16 Flaws Launched

So, the first two parts of this massive project I am undertaking is up for your enjoyment — I hope you’ll all support me and leave me loads of comments to let me know what you think. I have something like a hundred and sixty characters to introduce you to and each story will be [...]

Comicsphere: Red/Tokyo Storm Warning by Warren Ellis

This set of two works collected back-to-back presents two very different types of work which can be read in one sitting and work the palate to a nice effect.
They are both lean just because of the dictates of the format that they were originally produced in and the number of pages that allows the writer [...]

Comicsphere: Stray Bullets 1&2 by David Lapham

The exploration of violence in these two volumes takes many twists and turns. The first volume struck me as being more grounded but both of them have a resonant emotional core that connects with the reader on a very visceral level.
To say that something is filmic is over-used and perhaps misguided when it comes to [...]

Turn The Page: 6 Sick Hipsters by Rayo Casablanca

This was the perfect book for someone like me to read — damn, I got every reference in it. Is that something to be worried about? Well, it would be if I were one of the main characters in the book because that is what seemingly marks you out for death at the hands of [...]

Comicsphere: Batman - The Chalice

Re-imaginings and Batman go hand in hand it seems, as just glancing downwards through the pages of this blog might indicate. This isn’t so much a character overhaul more a significance overhaul by placing Batman within a long line of heroes — a lineage that, given that the titular chalice is the Holy Grail, I [...]

Comicsphere: Batman, Gotham By Gaslight

Brought to you by messrs. Brian Augustyn, Michael Mignola, P. Craig Russell, David Hornung.
In places where I have been hanging out in a virtual capacity there has been much discussion of the design of book covers and how this affects the sales but more importantly the perception of the work contained therein. It should be [...]

Comicsphere: Batman, Daredevil - King Of New York

With the Batman and Judge Dredd team up I complained about the fact that the story was somewhat flimsy and that the great artwork lacked a narrative backbone or drive (well, I intimated that anyway). I like the ideas of these crossovers, hence the number I have bought, but there aren’t many that have really [...]

Comicsphere: Batman, Judge Dredd - The Ultimate Riddle

After reading the first team up between Dredd and Batman it was almost inevitable that I was going to be around for the second one. This one definitely didn’t pack the same punch as Judgment In Gotham though. The premise is fairly simple and fairly similar — to place two iconic figures with different perspectives [...]

Comicsphere: Cages by Xander Bennett & Melanie Cook

What if you’d spent your whole life in a cage, never glimpsing the world outside?
What if everything you knew was darkness, fear and cold, clinical steel?
What if one day, an angel came to you with a message of hope – a message that you were about to be set free?
This is the story of CAGES, [...]

Comicsphere: Arkham Asylum By Grant Morrison

You always expect Morrison to bring a new spin to a character — to explore realms that others have left untouched, and as usual he delivers just that with a great deal of panache. Here the art by Dave McKean is the perfect vehicle for him to explore the darker recesses of Batman’s mind and [...]