Comics & Graphic Novels

-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

This time around, we find a bevy of #1 issues featuring some serious sci-fi storytelling, seasoned with a hint of the supernatural. We have Counter-Earth and the New Men, we have a mystic symbols carved on asteroids, conscripted criminals fighting aliens who destroy terraforming towers, and cosmonaut who transcends humanity at the edge of the galaxy.

We also have a bunch of Marvel characters engaged in a role-playing game GM’d by Rocket Raccoon, because it was a thing we didn’t know we wanted. But we did.
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-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

Movies and comic books. They’re like peanut butter & chocolate — either it’s a delightful combination, or it’s a combination that results in uninspired, mass-produced dreck.

We did a little bit of hand-wringing back in our 2014 recap, worrying about the influence of box office success over comic book editorial decisions. But that’s not to say we dislike comic-related movies and TV shows. Far from it. Thus, we decided to look deep into the movie/comic book combination, beyond the well-known movie franchises. Our methodology was simple: look at the Wikipedia page(s) for films based on comic books, and write about what caught our eye. Sophisticated, we know.

We’ve also ventured into comic properties that became TV shows, since it’s a moving-picture medium perfect for adapting episodic comic books. And because this was partially inspired by the upcoming Kingsman: The Secret Service movie (based on a Mark Millar book), we’ll also take a gander at some upcoming adaptations whose books you may or may not know.

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-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

It’s been a while since we’ve done a recap of recent #1 issues, so we thought it high time to check out what’s come out over the holidays and into the new year. We noticed a recurring theme among recent new books…

-J.: Spoiler alert — I have an antipathy towards prequels. It’s not that I hate them, necessarily, but I expect to disappointed by them. Few ever exceed that expectation. Let’s see if some recent series debuts can do so.

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-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

The Addison Recorder has been recounting the year in popular culture, and we’re chiming in with our thoughts about the year in comic books, superheroes, and the influence of TV and film franchises. That latter trend really drove the news and reactions to the four mainstream publishers in 2014, so we start there. [Read more…]