Hollywood likes neat endings, largely because, I suspect, people, the ones who puts bums on seats in cinemas, are also rather enamoured of them. It makes sense that we are so enraptured – life is gloriously messy and full of frayed ends, and try as we might to tie everything Continue Reading
Comics
Are we actually making progress? Rock’s Modern Life: Static Cling asks the bizarrely big questions
SNAPSHOTAfter being in space for 25 years, Rocko and his friends return to a late-2010s era O-Town with modern amenities such as constantly updating touchscreen phones, radioactive energy drinks, food trucks and coffee shops on every corner. Rocko, who does not share Heffer and Filburt’s enthusiasm for the 21st century Continue Reading
Pretty Violent: “The intersection of stunning cartooning and insane brutality”
SNAPSHOTGamma Rae wants to be a superhero, and why shouldn’t she!? She’s been strong since she was a baby. The only problem is, all her siblings are notorious hero-murdering criminals! Join artist DEREK HUNTER (DuckTales, Adventure Time), and writer JASON YOUNG (I HATE FAIRYLAND) for this all-new ongoing, gore-filled, laugh-out-loud Continue Reading
MUTTS: Take a sneak peek at “The Art of Nothing”
There is a great deal that the legendary Charles Schulz got right about a great many things but perhaps one of his best calls was saying that the Mutts comic strip, launched by Patrick McDonnell on 5 September, 1994, is “one of the best comic strips of all time.” That’s Continue Reading
Comics review: The Dream Merchant
We all know nightmares are frightening places to be. Which is waking from them, even if it is with a scream and a momentarily debilitating loss of certainty about where and who we are, is always a sweet and blessed, reality-embracing relief. But if your nightmares are the same each Continue Reading
Comics review: Coda (TP issues 1 & 2)
There’s something gloriously enlivening and bracing about come across a story that is a breathlessly good take on something reasonably hackneyed and overdone; in this case, the apocalypse. No matter or what you slice it with – be it zombies, aliens, epidemics, sterility or any one of a thousand other Continue Reading
Mutants, job obsolence, and new phones: Rocko’s Modern Life – Static Cling
SNAPSHOTAfter being in space for around 20 years, Rocko and his friends attempt to conform to an even more modern life in O-Town, where coffee shops are on every corner, food trucks offer multi-layered tacos, touch-screen O-Phones are being upgraded on a near-constant basis, an instant-print kiosk has replaced Rocko’s Continue Reading
Sea of Stars: A tale of space dolphins and strange powers with a Miyazaki meets Neverending Story vibe
SNAPSHOTBeing a space trucker sounds like a cool job, but in reality, it can be boring as hell. So when recently widowed Gil gets a long-haul gig across the universe, he figures it’s safe enough to bring his young son Kadyn along for the ride—that is, until their “big rig” Continue Reading
Comics review: Check, Please! (Book #1: #Hockey) by Ngozi Ukazu
If you have even one romantic bone in your body, and I’m guessing there must be than one unless your heart is concrete and your soul solid granite, put aside any notions that you have looking at the cover of Check, Please! (Book #1: #Hockey) by the supremely-talented Ngozi Ukazu. Continue Reading
Comics review: Supers – A Little Star Past Cassiopeia by Frédéric Maupomé & Dawid
One of the greatest gifts that the creator of any comic book can give a reader is to present their creation as a fully-formed entity with a minimum of exposition. There’s nothing wrong with exposition per se, of course; the key thing is that it must be done well or Continue Reading