Category: Comics

‘Little Orphan Annie,’ Volume 1

The Complete Little Orphan Annie, Volume One: Will Tomorrow Ever Come? Daily Comics, 1924-1927. Written and illustrated by Harold Gray. Edited by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell. Additional essays by Dean Mullaney and Jeet Heer. The Library of American Comics and IDW Publishing, San Diego, CA (2008). 383 pages. Indexed.

Comic strip: Daddy Warbucks treats the kids of the city to free amusement parks

It’s the Fourth of July, so on this most American of holidays, it seems meet to discuss that most American of comic strips, Little Orphan Annie, the saga of the tiny, red-haired waif with “a heart of gold and a mean left hook.” Today’s audiences probably know of this famous character mostly from the musical Annie, but the titular heroine originates in Harold Gray’s massive, decades-spanning, immensely popular, and sometimes gritty comic strip in the Chicago Tribune, in which the resourceful orphan regularly tangled with gangsters and occasionally dispensed two-fisted vigilante justice in back-alley brawls. Continue reading “‘Little Orphan Annie,’ Volume 1”

How to Spot an SJW Marvel Story

I have heard a lot second-hand about Diversity and Comics. I haven’t paid close attention to him simply because American superhero comics aren’t my bag. In this particular video, he gets into the mechanics of how to write a good story, and why political correctness hampers that.

I see now why this guy is popular (and why he is hated so much by some writers and illustrators at Marvel). He really understands how stories work, and his criticisms are calm, incisive, and fair.

Comic Book Review: ‘The Courageous Princess’

The Courageous Princess, written and illustrated by Rod Espinosa. 3 vols. Milwaukee, OR: Dark Horse Books, . ISBN: 978-1-61655-722-5.

I am a fan of Rod Espinosa, a Filipino draughtsman, former submissions editor of Antarctic Press, and creator of Amerimanga, who has upwards of fifty titles to his name. Years ago, on my previous blog, I reviewed his Neotopia, Battle Girlz, Chronicles of the Universe, DinoWars, and the first volume of the series we’re about to discuss. My previous blog is offline, but these reviews may, in edited form, appear here at a later date.

The Courageous Princess was Espinosa’s Eisner-nominated breakout title. He originally created it as a self-published, illustrated storybook, and then he converted it into a comic and released it through Antarctic Press. The series, still incomplete, was collected and published in a single paperback volume in , and that’s what I previously reviewed. For a long period, the series remained unfinished as Espinosa worked on other projects, but he at last completed the story and released the entire series through Dark Horse in , now as a trilogy of graphic novels. The original collection, which is now the first volume, has been subtitled Beyond the Hundred Kingdoms, followed by two new volumes called The Unremembered Lands and The Dragon Queen.
Continue reading “Comic Book Review: ‘The Courageous Princess’”

‘Cleopatra in Space,’ Volume 4

The Golden Lion (Cleopatra in Space, Book 4), written and illustrated by Mike Maihack. New York, NY: Scholastic, 2017. Full color. ISBN 978-0-5425-83871-9.

I previously discussed the first three volumes of Mike Maihack’s Cleopatra in Space, a space opera aimed at younger readers. Maihack originally began the series as a web comic. The web version stopped abruptly after bogging down, but Maihack rebooted the title as a series of graphic novels through Scholastic’s Graphix imprint. The web comic is not in continuity with the graphic novels, but Maihack suggests to parents that they could check it out anyway to get a good idea of the kind of material that’s likely to appear in the print version. Continue reading “‘Cleopatra in Space,’ Volume 4”

Comic Book Review: ‘Cleopatra in Space’

“But why are they in space? There’s no reason for them to be in space!”

Cleopatra in Space, written and illustrated by Mike Maihack. 3 vols. New York: Scholastic, 2014-2016.

We have before us a highly entertaining space opera swashbuckler aimed at a younger audience but also suitable for adults.

Author and illustrator Mike Maihack has worked on several different comics projects, including the webcomic Cow and Buffalo. He also produced an earlier webcomic version of the present story under the more facetious title of Cleopatra in SPAAAACE, which he halted abruptly in order to reimagine Cleopatra’s tale as a series of graphic novels, published through Scholastic’s Graphix Imprint. The stories of the graphic novels and webcomic differ in some details and do not overlap.

The series currently stands at four volumes, the fourth having released recently this year. I am here discussing only the first three, which are all I’ve got my hands on so far.

Continue reading “Comic Book Review: ‘Cleopatra in Space’”