compendium

And then JH Williams III went ahead and won himself an Eisner. “This…this is awkward. I hadn’t expected you to be…to be so wonderful.” Promethea is one of my favourite series of all time. There’s really nothing else like it, blending together a veritable treatise on storytelling and imagination along with magick and the occult. They had been nominated during the 2000 Eisner Awards cycle, but it wasn’t until 2001 where they won Best Single Issue for Promethea #10 from Alan Moore, Williams, Mick Gray, Jeromy Cox, and Todd…

This might not be something you casually peruse while on the toilet What are you going to do while you wait for Starfield to release? Play the laundry list of games you already have?! Pah! How about something else to keep you occupied for the next couple of months? If you’re a stickler for a deep dive into upcoming games, one fan of the upcoming Bethesda RPG may have what you’re looking for. Over on Reddit, user Gokamo has been busy putting a document together that contains as much information on Starfield as possible.…

There are still a few months to wait until Starfield launches for PC and Xbox Series X and S, but one fan has found a way to pass that time by putting together a 1000 page document on the game’s history. Reddit user Gokamo shared their work to the Starfield subreddit where it has been received with awe and appreciation from fellow fans (via PC Gamer). A year ago, Gokamo got the idea to chronicle Starfield‘s development from the feeling they got when they were reading the Prima Games strategy guide for their father’s copy…

Shadowy government organizations. Covert, and sometimes not-so-covert, investigations of weird goings-on with the swankiest of gadgets. Mining the depths of the DC Universe. A personal reason to distrust and dislike superpowers and vigilantes. And a desire to get to the secrets at the heart of it. This was the world that served as a backdrop for the cases of Cameron Chase, an agent of the Department of Extranormal Affairs. It felt like a series that was well ahead of its time. “So, Bats, how’s the wife and kids?” Chase…

I usually try to pick something for the column that is still readily available. Even if it’s only available digitally. To make it relatively easy for folks to check out, if they’re so inclined. As near as I can tell, today’s pick is not in print in any form any more. It’s not collected, and it’s not available on Amazon/Comixology digitally, which is a shame because, not just for content, it holds an important place in Milestone’s history as its first mini-series. “You don’t get it, kiddo! This isn’t a game.” Deathwish is…

I was 11 in 1992. Can’t say I was much of a Superman reader. I had loved the Christopher Reeve movies, but it didn’t translate to the comics. I’d picked up a number of the comics during John Byrne’s run, read the Action Comics Weekly era, and had bought the occasional issue here and there, but he’d never captured my imagination the same way as Batman. Or even horror and supernatural comics. That changed one day when my dad brought home a copy of Superman: The Man of Steel #18. “Unbelievably…Doomsday is here!” The Death…

Outside of possibly Pride of Baghdad, I think the last of this month’s look at first issues penned by Brian K. Vaughan is my favourite of his works. It’s a series that heralded the zeitgeist of retro ’80s horror and sci-fi that dominated the latter half of the 2010s. And it really spoke to elements of my childhood in a fascinating and captivating way. This is Paper Girls. “We warned you…never eat from the Tree of Knowledge.” Paper Girls #1 by Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson, and Jared K. Fletcher introduces us to four…

What makes a great first issue? The answer to that question is, naturally, subjective. If it was one size fits all and easily quantifiable, every story would likely adhere to that formula and everything would be great. I know that kind of seems like a non-answer. Which is why I think it’s better to look at the question from the other side; what elements are present in specific first issues that are often considered great? To that end, I’ll be focusing on the works of Brian K. Vaughan and his collaborators. “All of the…

“Thing is, I can just picture him meeting some girl, and getting involved in some wild folly…” Paul Chadwick is one of the cornerstones of Dark Horse’s creator-owned comics. Hell, he can be considered part of the foundation since his Concrete appeared in the very first issue of Dark Horse Presents. Like Stan Sakai, I think his work definitely should be talked about much more often. Concrete as a series is a bit of a weird one. Despite the titular character having an artificial body, his mind being placed there by aliens,…

The story of Hunter Rose is one I find most fascinating. I don’t just mean the in universe story of the character, but the publishing history too. Grendel is one of the most unique storytelling exercises in comics, building on legacy and permutations. I mean, for the longest time there were even hardly any Hunter Rose stories, the bed rock of that legacy. The original Comico series was unfinished, leaving readers hanging after the third issue. When Matt Wagner returned with a second series, it focused on a new Grendel,…