Comic Books

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #159 by Drew Barth One Large Cloud Overhead I’ve written in the past about influential manga finally getting official English translations and how this is broadening our understanding of how comics work globally. Many of these alternative manga were the touchstones of the medium at the time of… Continue reading

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #158 by Drew Barth Meat Me in the Middle I adore postmodern advertisements where you know that they know that you know they’re just trying to sell you something, but the whole ad is so deep in its own meta-narrative that you forget that you’re being sold a… Continue reading

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #157 by Drew Barth Results-Driven Workplace I remember cubicles and commission checks and a constant striving to snag the biggest commission out of everyone, a grinding frustration even as I made enough to populate my desk with Pop figures. Intersecting this feeling with superheroes is where we have… Continue reading

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #156 by Drew Barth Deep, Resigned New Year This is another new year. Half of my new year release articles have been written while steeped in plague. This better be the last plague list. As we drag our nails along the chalkboard of time, let me talk about… Continue reading

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #155 by Drew Barth Exploration How often can we link the exploration of the ancient with contemporary modes of entertainment? It’s on this field that we find a new series, Buckhead by Shobo, George Kambadais, and Jim Campbell. Placed at the intersection of archaeology, video games, African mythology,… Continue reading

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #154 by Drew Barth Wondrous History I have, in the past, talked at length about how DC’s Black Label has been a refreshing take on many of their characters—akin to early 90s Vertigo-before-it-was-called-Vertigo comics. Works like Wonder Woman: Dead Earth by Daniel Warren Johnson and Mike Spicer or… Continue reading

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #150 by Drew Barth Last Short Once again, we return to ShortBox—one of the best curators of the comics medium. Over the past few years, Zainab Akhtar has provided the world with a box of comics, candy, and wonderfully illustrated prints from a wide-range of creators—all of whom… Continue reading