tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33665342024-03-13T11:18:15.563-07:00Pop Culture GadaboutPop cultural criticism - plus the occasional egocentric socio/political commentary by Bill Sherman (popculturegadabout AT yahoo.com).Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3871125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-54854942265782254692014-12-07T21:28:00.000-07:002014-12-07T21:29:56.406-07:00“SIXTY SECONDS BEFORE THE BABY SHOT ITS FATHER. . . ”
“SIXTY SECONDS BEFORE THE BABY SHOT ITS FATHER. . . ”
The last novel to be published by writer and filmmaker Samuel Fuller, Brainquake (Hard Case Crime) first saw print in France where the maverick movie man was living at the time. Twenty-plus years later, the book is receiving its first English language edition, and it’s about damn time. The noir-y novel is as aggressively creative as Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-88560611377555423782014-11-26T07:46:00.000-07:002014-12-07T21:33:26.284-07:00”SPINE-SNAPPING TALES FROM BEYOND.”
”SPINE-SNAPPING TALES FROM BEYOND.” Back when this writer was a blood-thirsty teen, my main source for grand guignol comics were the Warren magazines (Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella) published in the mid-sixties. Inspired by the great EC horror comics of the early fifties – comics I’d been too young to read at the time – the Warren titles were beautifully illustrated black-and-white mags featuring Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-53708431194326709652014-11-26T07:42:00.002-07:002014-11-26T07:42:59.074-07:00BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN
BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN Okay, I'm back. We’ve moved to a new home that is actually nicer than the one we were renting – in an Arizona designated ghost town named Geronimo – and things have finally gotten settled enough that I’m able to find time and focus to write once more. Reviews to follow.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-87638718344051840902014-09-24T13:52:00.002-07:002014-09-24T13:56:11.822-07:00OUR CRAPPY SUMMER
OUR CRAPPY SUMMER: [For those who might have been wondering about why there's been so little activity here, the following may shed some light on things.]
My name is Bill and I'm an overspender. I don't like the phrase “compulsive overspender” (a term that is frequently used in the 12-step Debtors Anonymous program), rather I see myself as a “situational” one. I don't typically buy things Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-19292909653352423812014-08-03T16:30:00.002-07:002014-08-03T16:33:00.864-07:00“BUT SINCERITY ISN’T ALWAYS ENOUGH.”
“BUT SINCERITY ISN’T ALWAYS ENOUGH.” A graphic non-fiction, Etienne Davodeau’s The Initiates: A Comic Artist and a Wine Artisan Exchange Jobs (NBM/Comics Lit) recounts the awakenings of French artist Davodeau and wine-maker Richard Leroy as they spend more than a year getting to know each other’s creative worlds. For Davodeau, this means going to work in Leroy’s vineyards in Montbenault; for Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-10961913412222336462014-07-18T22:07:00.001-07:002014-07-18T22:07:40.633-07:00“A GAMBLER DOESN’T LOOK BACK.”
“A GAMBLER DOESN’T LOOK BACK.” With the U.S. southern border so much in the news these days, Hard Case Crime’s reissue of Lawrence Block’s 1962 pulp novel Borderline would definitely seem to be riding the zeitgeist. Set in the early sixties, the book follows a quartet of aimless Americans as they cross the line ‘tween El Paso and Juarez, moving across the border for “excitement,” which they getUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-90287940162016287562014-07-15T05:55:00.001-07:002014-07-15T05:57:07.668-07:00“AND NEVER BE AFRAID TO BE A SILLYPANTS!”
“AND NEVER BE AFRAID TO BE A SILLYPANTS!” Back when I was a smart-ass lad, the prime source for gag cartoons and non-series strips were the back pages of print magazines and in cheap paperback collections. I owned a box full of these paperbacks as a kid: collections by such magazine stalwarts as Virgil Partch (a.k.a. VIP), and I returned to them as often as I did to pb repackagings of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-10833533181781629172014-06-24T22:16:00.001-07:002014-06-24T22:17:13.374-07:00”AT LEAST I GOT TO KILL GENGE’S ASS AGAIN!”
”AT LEAST I GOT TO KILL GENGE’S ASS AGAIN!” An inventively violent sci-fi war comic, Stuart Jennett’s Chronos Commandos (Titan Books) posits an alternate Earth WWII where the Nazis and Allies have both developed time traveling technology – and battle for control of it in the dino-populated Cretaceous Period.
Collecting the first five issues of his Titan Comics run, Chronos Commandos: Dawn Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-6927518828273013692014-06-03T22:32:00.000-07:002014-06-03T22:33:10.923-07:00”DON’T COME BETWEEN THE DRAGON AND HIS WRATH.”
”DON’T COME BETWEEN THE DRAGON AND HIS WRATH.” Subtitled “An Alaskan Crime Drama,” Eric Hobbs and Noel Yuazon’s Family Ties (NBM/Comics Lit) is a striking graphic novel modernization of Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” The idea of dressing up the Bard of Avon in modern garb is nothing new, of course, though it typically isn’t done to “Lear,” which is generally considered one of Shakespeare’s most Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-73417575757888978992014-05-26T22:10:00.000-07:002014-05-26T22:12:12.374-07:00“THIS IS A YOE-MANCE PUBLICATION.”
“THIS IS A YOE-MANCE PUBLICATION.” Few comics re-packagers have remained as steadfastly committed to the idea of comics as disreputable art as Craig Yoe. From his collections of genre horror comics (“The Chilling Archives of Horror”) to his reprints of left field work like Steve Ditko’s Gorgo comics, Yoe’s collections trample all over the dividing line between camp and gonzo creativity. Of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-84369338319915580132014-05-26T21:50:00.000-07:002014-05-26T21:51:07.604-07:00”THE STRANGEST STORIES EVER TOLD!”
”THE STRANGEST STORIES EVER TOLD!” The latest entry in Titan Books’ “Simon & Kirby Library,” Horror! provides a hefty and handsomely reproduced selection of period horror comics work by this prolific and inventive pair of graphic storyteller pioneers. Produced in the late forties/early fifties for titles with evocative names like Black Magic and The Strange World of Your Dreams, this materialUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-38234748183420628572014-05-26T21:43:00.003-07:002014-07-09T22:16:07.929-07:00”ANIMALS HALF-WROUGHT INTO THE OUTWARD IMAGE OF HUMAN SOULS.””ANIMALS HALF-WROUGHT INTO THE OUTWARD IMAGE OF HUMAN SOULS.” Tom Pomplun’s series of classic comics anthologies, Graphic Classics has long followed its unique publishing schedule: alternating new collections with revisited editions of previous books. Eureka Production’s last set of brand fresh material was 2013’s Native American Classics. More recently, the line has issued its second Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-80404452397265627252014-05-26T19:38:00.001-07:002014-05-26T19:38:47.194-07:00“WHEN THEY FIRST MET, SHE COULD SEE THE MADNESS IN HIS EYES.”
“WHEN THEY FIRST MET, SHE COULD SEE THE MADNESS IN HIS EYES.”The latest in artist Rick Geary’s ongoing series of recreations of infamous crimes of the 19th and 20th centuries, Madison Square Tragedy: The Murder of Stanford White (NBM) looks at a turn of the century slaying in cosmopolitan New York City. Famed architect and proud reprobate Stanford White, responsible for such Big Apple artifacts Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-88958538413737097252014-05-26T19:33:00.000-07:002014-05-26T19:34:09.203-07:00“IT DOESN’T MEAN I DON’T BELIEVE IN SOMETHING BIGGER THAN MYSELF.”
“IT DOESN’T MEAN I DON’T BELIEVE IN SOMETHING BIGGER THAN MYSELF.” An alt comics artist as comfortable in the realm of commercial kid-friendly entertainments (Darth Vader and Son) as he is more personalized autobiographical fare, Jeffrey Brown tackles the core issues of fatherhood, aging and religious upbringing in his A Matter of Life (Top Shelf Productions). Switching between memories of his Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-72762404424818830392014-05-26T12:09:00.004-07:002014-05-26T12:18:40.393-07:00“HEY, I WASN’T HERE TO PUNISH HIM.”
“HEY, I WASN’T HERE TO PUNISH HIM.” The latest in Max Allan Collins’ Quarry series, The Wrong Quarry (Hard Case Crime) takes the writer’s hard-nosed hero back to the early eighties where he is still working as a hitman’s hitman. Working from a file taken from his late unlamented employer, the Broker, Quarry has been following other hired killers to determine their latest assignment and offer toUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-13781859346261833552014-05-26T11:31:00.000-07:002014-05-26T11:32:54.383-07:00"THE PROMISED LAND IS LOST."
"THE PROMISED LAND IS LOST." Released by Titan Books to ride on the release of a movie adaptation, Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette’s Snow Piercer: The Escape is a grim dystopian French graphic novel about a frozen Earth where all of its survivors are trapped on a perpetually moving thousand-plus car train. A rigidly class-bound world -- where those higher up get to live closer to the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-90909239714745841332014-05-26T11:27:00.002-07:002014-05-26T11:29:02.683-07:00"A SOLDIER FOR ROCK MUSIC"
"A SOLDIER FOR ROCK MUSIC" The third installment in a 10-book rock novel series, Art Edwards' Badge (Thirteenth Note) looks at the music scene at the start of the 21st century through the eyes of a recovering “soldier for rock music.” Title hero Badge is a guitarist getting back into recording after eight years away from the industry; he's brought to L.A. From New Mexico to be “the new lucky Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-52385814733224351222014-02-05T22:14:00.000-07:002014-02-05T22:14:39.811-07:00“YOU’RE JUST A NORMAL LITTLE KID! YOU MUST BE INCREDIBLY LUCKY!”
“YOU’RE JUST A NORMAL LITTLE KID! YOU MUST BE INCREDIBLY LUCKY!” The first in a science comics trilogy designed to teach young readers about human biology, Gomdori Co.s’ Survive! Inside the Human Body (No Starch Press) is a rollicking children’s sci-fi comic that also works as a study tool. Inspired by the sixties era flick Fantastic Voyage (which memorably gave us the sight of a wet-suited Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-38773233413208700862014-01-20T09:42:00.000-07:002014-01-20T09:42:58.495-07:00“I THOUGHT THIS WAS IT . . . THIS WAS THE WAY OUT.”
“I THOUGHT THIS WAS IT . . . THIS WAS THE WAY OUT.” The first book in a graphic novel trilogy by congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis, March (Top Shelf Productions) is a well-wrought personal account of the early days of the movement. It opens on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of a bloody moment in civil rights history wherein 600 peaceful demonstrators were violently attacked by Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-20878263730124822872014-01-18T07:56:00.000-07:002014-01-18T07:56:10.833-07:00“I GUESS I’M HAVING FUN, BUT DOES THAT MEAN I’M A PERVERT, TOO?”
“I GUESS I’M HAVING FUN, BUT DOES THAT MEAN I’M A PERVERT, TOO?” The second volume in Nao Yawawa’s supernatural romance, Moon and Blood (DMP) follows up on the development of its budding relationship ‘tween teen girl heroine Sayaka and teen vamp Kai Kuryuu: a non-unexpected plot move though readers less familiar with the ways of modern shojo manga may have a WTF moment over the book’s central Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-55372221732148908842014-01-04T18:14:00.000-07:002014-01-04T18:14:36.687-07:00“WE’RE NOT EGGHEADS. WE’RE JUST INQUISITIVE.”
“WE’RE NOT EGGHEADS. WE’RE JUST INQUISITIVE.” The second “Discovery in Comics” to be published by NBM, Margreet de Heer’s Science follows the format of her earlier edu-comic Philosophy. Drawn in a lightheartedly cartoonish style, the book presents the artist and her colorist husband Yiri as they examine and debate the history of scientific thought and exploration.
As with the first volume, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-81121246715079517452014-01-03T07:06:00.003-07:002014-01-03T07:06:54.692-07:00
MOMENTS WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE AN IDJIT So I go skimming through my last few reviews and see that in one I mistyped "bought" (past tense of buy) for "brought" (p.t. of bring). Didn't catch it through more than one edit . . .
A pile of fresh reviews are coming, incidentally. The month got away from me.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-53834841445788802542013-12-18T18:36:00.001-07:002013-12-18T18:36:08.912-07:00”YOU’RE A VANISHIN’ BREED, AND YOU ALWAYS WERE.”
”YOU’RE A VANISHIN’ BREED, AND YOU ALWAYS WERE.” Of the many series characters created by prolific crime novelist Lawrence Block’s, my personal favorite has to be his Bernie Rhodenbarr a.k.a. The Burglar Who _____. It’s not because of his title profession, which fuels the plots of Block’s entertaining comic murder mysteries, but his avocation: the owner and operator of an NYC used bookstore. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-38618838585399842062013-12-14T17:14:00.001-07:002013-12-14T17:15:59.910-07:00"I COULD NEVER TELL HIM HOW FRIGHTENED I FELT."
”I COULD NEVER TELL HIM HOW FRIGHTENED I’D FELT.” A psycho-sexual thriller divided into two thematically interlocking stories, Elissa Wald’s The Secret Lives of Married Women (Hard Case Crime) tells of twin sisters whose hidden selves get revealed in the wake of two crimes.
First story, “The Man Under the House,” concerns married mother-to-be Leda who, on moving into a seemingly safe and comfy Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-20566582458782020922013-11-30T17:31:00.001-07:002013-11-30T17:31:32.973-07:00“I FOUND A NICE LOOKING FAMILY.”
“I FOUND A NICE LOOKING FAMILY.” Add to the list of modern entertainment centered on a girlishly spunky heroine and a boyishly dreamy vampire, Nao (Wedding Peach) Yazawa’s shojo manga mini-series Moon and Blood (Digital Manga Press). Released by DMP in both 72-page print and eBook editions, the teen-rated series concerns Kai Kuryuu, a youngish (as these things go) vampire who stays with an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0