Marvel’s animation division, together with cartoon grand masters Film Roman, is on a roll with The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Currently broadcast by Disney XD for primetime audiences, this relatively new superhero cartoon may amaze you with its depth and maturity.

This article is filed under Graphic Novels, Movies, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Television, The Fourth Wall.

Clive Barker has lent his eyes and hands to virtually every medium, from page to the screen to the stage to the canvas to the console. However, film fans know him particularly as a horror master. There is so much undermined material for gifted fantasy filmmakers that perhaps we could dispense with further Candyman sequels and retire the Hellraiser juggernaut with contented hearts, and enjoy a Clive Barker renaissance clad in all new colors.

This article is filed under Best Books, Best Movies, Books, Gay and Lesbian, Graphic Novels, Horror, Literary Themes, Movies, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Sex, Short Stories, The Fourth Wall, Writers.

Borne on the crest of the wind, I hear already the lamentation of women. Women whose dates have dragged them, possibly by the hair, to the late summer picture show. By now many of you know that Lionsgate will soon release a new film entitled Conan The Barbarian. Most of you will recall a cult classic by the same name from 1982, which was the breakout role of a certain Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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Overall, there’s a universality to the dilemma that Bagge’s characters face: Who are we? We each have our own work, personal, relationship, social, and on-line identities—is any one of these more valid than another?

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Graphic Novels.

But, as we see in the terrifying drawings of his radiologist father giving him neck adjustments—“kkrraackk,” and shots and enemas and even treating David’s sore throats and sinus condition with radiation, his escape is just another trap. The quiet horror of the cropped image of David’s face, just his eyes, nose, and part of his mouth, seen as he might have seen himself while lying on a table, looking up at his reflection in the metal surface of a piece of medical equipment, will stay with you long after you finish the book.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Graphic Novels.

“People too content with their lot make lousy protagonists. (laughs) There has to be a source of drama, a source of conflict. You can start with a character that’s out of tune with his time or his life or some aspect of his life. And then if it’s a Hollywood movie with a Hollywood happy ending it’s the story of redemption, the story of how you get from that discontent position to your own perfect space. The first Back to the Future movie is kind of archetypal in that respect. You start by showing all the things that are crappy about the kid’s life and then he comes back to this sort of paradise at the end. My characters don’t tend to find paradise, but they do sometimes find themselves.”

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Graphic Novels, Horror.