Comic Book Herald

A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

Fletcher Bumphrey

About Fletcher Bumphrey

Fletcher Bumphrey is a writer from Saskatoon.

Saturday mornings, you can find his thoughts on Falling Leaves, and in between, he can be found on Twitter and Instagram.

Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Steve Phillips: Deluxe Edition Vol. 2 Review!

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Have you read Part One yet? Like Criminal, you don’t have to read anything earlier to enjoy what’s here. But, also like Criminal, you’ll be missing out if you don’t. All set? Because today we’re going over the second Criminal Deluxe Edition, with the continuing stories of Center City, and the people who live there.

Collected here, we have “Bad Night,” where we get to know Jake, an ex-counterfeiter and current cartoonist. In “The Sinners” we check in on Tracy Lawless who, against his wishes, has stuck around Center City. Finally, in “The Last of the Innocent” we meet Riley Richards, a character who is definitely and absolutely nothing like Archie Andrews, unhappily married to somebody that bears no resemblance whatsoever to Veronica Lodge. This second collection continues the quality that Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips showed in the first. Their first collection was notable for stylistic choices, and playing with the norms of the crime genre. Here they ratchet those choices up to eleven, managing to do so without any loss of story or effect.

[Read more…] about Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Steve Phillips: Deluxe Edition Vol. 2 Review!

Courtney Crumrin Review!

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Ted Naifeh’s Courtney Crumrin falls under the category of children’s stories that scare the hell out of me. I first read them in tiny black and white editions, camped out in the local library. They didn’t have all of them, but the ones they did have?

A creepy little town with an imposing great-uncle. A tongue in cheek tone, as a two-legged wolf thing introduces the story and characters. Goblin Town, magic, and fairy tales. Family and loneliness and love. I was immediately pulled in by the fairy tale aspects, and the sense of meaning and significance that all good legends carry. [Read more…] about Courtney Crumrin Review!

Who am I? Magic in Loki: Agent of Asgard

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When a story is about magic, it has to make a choice. Is magic answerable to supernatural rules, or scientific ones?

Any story is based around cause and effect. It’s based on choices and consequences. We feel cheated when characters don’t face consequences, when human nature and human lives contradict what our experience of the world is. In dealing with a stories’ magic, the same thing holds true. If the magic rules are scientific, that gives us clear cause and effect. You want to cast this spell? You’ll need this much energy, plus everything that goes in the cauldron. Boom. Everyone knows the rules. The audience never feels cheated.

But, if you’re dealing with magic that holds supernatural rules, it’s far more difficult to keep the audience’s suspension of disbelief. If magic works simply because it’s magic, then why can’t the hero snap their fingers, and solve every problem in one fell swoop? Which brings us to the question, how can we make magic consistent, when it doesn’t have any obvious rules?

Which brings us to Al Ewing and Lee Garbett’s Loki: Agent of Asgard. [Read more…] about Who am I? Magic in Loki: Agent of Asgard

Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips: Deluxe Edition Vol. 1 Review!

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What do you look for in a story? There are different aspects that speak to me. Tropes or characters or techniques that draw me in. Art’s a big one, of course. Comic images, comic panels, they’re little portals, simultaneously drawing you in and showing you the world the characters inhabit. Cleverness is something I look for. Sometimes a character’s clever, in their speech or actions. Sometimes the plot itself is clever, all the different pieces fitting together, feeding into one another.

But most of all, what I’m looking for are characters. People. People who are true to life, who have motivations, and desires, and needs. Who fear, who love, who have secret thoughts and feelings. People who I relate to, or, if I don’t relate to, who I recognize. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Criminal delivers on every one of these points. [Read more…] about Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips: Deluxe Edition Vol. 1 Review!

X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live Review!

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On my thirteenth birthday, I was given my first collection of X-Men comics. The characters were already legend. I’d spent the last few years being told stories, bits and pieces cobbled together from comics, and cartoons, and movies. When I started to read that collection, it did not disappoint. I fell in love with each character, the variety of personalities and backstories, all coming together to make a family. Each character showed a different philosophy, a different worldview, a different moral code, and they bounced off each other, creating a world that reflected the real one, creating a team that had depth and nuance.

Was it, at times, soap opera? Absolutely. But it was soap opera that worked, because each character had a beating heart. These X-Men are not those X-Men. [Read more…] about X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live Review!