Benjamin Marra

If you grew up reading comics in the 20th century, chances are you have a strange nostalgia for ads. The printed advertisements that appear in comics developed their own language over the history of the medium, which probably peaked in the Bronze Age. Ads for candy and snacks, for merchandise based on the comic's characters, and of course for video games (once those were invented) became a part of the fabric of comics. Now that so many of us are reading digitally or in trades, that's less true. But Fantagraphics' new superhero line, All Time Comics, is paying tribute to classic comics ads with mock ads by some of the best indie artists around.

Suicide Squad is the latest film from DC Comics' cinematic universe, and while it has received mostly negative reviews, many die-hard DC fans have come away thrilled by the villain-centric romp. If you're one of those that loved the film and want more comics in the same vein --- but you already know to check out the John Ostrander, Kim Yale and Luke McDonnell run on the series --- we've got a list of five independent comics to seek out next. Love that? Try this!

Bloodshot is a man who has problems. A lot of problems. In the past, those problems have involved the usual thing where his body is constantly being subjected to ridiculously over-the-top trauma and the nanites in his blood that rebuild him every time, and the fact that he occasionally hallucinates a cartoon child version of himself called Bloodsquirt. But in the upcoming Bloodshot Reborn Annual, there's a far more literal and pressing concern: A gigantic, indestructible slasher named "Jacob," who has been terrorizing a camp and needs to be taken down before he machetes any more unsuspecting teens. And yes: that's Jacob, and not... any other name you might be thinking of. Wink wink.

We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, as well as the special qualities of comic book storytelling, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great pinups, fan art and other illustrations on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we’ve created Best Art Ever (This Week), a weekly depository for just some of the pieces of especially compelling artwork that we come across in our regular travels across the Web. Some of it’s new, some of it’s old, some of it’s created by working professionals, some of it’s created by future stars, some of it’s created by talented fans, awnd some of it’s endearingly silly. All of it is awesome.

Each week, ComicsAlliance’s Chris Sims and Matt Wilson host the War Rocket Ajax podcast, their online audio venue for interviews with comics creators, reviews of the books of the week, and whatever else they want to talk about. This week, you folks are lucky enough to get a full episode a day early! Click on the player above to hear Chris and Matt talk about their experience at this weekend's Heroes Con in Charlotte, North Carolina. They'll talk about all the stuff they bought, how this year's con compared to previous years, a bit about how Special Edition NYC may change the con landscape, rap videos, and much more!

This might be the strongest "oh crap I need to own that" reaction I've had to anything in 2013 so far. Criterion, the company that produces high-end Blu-ray/DVD collections of classic films, has recruited more than 25 artists to produce illustrations for an upcoming Zatoichi box set, collecting the 25 Zatoichi films produced between 1962 and 1973. The list of creators involved is somewh

Back in June, I wrote about how excited I was to sit down with a stack of Benjamin Marra's Traditional Comics. There's just something about those lurid black-and-white adventures like Night Business that hits my nostalgia for both VHS-only action movies and the black and white indie boom of the '80s perfectly. I love 'em, and now, Marra has announced that he's adding another title to the Tradition

As much as I like digging through the quarter bins for a run of Punisher 2099, the real action at a convention always comes from browsing through Artist's Alley for the new books that you can't get anywhere else. As much as the focus at conventions falls on superheroes, there's a lot of great independent stuff out there that you can pick up directly from the people who made it -- and it's especially easy at a convention like Charlotte's HeroesCon, which gives a huge amount of floor space over to the indies.

We didn't realize when we set out to list our favorite comic books of 2012 that it had been such a fun year to be a fan of the medium that we all love so much. The last twelve months offered readers a wide variety of work ranging from the most crowd-pleasing superhero epics to the most idiosyncratic of indies; the return of much missed mangaka and the emergence of exciting new talent; a new crowd-

One of the standout releases of last year's Brooklyn Comics + Graphics Festival was a characteristically striking series of self-published zines from Benjamin Marra (The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd) based on the filmed version of Bret Easton Ellis' infamous novel, American Psycho...