A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans
Dave, Charlotte and Zack gather for a surprise round of Marvel Trivia with comic book expert status on the line! Then, Zack shares first thoughts on Marvel’s Midnight Suns
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[Read more…] about 2000 Variant Cover B: Marvel Trivia, Midnight Sons, and My Mangaless Year!
It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?
Let us assume that Rorschach
Many of the conversations surrounding DC Comics’ follow-ups to Watchmen that are… critical of the works tend to frame the narrative of the follow ups as nothing more than shallow knock offs that didn’t need to exist. Indeed, even the best of these can be said to have been nothing more than a waste of the creator’s time. While the worst has destroyed any faith in comics ever being good. And Rorschach is good enough that claiming it’s exactly as good as Watchmen doesn’t feel like a cruel joke as it is the best of the direct follow ups to Watchmen DC has made by a country mile.
(There is another reason why I’m taking this approach with Rorschach. But that is perhaps best saved for subtext rather than text.)
By having a text that not only lives up to, but matches the original work, this narrative can be questioned. The implications of Watchmen as a text and its subsequent legacy can be engaged with on a level more akin to works like The Wicked + The Divine or From Hell. One as a work of fiction rather than as a metaphor for everything wrong with this wicked world of ours. As such, I can write a piece that won’t end with a horrific revelation about the nature of Watchmen’s Legacy.
[Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? Tom King & Jorge Fornes’ Rorschach
Welcome back to our multipart reread of Marvel’s big 2022 summer event, “A.X.E.: Judgment Day”; first, we looked at the leadup to this apocalyptic ruckus, and then we dove in with the first event issue and tie-ins, with a side piece on Exodus, star of the tie-in Immortal X-Men #5.
Credits:
A.X.E.: Judgment Day #2-3: Kieron Gillen writes; Valerio Schiti draws; Marte Gracia colors; covers by Mark Brooks.
A.X.E.: Judgment Day: Death to the Mutants #1-2: Gillen writes; Guiu Vilanova draws; Dijjo Lima (R.I.P.) colors issue #1, Alex Guimarães on #2; Travis Lanham letters; covers by Esad Ribic.
X-Men #13: Gerry Duggan writes; C.F. Villa draws; Matt Milla colors; Martin Coccolo cover.
Clayton Cowles letters all but Death to the Mutants.
I sit down to talk with Sofia Warren about her graphic novel Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator, one of Comic Book Herald’s favorite comics of 2022! We talk about Sofia’s embedded journalism, political activism, cartooning for the graphic novel vs. The New Yorker, and much more!
On Comic Book Herald’s interviews 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. The goal is a fun guide to enjoying the intricacies and thinking in the art. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the comics!
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Dave and Charlotte take on the X-Men crossovers Apocalypse: The Twelve
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