The Fantastic Four have been waiting for a writer like Jonathan Hickman.
While various approaches have been taken in recent years to Marvel’s ‘first family’, often emphasising the ‘family’ angle while torn between retro, silver age callbacks to the Lee/Kirby originals and current comic book fashions, none of these variations have really stuck.
Most spent far too [...]

In another moment of scheduling genius, ‘The Loneliest Astronauts’ is the second web-strip offering a twist on the ‘mismatched roommates’ concept I’ve recommended in a fortnight.
Steve and Dan are survivors of a lost space exploration mission, stranded on an alien planet with, seemingly, plenty of supplies but no-one to talk to about each other. Which [...]

Bernie Hou’s entirely unofficial webcomic ‘Alien Loves Predator’ is the best use of the two monsters in many years.

‘King Tut’s Tomb’ collects three issues of ‘Batman: Confidential’, smartly re-inventing a villain from the 1960s ‘Batman’ TV show as a far more serious threat in a story well-served by the gorgeous pencils of José Luis García-López.

Written by the highly respected Jason Aaron and drawn by superstar artist Adam Kubert, ‘Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine’ is a fun, frothy stand-alone adventure for Marvel’s two most popular heroes.

It shouldn’t really be possible to make something as universal as stick figures your trademark, but I’ve been reading Randall Munroe’s ‘xkcd’ for so long that when I see someone else doing stick figures, I now automatically consider them to be pastiching ‘xkcd’.

If Grant Morrison’s introduction is to be believed, the comics chosen for DC’s ‘The Black Casebook’ – a collection of Batman issues from the 50s and 60s which influenced Morrison’s run – are generally unpopular among Batman fans, owing to their supernatural and sci-fi content.

‘First Wave’ features a curious mash-up of DC heroes (including a gun-toting Batman) and pulp characters (Doc Savage), as well as throwing in the Spirit for good measure. The first issue is passable, but not terribly exciting.

‘Turf’ may be written by Jonathan Ross, but it breaks new territory for celebrity written comics with a thoughtful approach to its vampires vs gangsters vs aliens high concept.

One of the big drawbacks of being an indie/small press comics fan is that you find yourself reading a lot of autobiographical stuff.
In itself, that’s not a problem – it’s pretty much par for the course. The problem arises when you read a lot of it en masse. You start to notice that quite a [...]

You’ve doubtless heard of ‘Penny Arcade’, and may well know the basics: videogame based webcomic by Jerry Holkins (writer, aka Tycho) and Mike Krahulik (artist, aka Gabe); undoubtedly the most successful webstrip in the short history of the medium; vast empire of spin-off projects including a game, a convention and a charity; creators currently riding high on the ‘Time’ most influential people list.

I lately dumped a pile of weak ‘Catwoman’ comics (everything post-Brubaker – and I was tempted to get shot of the ones with the terrible Paul Gulacy art, too) at the Notting Hill music/DVD/book/comic/clothing exchange. I love that place for two reasons: one, they promise to take anything off your hands, even if it’s just [...]

I really loved the Great Ten – a Chinese super-team with an outlook pointedly different from Western groupings like the JLA – from the moment they first appeared in the pages of ‘52′. Their mini-series has been anything but disappointing.

I’m not sure whether Kevin Church is the first person to treat writing webcomics as a career where you can work in a number of different genres with different talent at once, rather than grabbing an over-arching brand name for your gag strip, seizing the URL and then hammering any idea you have into your [...]

If you like comics, and want to use your iPod’s earphones as an innocuous way of frittering away the many, tedious hours of the working day, you could do a lot worse than investigate the archives of the Word Balloon podcast.

Writers Chris Sims and Chad Bowers create the kind of stories a sugared-up nine year old would come out with. A vampire skateboarding detective, a hero who is all the classic monsters at once… in the words of Frasier Crane, the Action Age comics ask ‘if less is more, how much more would more be?’
It’s [...]

Work. It’s everywhere, threatening to consume the lives of those innocents in its path.

Thankfully the Time Waster is here, waging a one man war against productivity, providing recommendations for ways of blowing whole hours on the internet.

‘Green Arrow’ crosses over with ‘Blackest Night’, in a competently written, beautifully drawn issue. There’s a lot of talent at work here, but is it put to good use in an issue full of sex, violence and hardcore… continuity?

Remember when you were a kid, and you thought that growing up would be great because you could buy all the candy that you wanted? And that you absolutely would, without fail, do exactly just that, because how can too much sweetness be bad for you? Then you grow up and you realize that you weren’t so keen on eating all of that candy after all?

Yeah. ‘Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds’ is like that.

Julio chats to writer Geoffrey Thorne about writing, the pitfalls of indie publishing and his new comic series ‘Prodigal’.

Two great spin-offs from (relatively) recent high-profile runs on the ‘X-Men’ franchise…

… Bolton Wanderers Nil.

Self-published comics are a long game…

A messy pulp.

Lipstick vigilantism.

Or ‘Thursday Comics’, for readers in the UK.

The write stuff?

There’s a Criminal practice that takes up most of our – damn, I’ve already done that one.

Fun with Dick and Damian… oh, and Azrael too.

“It’s the 90s, and it’s time for… horrible painted artwork!”

Just one more thing…

From being pencilled by Bob Kane to being made into a game by Rocksteady: a birthday look at Batman both in the beginning and in 2009.

Animal magic.

‘The Rainbow Orchid’ seemed, from the level of activity around the author’s table, to be one of the sleeper hits at this year’s British International Comics Show…

Architecture and mortality.

I love DC Comics…

With career-best art from Kevin O’Neill and a script that somehow evokes the atmosphere of a great twentieth century Marxist opera on a comic book page, ‘1910′ is nothing short of astonishing.

Angel delight.

Kirby your enthusiasm.

The status of ‘2000AD’ on Betelgeuse may justify Tharg’s bragging, but its sales figures here on Earth don’t.

‘Final Crisis’ is more like the Elgin marbles than it is like a traditional comic book…

It’s musical team rosters as ‘Dark Reign’ really gets underway in ‘Dark Avengers’ #1, ‘Thunderbolts’ #128 and ‘Mighty Avengers’ #21…

Jamie Smart’s ‘Space Raoul’ and the ‘Dan Dare & the Birth of Hi-tech Britain’ exhibition at the Science Museum, London.

Not about racist jam, thankfully.

A very Constantine Christmas.

God-like.

‘Secret Invasion’ is over, and ‘Dark Reign’ is here. (Really, really don’t read this if you haven’t read ‘Secret Invasion’ #8.)

Bruce Wayne RIP?

‘Haruhi’ is something of a cult series…

Now, this one is interesting.