When you’re growing up, you don’t really have the insight or emotional maturity to fully understand why something matters to you or why you like it so much. But when you reacquaint yourself with a much-loved childhood book series like Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix, originally written by René Continue Reading
Comics
A slice of heaven: RIP Murray Ball, cartoonist extraordinaire
One of my fondest childhood memories is lying sprawled on the family room floor with comic books spread out before me, everything from British comics like Cheeky Weekly and Whoopee through to Peanuts, Tumbleweeds and Murray Ball’s Footrot Flats (1975-1994). It’s that last title that has particular resonance for Continue Reading
More comics reinvention: Looney Tunes meets DC Comics
Now that they have (mostly) successfully re-imagined a slew of Hanna-Barbera characters such as Scooby Doo, The Flintstones and Wacky Races, Warner Bros, through their DC Comics imprint, have decided to move on to the goofy cast of Looney Tunes. The idea, according to the press release (below) is Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: Apple’s T & Cs re-done in the style of famous cartoons and comic strips
Who actually reads Terms and Conditions (T & Cs) documents? Anyone? anyone? Bueller? Just as I thought – NO ONE. Yeah, yeah we totally should so we know if the vendor we’re signing up with is going to require our firstborn in the event of a missed bill or Continue Reading
Comics review: Future Quest (issues 1-4)
As previously reviewed modern comic book iterations of Scooby Doo, The Flintstones and Wacky Races have illustrated, reviving an old pop culture property, in the case of Future Quest, quite a number of them, comes with a unique set of challenges. Not insurmoutable challenges of course but fairly sizable Continue Reading
Book review: The Finding of Martha Lost by Caroline Wallace
Compelling though many protagonists are, and they need to be if you’re going to make it to the end of the average novel, it’s a rare thing indeed to fall headlong in love with a lead character to the extent that you do with the whimsical, trusting but ultimately Continue Reading
Comics review: Scooby Apocalypse (issues 1-3)
Something tells me that the newly-ruined earth in which the just-united Scooby gang emerge in this considerably darker take on the perennial Hanna-Barbera favourite is not going to be easily-righted by the end of one their franchise’s normally light-and-airy “And I would’ve gotten away with it too if it Continue Reading
Comics review: Wacky Raceland (issues 1 & 2)
The apocalypse is upon us once again, bringing it with a radically different take, not to mention three-headed mutants, on Hanna-Barbera’s classic late ’60s road race, Wacky Races. The somewhat still-playful title aside, this is a considerably darker take on the cartoon series which featured 11 cars, 23 characters Continue Reading
On 5th day of Christmas … I read The Peanuts Guide to Christmas
When I think of all the people (and one dog) I would like to spend Christmas with, Charles M. Schulz’s endearingly insightful band of characters from Peanuts comes fairly close to the top of the list. (Dear family and close friends, please rest assured you are at the top Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: The Peanuts gang channel their inner Indiana Jones characters
I have always thought there is nothing that the Peanuts gang cannot do. Flying Sopwith Camels in dog fights with the Red Baron, waiting all night in a pumpkin field for the Great Pumpkin to arrive, and god bless you Charlie Brown, chasing after The Little Red-Haired Girl, and Continue Reading