s Kickstarter project which has the eternally
The Comics Journal, Breaking The Frames, Neon Visions
11 March 2019
Art & Films
The Comics Journal resurrected its print version in January, if not quite Back By Popular Demand then maybe a recognition that TCJ had a presence
Raqib Shaw
9 March 2019
Art
I lost a few hours last summer in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art staring at its exhibition of Raqib Shaw, since adjusting to the
Elliot S Maggin Last Son of Krypton
22 February 2019
Art
The Superman film came out in 1978 and birthed a bunch of future creatives all at once like Midwich Cuckoos—just a year after the similar population
Fran of the Floods, Caballistics Inc
16 February 2019
Art
The electricity went off forever. In Pat Mills’s book about his writing career he calls Alan Davidson, who wrote this panel and the rest of the 1976
Mort Cinder
4 February 2019
Art
Reprints show the roots of things you run into again elsewhere—it’s one thing to hear that Frank Miller and Jim Steranko were influenced by Guido
Total Jazz
1 December 2018
Art
The only meetings between cartooning and jazz that I used to see were the jokes in Jazz at Ronnie Scott’s, so the French strips by Blutch reprinted
Turbo Jones, Zombo
25 November 2018
Art
Not long after I sighed at the things Rebellion was doing with those vintage British comics properties it acquired by buying half of the old
Dan Brereton
18 November 2018
Art
I was late to Dan Brereton’s comics, thinking that his Nocturnals series two decades ago was a straightforward horror comic. In fact it was Charles
Goldtiger, Hope For The Future
31 October 2018
Art
A good pastiche should just keep going when you get to the end of the runway. Goldtiger arrives as a mock Swinging Sixties newspaper strip about
Jacques Tardi comics
23 October 2018
Art
The December-dated issue of Comic Scene magazine focuses on war comics and includes me praising Jacques Tardi’s It Was The War of the Trenches and
Paul Grist comics, Yellow Submarine
16 September 2018
Art
I’m in the current November-dated issue of Comic Scene magazine with a piece about Paul Grist’s comic Jack Staff, a strip which grabs British humour
Von Hoffman's Invasion, Xerxes
19 August 2018
Art
Rebellion didn’t say how much it spent buying up the output of the old IPC Youth Group and having half of the UK’s entire comics output for the
Octobriana comics
1 August 2018
Art
The August issue of Comic Scene UK magazine has an article by me about Octobriana, a cult character not so much out-of-copyright as
The Prisoner comic
25 July 2018
Art
The Prisoner landed on British TV in 1967, but I was oblivious until some mid-1970s repeats and an article in Comics Unlimited which made the show
Steve Ditko and Harlan Ellison
8 July 2018
Art
Steve Ditko died without ever changing his opinion about the immoral wickedness of anyone setting themselves up as an opinion-shaper, or about the
Guido Crepax, Valentina on the phone
15 April 2018
Art
A while ago I called the ten-volume project to bring all of Guido Crepax’ comics output into the English language a cultural intervention, and that
Batman Mask of the Phantasm
12 April 2018
Art
I’m going to be at the inaugural Portsmouth Comic Con on Saturday 5th May to chair a couple of panels. One of them will be about the art of Star
MACH 1, Judge Dredd Case Files
21 March 2018
Art
All three recent books about the birth of 2000AD point out that MACH 1 was a blatant attempt to make readers think of The Six Million Dollar Man,
Paul Grist, ABC Warriors
11 February 2018
Art
Tom Spurgeon asked for stand-out issues in favourite runs of serial comics, and inevitably most of mine were from old Marvels by Steve Englehart,
Dan Brereton, The Beatles Story
28 January 2018
Art
Dan Brereton’s new portfolio book In The Night Studio arrived just as Tom Spurgeon asked for suggestions of great cover artists and also just as I
Philip Jose Farmer
26 January 2018
Art
Philip José Farmer centenary
Brink, Grey Area, Shaky Kane Deadline
10 October 2017
Art
For Tripwire I read Brink Book One, Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard’s sci-fi crime story now collected from 2000AD, which dresses an old-fashioned 1980s
Nocturnals The Sinister Path
18 August 2017
Art
Kickstarter poses problematic questions about the making of art for both ends of the production line — it fudges the role of risk-taker and the
One-Eyed Jack, Leopard From Lime Street
16 June 2017
Art
Surfacing from the oceans of 1970s British comics as part of Rebellion’s current salvage operation comes police detective Jack McBane, curing New
The Last American
27 April 2017
Art
Each era’s flavour of imminent extinction is different, but the sour taste of 1980s nuclear anxiety comes back pretty quickly while reading The Last
Thrill Power Overload, We Told You So
30 January 2017
Art
No amount of arm-waving can link the appearance of 2000AD and the creation of Fantagraphics too directly, even though they appeared at almost the
Cadet Anderson, Scarlet Traces, Judge Dredd Case Files
7 January 2017
Art
Carlos Ezquerra’s art is essentially caricature, which made me lose my bearings when I first saw it, back while obsessed with the slanty panels and
The Mechanic, The Oliver Stone Experience, Dan Dare, Doctor Strange, Logan
4 November 2016
Films & Art
Even by the juggernaut logic of remake culture, picking Michael Winner’s very 1970s and Charles Bronson-shaped The Mechanic out of the hat for a
Encounters Short Film Festival 2016, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, 2000AD #2000
28 September 2016
Films & Art
For Sight & Sound, a preview of the live-action end of this year’s Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival. The knotty issue of whether films
The Daily Dreads Volume Two, The Mighty One,
28 August 2016
Art
Alan Grant and Cliff Robinson did a Judge Dredd story in 1990 with the characters turned into versions of the Carry On team, but it was such a
Doctor Strange foresees Twitter
12 August 2016
Art
1975: Doctor Strange meets early twitter adopter, detects trouble ahead
The Cursed Earth Uncensored, Ro-Busters, Judge Anderson Psi Files
21 July 2016
Art
Whether or not Judge Dredd kicking Colonel Sanders in the face and stabbing the Michelin Man with a scalpel was really the best part of 2000AD’s
Sexcastle
1 June 2016
Art
came out ages ago but I couldn’t face it while I was still raging over John Wick. The question of whether you can pastiche something which
Judge Dredd Case Files 27, Judge Dredd Titan, Bad Company
24 May 2016
Art
Rebellion’s commitment to reprinting the entirety of Judge Dredd in thick chronological slabs means the odd historical barb pops into view long
2000AD trade paperbacks round-up
1 January 2016
Art
For Tripwire: four quick reviews of new 2000AD trade paperbacks, one of which finds Pat Mills gripping the forces of conformity and oppression as
Jamie Hewlett tarot
1 January 2016
Art
Elliot S Maggin from Last Son of Krypton
6 April 2013
Art
“Let me give you a hypothetical case, Miss Lane. You, it is well known, have a sort of personal relationship with Superman. I take it he has
Roy Thomas predicts the future
7 March 2013
Art
Fortunately, despite the Superman movies and other projected films, superheroes aren’t likely to become a major part of movie fare, and that means
Stanley Kubrick vs Steve Ditko
17 December 2012
Art
Sam Smith poster for Eyes Wide Shut, 2012. Marie Severin art from Strange Tales 158, 1967
Paul Grist interview
19 September 2012
Art
(This interview with Paul Grist was originally destined for another venue and presented here as-is, house style and chronology intact.) The first
Robert Hughes
6 August 2012
Art
“Guernica was the last great history painting. It was also the last modern painting of major importance that took its subject from politics with the
Slaine The Horned God
6 July 2011
Art
2000AD and I were through by 1989, so I missed the moment when Pat Mills and Simon Bisley began Slaine: The Horned God and jointly shifted the orbit