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Author: Derek Kunsken

When People Say the British Invasion of Comics, What Do They Really Mean?

When People Say the British Invasion of Comics, What Do They Really Mean?

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I think it’s a truism that either you have no taste as a child (The Golden Age of Science Fiction Is Ages 8-12 Effect) or that you just haven’t read enough to be discerning.

I think I’ve certainly suffered from being 12 as well as not having read enough. There are books and comics I read when younger that don’t do anything for me in my forties.

And there are good books and comics whose tropes have been so over-used that they’ve moved into the cliché.

That all being said, I think some good work was being done in American comics in the 1980s. Chris Claremont, J.M. DeMattis, George Perez, Walt Simonson, John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Peter David and many others were delivering solid, A-level work. And younger folk like Frank Miller were bringing decidedly different sensibilities and tones to American comics.

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Warning: This Comic Will Make You Smarter – Top Cow’s Think Tank

Warning: This Comic Will Make You Smarter – Top Cow’s Think Tank

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Recently I’ve been reading Think Tank, by Matt Hawkins and Rahsan Ekedal at Top Cow (under Image Comics). It’s a series that started in 2012, ran for about a dozen issues, has had subsequent small series since, and as of 2016, was under movie development.

It looks like a comic that was written for me.

Warning and apology: There is *no* fantasy in this post or in this comic. The story is based on the technology of right now, and what is easily plausible in the next decade or two. Strictly speaking, I would be hard-pressed to call it science fiction. It’s now, just the parts we don’t see.

But in a very real sense, it fits into the aesthetic of fantasy in that we are looking into an unfamiliar world through a story that tells us a lot about ourselves. So, sorry.

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Feeding the Forest with Memory: Mythago Wood and Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock

Feeding the Forest with Memory: Mythago Wood and Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock

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Lavondyss Robert Holdstock-smallThere are a few novels I will return two over and over. García Marquéz’ One Hundred Years of Solitude is one. Dan Symmons’ Hyperion is another. I’ve been back to R. Scott Baker’s Prince of Nothing series a few times.

But my pile is shrinking. I’ve grown as a reader and can’t read Dune anymore, and I haven’t tried to go back to Tolkein in probably a decade. But one truly haunting work is Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood and Lavondyss. The novels won the World Fantasy Award in 1985 and the BSFA Award in 1988 respectively, if my dates aren’t off.

The two novels center on three families who live around Ryhope Wood, which is one of the last ancient, undisturbed forests in England, meaning that its roots and its ghosts are truly ancient. Now, there are lots of people who evoke deep time in their writing. Tolkein obviously. Edgar Rice Burroughs. Steven Erikson.

But reading Holdstock is to viscerally experience layers of deep, Jungian time. The wood is haunted not by ghosts of the past per se; it is haunted by the ancient memories of ghosts that each person carries within them, all the legends, remembered in story and forgotten.

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Thrill-Power Overload: A History of the British Comic 2000 AD

Thrill-Power Overload: A History of the British Comic 2000 AD

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I love comic book history. I’ve got a few books at home of the golden and silver age of American comics I reread every so often.

I recently got the chance to check out Thrill-Power Overload, the history of the British comic book series 2000AD in honor of their 40th anniversary.

I usually read only American comics, but over the last two years, I’ve been reading 2000AD and Judge Dredd comics, both the recent ones, and some of the their collected volumes, so this was a timely discovery for me, and a fascinating one.

2000AD was an experiment when it launched in 1977. British comic books were weekly publications, and not glossy, and until the launch of 2000AD, they were very much targeting younger readers with pretty tame, conservative stories with production and artistic values that didn’t even credit the creators.

2000AD‘s editorial and creative team had a vision of a far edgier anthology science fiction comic book, one whose tone I can best describe as punk rock sensibilities seen in sequential story, or an anti-authoritarianism giving the finger to the world. The creators of the time call the tone comedy and violence.

It featured genetically-engineered soldiers, robot fighters (and fighting robots), soldiers, assassins, and most importantly, Judge Dredd, a futuristic police officer of centuries in the future, stopping crime in the combined roles of police, judge and executioner.
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I’m Ready For My Close-Up, Mr. DeMille: A Look at Image’s Glitterbomb

I’m Ready For My Close-Up, Mr. DeMille: A Look at Image’s Glitterbomb

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Last fall, Image released a new comic book series by Jim Zub (Wayward and Thunderbolts) and Djibril Morissette-Phan (The Ultimates, All-New Wolverine) called Glitterbomb, a horror story about fame and failure.

The first four issues are out, and a collected trade paperback of those 4 issues is hitting comic book shops and book stores in March. I read Glitterbomb, really enjoyed it, and got a chance to talk with the creators.

Here’s the synopsis:

Farrah Durante is a middle-aged actress hunting for her next gig in an industry where youth trumps experience. Her frustrations become an emotional lure for something horrifying out beyond the water…something ready to exact revenge on the shallow, celebrity-obsessed culture that’s led her astray. The entertainment industry feeds on our insecurities, desires, and fears. You can’t toy with those kinds of primal emotions without them biting back…

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Jack Kirby’s Fourth World: 45 Years Later

Jack Kirby’s Fourth World: 45 Years Later

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I’ve been discussing comic books with a friend of mine who moved to Ottawa. Based on a stray comment of his, I committed to tracking down and reading Jack Kirby’s 4th World comics.

I obviously know about Darkseid and the New Gods, but from later works at DC, like the classic Great Darkness Saga in The Legion of Super-Heroes (check it out!).

And I’d read lots of 1960s Marvel Kirby as well as Machine Man and The Eternals at Marvel in the 1970s (I even blogged about The Eternals here).

Kirby was *huge* in the 1960s, having been a major creator of the current Marvel Universe. But by 1970, he was looking for a change and DC signed him to a 5-year exclusive deal.

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Star Wars Comic Spin-Offs: Poe Dameron and Doctor Aphra

Star Wars Comic Spin-Offs: Poe Dameron and Doctor Aphra

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Even since before Star Wars: Rogue One (which I reviewed here), I’ve had Star Wars on my mind. The Force Awakens was a good addition to the canon and I think I’m just generally optimistic about the franchise because George Lucas finally sold it to Disney. I appreciate George Lucas, but recognize (as we all did) that other creators would be able to do a lot more with it.

Dark Horse had the comic license to Star Wars for a long time, but Marvel (also owned by Disney) has had it for the last few years and they’ve been busy.

By my count, the main Star Wars title is past two years, and they’ve had successful and acclaimed miniseries, like Leia, Han Solo, Vader, Vader Down and so on, all helmed by great writers and art teams.

I’ve been reading two interesting spin-off series: Poe Dameron and Doctor Aphra.

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Hammers, Chemo and Disapproving Dads: Marvel’s Thor

Hammers, Chemo and Disapproving Dads: Marvel’s Thor

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Working on novels and such took me away from some of the main Marvel storylines just before Secret Wars until just after Civil War II (so I just missed a lot). I’m in the process of catching up on some Marvel real estate.

Lately I’ve been reading The Mighty Thor (they’re up to issue #13) and The Unworthy Thor (they’re up to issue #2).

For you completists, Thor goes way back to Journey Into Mystery #83, when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby made up the Asgardian god and made him fight aliens. Thor has been a popular character in Marvel who, along with Hercules, brought the divine to the Marvel Universe.

Asgard and Tales of Asgard brought in a ton of new characters into Thor’s orbit in the 1970s. The 1980s gave Thor a huge boost under creator Walt Simonson who defined the character for many modern readers.

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Rogue One: I Am One With the Force and the Force Is With Me

Rogue One: I Am One With the Force and the Force Is With Me

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A most excellent hero for this movie

When I was eight years old, some friends of the family gave me The Star Wars Storybook. Back in 1979, there was just one movie (and a confusing, once-seen Christmas special), and the action figures.

Everything I could learn of the larger universe of the movie that had changed my life was in that book. I wanted to know about the rebels, the past of Darth Vader and Kenobi, and who were these alliance pilots and Grand Moff Tarkin?

Some questions were answered in Empire, and Return of the Jedi, and others I got through comic books (I really enjoyed the Marvel Star Wars comic series started in 1977). And of course, we have the Jar-Jar infected prequels, which, with just enough denial, can be watchable for the light saber fights, or shown to children, who love them.

But it was only yesterday, when I saw Rogue One, that I saw the world I’d glimpsed when pressing my face against the glass as an eight-year old. I watched Rogue One with my brother, his eleven-year old son, and my own eleven-year old. And I really enjoyed it, in a complex way.

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Absolutely Stunning: Kill Six Billion Demons

Absolutely Stunning: Kill Six Billion Demons

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For almost a decade now, my cliché detector has been set a little too high. This affects what I like to read (if I’ve seen it before, I’ll often take a pass) and what I write (the weirder the environments and situations, the more fun I have).

I keep an eye on lot of comics and in the last years Karnak, Monstress and Nameless have caught my eye, among others. But during the summer, I got to read Kill Six Billion Demons, by Abaddon.

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