Temple of Baktaar, by Jason Restrick
Bridging the gap between review and shill, it’s time to talk about StoryHack, an action and adventure short story periodical produced by Bryce Beattie. He had the urge to produce a regular collection of short works that runs the gamut of genres, and that is a much bolder move...
Deadpool: Too Soon? Yep
Mainstream comics are so much worse than I thought. All dazzle, no razzle. I’m a sucker for ten cent comics, particularly when they are bundled in plain brown wrappers and sold in ten packs to clear shelf space down at the local friendly comic and game and community based...
Zero Jumper: A Meta-Review
Yesterday I told you about Alterna Comic’s Zero Jumper. In the interests of showing Peter Simeti, the big hearted entrepreneur behind Alterna, an open and honest appraisal of the comic, I waited until today to discuss the broader cultural issues that surround this particular company. Mr. Simeti is a...
Zero Jumper: A Comic Review
Patrick Mulholland and Peter Simeti bring this four issue sci-fi adventure to us by way of the usual $1.50 newsprint titles, which I love, smudged fingerprints and all, or via trade paperback. I’ve read it, and it’s okay. I’m really not the target audience. The story is suitably epic,...
A Light Review, “Lil Gotham”
Here’s a fun little number. My youngest wasn’t sure about this, but she’s learning how to read and we’ve been enjoying a little Lego Batman on the Xbox 360 lately (so retro!), so it seemed right up her alley. Also, it was free. Li’l Gotham is a promotional comic...
Cirsova 8’s “Party Crashers” by Ken McGrath
The cover story for Cirsova 8 brings us a near future, superhero tale dressed up in tech-noir trappings. The two heroes of the piece, Haywire and Scramble, are hired guns ready to engage in a little corporate espionage or black-op counter-terrorism if the price is right. The name of...
IF: A Sci-Fi Anthology
When the Isolate and Swarm crowd decided to take a swing at the good guys over at Alterna Comics, I (along with a few thousand other comic book fans) advanced my purchase schedule to send a financial signal to Peter Simeti that he has a lot of people in...
Cirsova 8’s “Only a Coward” by Jennifer Povey
If you want to catch the eye of a Catholic, you could do a lot worse than the opening to Jennifer Povey’s Only A Coward: “Only a coward chooses death over a difficult life,” Selien spoke those words as the knife hacked through the braid of her hair.” As...
Cirsova 8’s The Dream Lords, by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt
Uitvlugt has become mainstay in the pages of Cirsova, with offerings going all the way back to The Hour of the Rat in the inaugural issue. This time around he takes the reader on a journey to one small corner of the Dreamlands, a strange village whose inhabitants serve...
Mother Russia
From “Adam Wreck”, a perfect entrée into comic books for kids, we turn our attention to “Mother Russia“, a much darker tale written and illustrated by Jeff McComsky. Set in the fictional 1943 ruins of Stalingrad just a few weeks after the horrors of war gave way to the...