Comic Books

TweetThe Phoenix Requiem is probably one of the most beautiful webcomics I’ve read. It is also now complete after 25 chapters and 800 gorgeous pages – the perfect time to sit down and start reading! I first came across Sarah Ellerton’s work when I read Inverloch, her previous highly acclaimed webcomic and devoured it in a day of intense reading. I tried The Phoenix Requiem afterwards, initially not sure it would be my kind of thing, but was quickly hooked. Set in a world somewhat similar to Victorian England, this is a fantasy tale and a gripping romance, as magic begins to return to the land after a long absence. Jonas is our main character, injured early on and nursed to health by the ambitious and caring Anya, who is training to be a doctor. A hesitant romance begins to stir, but disaster and plague seem to be following Jonas… a plague of supernatural proportions. The relationships between the various villagers are explored at a leisurely pace before things start to pick up as the supernatural elements and magic start to surface, with many a twist and turn along the way. It’s also really hard to post a full page without spoiling something! And okay, yes, Jonas totally reminds me of David Tennant’s Doctor Ten. Shut up, shut up, he’s gorgeous. Omg. Garnering praise and award nominations a plenty, The Phoenix Requiem was frequently ranked in the top ten most popular webcomic lists during its lengthy run, and even now remains hugely prominent. Two volumes have now been published by 4th Dimension Entertainment collecting the first ten chapters. And as with all webcomics, the entire series can be read for free at the website – so indulge yourself today! Laura Sneddon is a comics journalist and academic, writing for the mainstream UK press with a particular focus on women and feminism in comics. Currently working on a PhD, do not offend her chair leg of truth; it is wise and terrible. Her writing is indexed at comicbookgrrrl.com and procrastinated upon via @thalestral on Twitter. #call_to_action h4{padding:0px 5px;} #social-essentials {margin: 0 0 10px 0;}

Traveling through his new reality, the Human stumbles across an unlikely ally. But with the zombielike Numbers hounding their steps, they must make some unusual choices to avoid capture in an unknown world, with troubling consequences. But can the Human really trust his new friend?s advice and find his way home again? * Written by Stone Sour and Slipknot front man Corey Taylor. * Cover by artist Jason Shawn Alexander.

*** If you haven't been keeping up with your comics media, here's some key links and reviews for you to check out what we've got going on in the news! Dark Horse Publishes LuVisi's LAST MAN STANDING: KILLBOOK OF A BOUNTY HUNTER From the mind of Dan LuVisi comes a brand-spanking-new intellectual property. Where most comics start off with a first issue, Last Man Standing starts off with a 272-page bible, Killbook of a Bounty Hunter, that sets up the entire universe of the LMS world....

We're happy that Astro Boy, one of the most famous Japanese characters of all time, calls Dark Horse home. As a publisher devoted to great comics and great comics creators from around the world, Dark Horse has always looked with special admiration to Japan, where Osamu Tezuka, the founding figure in modern manga, helped to create the largest and most diverse comics culture on Earth. To receive artistic acclaim for a comic is one achievement—but to give an entire nation a love...

Beast Boy/Changeling/Gar Logan long ago became so closely associate with the Teen Titans, it’s hard to remember a time when he wasn’t part of the team. Yet there was indeed such an epoch, stretching throughout the deep recesses of the Silver Age. Lest we forget, the Titans were originally a literal Junior Justice League, with the four founding members — Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl and Aqualad – all the young partners of DC’s A-list crimefighting talent. This elite club would present a hard glass ceiling for Gar, a shape-shifting kid with no such connections, to break through. But to that end, this early issue functions as a demo reel/college application/country club entry form, allowing the readers to view Beast Boy’s personality and abilities and then send a letter to the old National Periodicals offices to give the yay or nay on whether he should be admitted or excluded. Power to the people. And far from being a simple LOOK WHAT I CAN DO story, there’s actually some psychological food for thought on the inside.   Written by Bob Haney, with art by Bill Molno and Sal Trapani, our story starts on young Gar. Perhaps the first thing this comic reminds us of is that Beast Boy’s first team affiliation was with the old Doom Patrol, a more misfitish team then the Fortunate Sons (and Daughters) of the Titans. But even among misfits he was a misfit (much like Yukon Cornelius, Rudolph and Hermey), and his adolescent energy was more than the Patrol’s members could bear. Here he is pissing the living hell out of the ever-irritable Robotman — no great feat, but still: Just wanting to belong but rebuffed at every turn, Gar gives up on his struggle to become a full member of the Patrol crew. He turns his attention to what might be a more attainable peer goal, and makes a public access television appeal for the Titans to meet him. They oblige, showing up on their bitchin’ motorcycles (igniting the envy of all the have-nots out there — again, Fortunate Sons) and immediately issuing juvenile taunts: (I usually have no problem with Kid Flash, but here he’s asking to get his face punched in. All of a sudden he has a Soc Outsiders vibe. Paging S.E. Hinton…) It turns out the bar to Beast Boy’s membership is more procedural than anything else. Since the Teens are, yes, teens, they all have to have the permission of their parent or guardian to engage in team derring-do  — one wonders if there are photocopied permission slips on file at a local junior high. Gar, desperate to just belong and with a “guardian” who’d never consent (the despicable Nicholas Galtry), wants to hear none of this, and flies of in a pimply, hormone-addled huff: What’s next? He falls in with a crooked circus. Why? Because comics. In said circus there’s an evil hypnotist who uses main attraction Beast Boy as a conduit for enslaving the masses — apparently hypnotism is more potent when channeled. Huh: The deranged audiences become looting hordes, enriching the circus owners and getting the attention of the Titans. How do our heroes infiltrate a circus with their well-known faces and costumes? By going deep undercover, of course: The Masked Mazeppas, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t think the Flying Wallendas have anything to fear. Long story short, the Titans put an end to the circus shenanigans, in the process battling a mind-controlled Beast Boy, who regains his senses just in time to participate in the final comeuppance. When the dust settles the Titans wonder whether or not this youngster, permission slip or not, might not make a solid teammate after all. (His susceptibility to hypnotized evil is explained away as a byproduct of his earlier rejection) In the last panel, they don’t break the fourth wall so much as kick it down, all in the name of engaging the reading public and doing a little market research: Sadly, there was no

The writer of ARKHAM UNHINGED and LI'L GOTHAM has a story in next week's ADVENTURE TIME annual, and here's a preview.

From a presentation by Diamond Comic Distributors UK at the retailer summit at London MCM today, they dropped some heavy numbers on the retailers present. 2012′s sales were 10% up on 2011, to 8 million units imported into the UK. And 2013 is already a half a million up on this time last year. And graphic novel sales are 45% up this year as well. And Diamond UK are Manchester Airport’s biggest customer, in terms of all the comics and books they import. And their warehouse is 0.6 miles long… They’ve also managed, even when importing internationally, to reduce shortages to 0.02% and damages to 0.09%. They are cracking down on what they call “bedroom sellers”, individuals who order comics directly from Diamond without actually being a shop, and making accounts prove they are proper stores.The Diamond Comic Distributors retailers website will be upgrading to match the USA version in terms of style, and US employees came over last week to agree to the changes. Diamond UK Is Manchester Airport’s Biggest Customer

Voting for the first edition of the 'Comic Vine Battle of the Week' has come to an end! There are so many great matches to choose from and I'm stoked to use them down the road, but I thought Daredevil vs. Nightwing was an excellent way to kick things off. Both are hugely skilled, incredibly agile and use similar melee weapons. However, there are a few key differences between the two and that's what makes this battle so debatable. Over the week, 480+ Viners voted and plenty dove into extended debates on this battle between two heroes. The results are in and, while it was certainly close, Daredevil is the winner!This image is clearly taken from a canon comic...The Man without Fear earned 52% of the votes, while Dick Grayson took 42% and 5% thought it was a stalemate. I must say, I agree with the majority on this one. While there's no doubt this would be a superb melee to watch, I think Daredevil's superior displays of skill (far more frequent use of nerve strikes) and impressive reflexes (regularly cuts and deflects bullets) would let him edge out a victory. Yes, Grayson has a massive variety of gear on his side, but in a one-on-one fight, he's not exactly prone to using the more dangerous options (sonics, suit taser, etc) unless they're absolutely required. Sure, Grayson's obviously a superior detective and it is definitely possible he'd pick up on Matt's enhanced senses over time, but I think it's more probable Daredevil's technique would overcome before Grayson detects his weakness or can utilize the game changing resources he has. That said, the longer this fight goes on, the more it'll shift in Grayson's favor. It's by no means a stomp for either character and it's definitely a solid fight. A reasonable argument can be made for either hero, but in this case, the majority and I side with Daredevil!Viner Argument of the WeekThere were plenty of great arguments made for both characters and every week I'm going to highlight one in favor of the winning character. This week, I'm picking one by Comic Vine mod god_spawn. It's concise and manages to address quite a few key points."Daredevil. He's already shown better reflexes, close agility feats, better strength feats IMO, and DD's shown better skill feats. If you want to compare to top tier fighters so bad, Nightwing has been wrecked twice by Bane. He couldn't even touch Bruce when Bruce didn't want him to. And Nightwing has been given tough fights from Jason Todd. Whereas Daredevil has given Captain America good fights, Iron Fist good fights IIRC, and given Wolverine a good fight. People seem to think just because Dick was trained by Batman seems to make people believe that they are the cream of the crop when it comes to skilled fighting just because of that which is completely false. By that logic, Tim Drake would be in the top of DC and Nightwing isn't in there either. Nightwing does not always resort to his gear. Getting space from DD will be extremely difficult considering the radar sense will keep him one step ahead of Dick in terms of action and reaction. Just because Nightwing has something does not mean he will use it."I think Daredevil wins, but what about some of the other Comic Vine staffers?Corey ' Undeadpool' Schroeder:"I think this is Daredevil's fight to lose. He's got the ninja training, he's got the radar senses but much more importantly: he's got the raw experience. It's something that not a lot of people are going to realize, I feel, but Murdock's in his mid thirties while Nightwing is still a pup in his very early 20s. So while Nightwing may have his body-language reads, Daredevil has almost the same thing with his heightened senses, but ol' Hornhead's very simply put in far more hours and that's something that can be neither taught nor bought. Daredevil all the way."Jen 'MissJ' Aprahamian:"I'm going to have to go with Nightwing on this one, although it's an incredibly close match. My "Deadliest Warrior" style battle synopsis looks like this: Nightwing would k

I've always loved Dave Cockrum's art. One of my first exposures to his work is when he drew Marvel's Star Trek comic in the early 80's after the first movie came out. His style was perfect for Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the Enterprise crew's adventures. He drew these neat costume guides for the new style Starfleet uniforms, which were pretty much abandoned a couple of years later when Star Trek II came out.It's a shame Dave's no longer with us. I would have loved to have seen what he could have done with J.J. Abrams' version of the classic crew. I bet it would have been great, just like these pieces were.

TweetNoelle Stevenson’s Nimona is the story of an impetuous, eager, and (most notably) successful villainous sidekick, who is also a shapeshifter. Set during a time of knights and black magic and lancing and people living in tents, Nimona is a silly but thoroughly charming webcomic which has grown impressively in style and content over the space of eight chapters. As you can see from the two pages I’ve posted here, there’s a great progression in terms of confidence and presentation in Stevenson’s art (which was neat to begin with!) The sense of the silly never leaves though, thankfully, as a world slowly builds for the characters in which everything feels coherent and consistent but also totally mad and weird. Nimona herself starts off as a startlingly contemporary figure living in a medieval world, but the joy of the comic is seeing the other characters come to accept and embrace her style and quirks. Mixing magic with fake beards, Nimona is really enjoyable, and you can see more of it at http://gingerhaze.com/nimona Steve is tweets @stevewmorris #call_to_action h4{padding:0px 5px;} #social-essentials {margin: 0 0 10px 0;}