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The ComicsAlliance Roundtable On Politics & Comics
The ComicsAlliance Roundtable On Politics & Comics
The ComicsAlliance Roundtable On Politics & Comics
Does politics belong in comics? Can comics influence politics? And what impact do we expect the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States to have on the comic industry and on the stories it tells over the next four years? ComicsAlliance contributors Elle Collins, Kieran Shiach, Tom Speelman, and Tara Marie join editor-in-chief Andrew Wheeler for a roundtable discussion about the relationship between politics and comics.
Writer's Commentary: Peter Milligan on 'The Mummy' #1
Writer's Commentary: Peter Milligan on 'The Mummy' #1
Writer's Commentary: Peter Milligan on 'The Mummy' #1
Titan is launching a whole line of comics based on the Hammer Studios horror films, starting today with The Mummy #1 by Peter Milligan and Ronilson Freire. Milligan is a fascinating choice of writer for this project, best known for classic books like Shade the Changing Man and Enigma at Vertigo, and X-Statix at Marvel. Milligan writes cerebral and often surreal comics that are unlike anything else out there. Peter Milligan has provided ComicsAlliance with an exclusive commentary for The Mummy #1. This commentary contains spoilers, so if you haven't read the issue yet, pick it up online or in stores today, and come back here for the inside line.
Screen & Page: Unlock the Secrets Of 'Higurashi: When They Cry'
Screen & Page: Unlock the Secrets Of 'Higurashi: When They Cry'
Screen & Page: Unlock the Secrets Of 'Higurashi: When They Cry'
Most anime is adapted from manga, often produced by the manga publisher to raise awareness and sell it overseas. But what about the anime shows or films that go the other way, adapted from the screen to the page? How do those works hold up, and what changes or stays the same? That’s what Screen & Page aims to explore. Today, we're looking at a video game adaptation that stands effectively as a horror tale in its own right, while retaining its originators' sense of mystery and unease: Higurashi: When They Cry!
If He Be Worthy: Does Simonson's 'Thor' Deserve Its Reputation?
If He Be Worthy: Does Simonson's 'Thor' Deserve Its Reputation?
If He Be Worthy: Does Simonson's 'Thor' Deserve Its Reputation?
While it may be overstating the case to describe superhero comics as our modern myths in a post-religious age, there are certainly some stories that have taken on a near-mythic quality as "the stories you have to read": Watchmen; The Dark Knight Returns; All-Star Superman; The Death of Captain Marvel; "The Night Gwen Stacy Died." These stories are held in high esteem, often for a generation or more. For Fantasy Week here at ComicsAlliance, I wanted I'd dive into a run that's not only held up as one of the defining Marvel stories of the 1980s, but also the high point of its particular character's history. I wanted to know: is Walter Simonson's legendary four-year run on Thor, and the stories related to it, really that good, or just fondly remembered by the people who read it as kids?
Screen & Page: Honor The Covenant With 'Blood-C'
Screen & Page: Honor The Covenant With 'Blood-C'
Screen & Page: Honor The Covenant With 'Blood-C'
It's Fantasy Week here at ComicsAlliance, and it's also one week until Halloween, so what better way to celebrate both than with a look at an anime and manga about a young shrine maiden waging a war on monsters. This is Blood-C, a spinoff of a spinoff of a movie that got its own movie!
How Lack Of Empathy Is Creating A Divide In Comics
How Lack Of Empathy Is Creating A Divide In Comics
How Lack Of Empathy Is Creating A Divide In Comics
This week there’s been a lot of talk and controversy surrounding J. Scott Campbell’s Midtown Comics variant for Invincible Iron Man #1, featuring the 15-year-old Riri Williams, AKA Ironheart. Fan response to the cover pointed out the highly sexualized depiction of Riri and the inappropriate decision to assign the cover to an artist known for his pin-up work, but things got worse when Campbell and other creators responded to the controversy. Campbell and his defenders’ rebuttals featured the typical lines about social justice warriors and censorship, and creators in this situation seem to always assume that they’re infallible when it comes to the art they create. Yet another week of controversy in comics has me asking; What’s so wrong about stopping to listen to what people have to say?
Hate Speech And The Fight For Roma Representation
Hate Speech And The Fight For Roma Representation
Hate Speech And The Fight For Roma Representation
We live in a time when hate speech directed at marginalized people has become too commonplace in public and political rhetoric; a time when the demonization of Muslims, immigrants, transgender people and others masquerades as a defense of security or virtue; when nostalgia for "the good old days" sanctifies a past in which marginalized people were deprived of respect, voice, or power. The fear-mongering of politicians seeps down into everyday conversation, feeding commonplace prejudices. Even so, it's still shocking to hear that sort of rhetoric presented on the stage at a comic convention by one of the industry's most high profile authors, especially at a panel discussing LGBTQ themes in Marvel's X-Men comics. Yet at last week's New York Comic Con, writer Peter David indulged in exactly that sort of hate speech, in this instance directed at one of the world's most easily and persistently scapegoated communities: the Rromani people.
Jill Thompson's 'True Amazon' And The Strength Of Ambiguity
Jill Thompson's 'True Amazon' And The Strength Of Ambiguity
Jill Thompson's 'True Amazon' And The Strength Of Ambiguity
Gender is far from the only thing that separates Wonder Woman from her DC Comics peers Superman and Batman. One rather dramatic difference that has grown more and more pronounced over the course of the last three decades is the fluidity of the character’s origins. Jill Thompson’s Wonder Woman: The True Amazon responds to the ambiguity around Wonder Woman's origins, not simply by filling a perceived hole with an analogue to Batman: Year One, but rather by capitalizing on that fluidity to tell a Wonder Woman story unlike any other.
Preacher Ma'am: How Does 'Alamo' Hold Up Today?
Preacher Ma'am: How Does 'Alamo' Hold Up Today?
Preacher Ma'am: How Does 'Alamo' Hold Up Today?
As someone who thought she was a dude in the late 1990s, Preacher was the comic I looked forward to every month more than any other. As someone who knows she isn’t a dude in the mid-2010s, I’m looking back on this series and examining what still works, what doesn’t work, and what its lasting legacy is. This week: it's all over. Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon --- with Pamela Rambo on colors, Clem Robbins doing the lettering, and Alex Alonso editing the whole deal --- set their pencils down with "Alamo," and their final word on the series asks us: who deserves salvation, who has earned damnation, and does it even make a difference in the end?
Understanding Hawkman: How A Simple Concept Became A Mess
Understanding Hawkman: How A Simple Concept Became A Mess
Understanding Hawkman: How A Simple Concept Became A Mess
This week sees the release of Marc Andreyko and Aaron Lopresti’s new DC Comics miniseries, Death of Hawkman, which seemingly promises to kill off the confusing cluster of continuity masquerading as a character for good. But how did Hawkman get this way? What single decision led to decades of confusion, and how can it be fixed? There may be a solution, but if we’re going to address the Hawkman problem, first we need to understand it.

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