(courtesy Image Comics) If you grew up in the ’80s or ’90s, you will know a thing or two, cinematically firsthand, about what it feels like for someone to narratively put the pedal to the metal and never once depress it. It’s a blockbuster pellmell ride into action excess and Continue Reading
Graphic novel
Graphic novel review: Trick Pony by Greg Lockard (writer), Anna David (artist) and Lucas Gattoni (letterer + designer)
(courtesy Dark Horse Comics) Making peace with your past is never easy. Oh, wellness gurus and not a few self improvement books will guarantee it’s a simply a matter of throwing away the past, embracing the present and voila! a shiny new future awaits you, shorn of trauma and loss Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Haru (Book 3) – Fall by Joe Latham
(courtesy Simon & Schuster) It’s easy to think that war and hatred, bigotry and violence are far more powerful than love and peace, joy and community. After all, the former are emphatically bombastic and loud; they look powerful, they appear menacing, bristling muscular energy of the worst, most destructive kind Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Haru (Book 2) – Summer by Joe Latham
(courtesy Simon & Schuster) Heroes are often portrayed as larger than life, towering giants capable of great things and possessed of qualities we mere mortals can only hope to dream of. But in the 21st century particularly, another sort of hero has emerged, one which has feet of clay, human Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Assorted Crisis Events Vol. 1 by Deniz Camp (writer) and Eric Zawadzki (artist)
(courtesy Image Comics) God bless humanity – for a complicated, contrary and multifaceted species, we sure do like to keep things simple. A clear example of our preference for everything being deliciously binary or linear is the way we view time which, depending on who you ask is multiversal in Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos by James Tynion IV and Tate Brombal (writers) and Isaac Goodhart (artist)
(courtesy Tiny Onion / Dark Horse Comics) This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026. Who are the real monsters? It’s question often asked in storylines where the obvious monsters turn out to be the good guys, or at least not the most reprehensibly Continue Reading
Conquering the TBR like a mountaineer: My top 25 books of 2025
(via Shutterstock) I can overstate how much reading means to me. It makes commutes feel fleeting and full of characters and events and excitement it would otherwise meaningfully lack. It fills my stressy moments with such a profound sense of escapist release. And it dials down my anxiety and sense Continue Reading
Festive graphic novel review: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
It has to be the famous story ever told about Christmas … apart from the obvious other one, of course, where the Son of God born in a manger kicks the whole idea of Christmas off. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall Continue Reading
On 1st day of Christmas … I decorated my tree with 10 new pop culture ornaments incl. Elio, Up, The Muppet Christmas Carol … and more!
(via Shutterstock) When I bought my first Christmas tree as an adult way back in 1992, I bought some pop culture ornaments but I mostly stuck to the sorts of ornaments and baubles I remembered from childhood. But as time went on, I increasingly bought more and more pop culture Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Stitch Head by Guy Bass (writer) and Pete Williamson (artwork)
(courtesy Larrikin Press) It’s a recurring theme in all kinds of creative expression – just who are the monsters really and might they be lurking where you least suspect? The answer, to the second question at least, is an emphatic “YES!!”, owing to the fact that humanity, despite millennia of Continue Reading