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Warhammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar #5 Review

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Mark Turetsky: Once again, we return to the place where it all started, for one final time amidst the carnage of endless battle. And I don’t just mean the winter storm that’s been pounding my neighborhood here in The South. Welcome back, Stu!

Stuart Wellington: That’s just what happens when you live on the ice world of Valhalla, Mark. Luckily your vox signal is pretty clear, and it seems like your cogitator is receiving enough power to get this review done.

*Issue spoilers follow!*

Previously On Marneus Calgar… [Read more…] about Warhammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar #5 Review

Uncanny X-Men Omnibus, Volume 4 Review!

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Uncanny X-Men #185, written by Chris Claremont, art by John Romita Jr., Dan Green, and Glynis Oliver, lettering by Tom Orzechowski

Claremont’s X-Men run is generally referred to as an indisputable comic book classic, one that ran for no less than seventeen years (more if you include his various returns to the books after departing in 1991). There’s no question that it is where the greater world began to take notice and fall in love with X-Men’s suddenly complex and tragic mutants, and the special mix of science fiction, horror, action, and soap opera that Claremont brought to the book continues to define the mood of the franchise all these many years later.

With many of the X-Men’s greatest hits in the bag (The Dark Phoenix Saga, Proteus, The Brood Saga, etc.), this is where we truly start to see the stories diverging and expanding into a more sprawling and convoluted X-Continuity. Soon, Claremont would no longer be the only X-Writer, and we would see more and more of the spin-offs and crossovers that sometimes diluted and sometimes advanced the franchise. Though The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 4 might read as more of a sporadic collection of B-plots than a saga, longtime readers and those newer readers that don’t mind being thrown into the deep end of the pool will be able to appreciate the character dynamics alongside many resolving and developing plot threads alike. [Read more…] about Uncanny X-Men Omnibus, Volume 4 Review!

Creannotators #36: Interview With Letterer Aditya Bidikar!

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This week on Creannotators, I talk with Aditya Bidikar about his work lettering everything from Blue in Green to The Department of Truth to Future State: Batman and beyond! We talk about what it’s like to letter all my favorite comics, the importance of lettering in a comics narrative flow, and how to balance a virtuoso approach to your creative output.

On Comic Book Herald’s ‘Creannotators’ I’ll be interviewing some of my favorite creators in comics about specific runs, graphic novels or series, looking for their insights on the inspirations behind the work and ideas or hidden material readers may have missed. Creannotators is an audio annotative guide to enjoying the intricacies and thinking in the art. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the comics!

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Some Careworn Hustler’s Tomorrow — 100 Bullets Omnibus Review!

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They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

— Carl Sandburg
“Chicago”

0. The Preface

100 Bullets Omnibus vol 1

Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso, et al

Collects: 100 Bullets #1-58, Vertigo: Winter’s Edge #3; 1376 pages total

$150.00

History loves its monsters. Our mad kings and queens; our despots and serial killers; tyrants, butchers, madmen, and thieves; these are the people who leave the most indelible marks on nations and people. Good men and well-behaved women, as the saying goes, don’t tend to make history in the same way. 

This is true everywhere you go. But nowhere more so than America, with our love of frontier outlaws, true crime podcasts, and gangsters. And nowhere in America is that more true than in Chicago.

We are Capone’s town. Blagojevich’s town. Big Bill Haywood’s town. Chicago is Rev. Billy Sunday playing center field in the “beer and whiskey” before cutting out on his contract to make more money as a temperance preacher. Chicago is its beating subway heart, a joint venture between a ruthless monopolist and the mob. It’s Richard M. Daily’s name in brass on every bridge (especially the ones he didn’t make).

It’s Brian Azzarello’s town. That’s why the story opens here… but it’s not the reason.

[Read more…] about Some Careworn Hustler’s Tomorrow — 100 Bullets Omnibus Review!