After all is said and done, and let’s face it, all has been said and done, you wonder why Charlton did it. They took a cowboy and put him into space. Of course science fiction and westerns can never quite leave each other alone. Star Trek was sold to the network as Wagon Train in […]
Wendell Vaughn is your average Joe. He’s got the brains to make it into S.H.I.E.L.D. and get through training – in fact, he excels. There’s just one hitch: he lacks a “killer instinct.” His superiors don’t believe he can make the sometimes deadly decisions one has to make in the course of standard operations. He […]
The world has been struck by a natural disaster. The earth is left in ruins, and the human population is dwindling. Pockets of people survived in underground bunkers, and Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth (!) is one of them. Jack Kirby’s story explores a post-apocalyptic world that isn’t exactly like the others. Though Kamandi […]
Star Wars is everywhere. At least, that’s what it feels like now. It wasn’t always that way. A long time ago (in the late 70s) in a galaxy not so far away, fans of the game-changing science fiction story didn’t have much to turn to besides the movies. You couldn’t walk to the local video […]
“Your human world is strange. I think I’ll destroy it” Transport yourself to 1950s America. The military invasion of Korea failed to stall the rise of Communism, the fedora began its inevitable decline, and Russia beat the US into space. (In Soviet Russia, this joke is still lame) Basically, we needed a […]
Post-disaster stories are based on one of two things: either the world we know was overcome or it was never good enough in the first place. Lately we seem to prefer the latter, where we could have stopped the zombies or climate change or the new plague if we hadn’t been so lazy, corrupt, or […]
Hey! If you’re reading this, that means everyone is alive, and that whole Mayan calendar doomsday thing was hogwash! If not, well that means that I just spent my last day on Earth writing about cartoons to myself… But hey, that’s fine, I usually talk about cartoons to myself anyway, why should this be any […]
We stand upon the earth, the gods are above us, the demons are below us. That is pretty much as close as you can get to the common basic theology of humankind. Of course the gods are usually bright and the demons are usually dark, but not always. In comic books, the same rules apply, […]
Batman and Christmas! It’s like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a slice of pineapple in it! No, seriously, that specific combination is fantastically delicious. We’ve been taking a look back at Batman and his holiday-themed misadventures, starting things off with the BTAS episode “Christmas with the Joker.” Together we watched as Joker flew […]
One of my favorite things about watching sitcoms when I was younger was checking out the holiday episodes every year. It was entertaining to see how each show would divert from its regular programming to fit in Thanksgiving turkeys or Christmas trees. Sometimes it was fluid and fit in nicely – sitcoms have the advantage […]
When I mention Christmas, you automatically think of snow, candy canes, Die Hard, (as you should), eggnog, that jolly fat guy, and Batman, yes? Not Batman? Well, shame on you! Our hero has a lot more in common with the holiday spirit than you might think. Let us we revisit all the best Christmas-themed tales […]
Confession time: until this month I’d never read a Will Eisner comic. I know he’s incredibly influential in the medium. I understand that the Eisner Awards are a huge deal, and they wouldn’t be named after him if he wasn’t the same. Reading The Spirit has been on my list of things to read for […]
What if superheroes were real? It’s crossed most of our minds – comics readers or not. Our world may not have alien invaders, but it needs saving all the same. There’s plenty for superheroes to stand against and fight, but I don’t know if we’re ready to accept them. I’d like to think so, that […]
