by Lewis E. Ryan


Welcome back to ‘Marvel NOW… NOW!’, the series in which we take a look at how the Marvel universe’s rebranding is progressing.  This time I’ll be looking at Matt Fraction’s personal take on wisecracking Avenger, Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye. 

Firstly, Matt Fraction and David Aja are somewhat of a pre-proven powerhouse combo. Having already worked together on the well-received Immortal Iron First line, along with Ed Brubaker (one of my personal favourite writers), I was fairly confident about picking up the first trade of Hawkeye on their names alone. It’s times like this I want to pat myself on the back for being awesome at being right.

by Lewis E. Ryan

Happy Hellboy Week everyone! Today I’ll be looking at the Sledgehammer 44 books, specifically the second published mini-series, Lightning War. 

by Lewis E. Ryan

Welcome to the second installment of IFTF for the year. This month I’ll be taking a glance at Image Comics’ One-Hit Wonder, Dark Horse Comics’ White Suits and Oni Press’ The Bunker. I was due to cover Image’s Carbon Grey, falsely lulled into a sense of excitement by the complete lack of information on the cover, information such as it being the third volume and thus an altogether horrible place to dive in. Anyway, selections have been made, let the fun begin!

by Lewis E. Ryan

Welcome to the first official installment of The New Guy, my monthly rant on various classic graphic novels from the perspective of a comic newbie. This inaugural jaunt will be focusing on Warren Ellis’ treatise on…. well, everything: Transmetropolitan.

Ellis brings us the story of Spider Jerusalem, a journalist in self-imposed exile, who is forced back into the city to face the grim dystopian realities there contained. It reads like Hunter S. Thompson trapped in a Philip K. Dick nightmare. There are storyline arcs, but narrative is not really the focus of this work. Most page space is taken by Jerusalem’s insane ranting. The result is a thinly veiled excuse for Ellis to express his views through a medium. I mean, obviously all writers express themselves, their values and morals, through their characters, but Spider Jerusalem is literally a soapbox. 

by Lewis E. Ryan 

So, I’m not exactly what you’d call a veteran comic book collector but that’s not to say that I haven’t always been a collector of sorts. My love for Marvel started at a young age with the 1994 Fleer Ultra X-Men cards. I was eleven years old and collecting basketball cards already. So, one day I walked into a store to get my fix and there in front of me was a different kind of collector card. There was nothing wrong with basketball cards, but for some reason I decided to try something else. In 1993, Michael Jordan was my universe. In 1994, I was introduced to a new kind of hero.

by Lewis E. Ryan

Welcome to ‘Marvel NOW… NOW!’, an ongoing series in which we take a look at how the Marvel universe’s rebranding is progressing. The series will be aimed largely at trade collectors like myself rather than monthly readers. So, really the title is ironic, as ‘NOW’ actually happened months ago and anyone following the continuity monthly will be far ahead of this. Anyway, game on! This week, I’ll be looking at the not-so-jolly green giant’s contribution to this continued consolidation, Mark Waid’s The Indestructible Hulk. The first trade was released this month and it is titled Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Interesting.

by Lewis E. Ryan

East of West has now been running long enough for one trade to be issued and another one to be close at hand. So, with that in mind, now’s as good a time as any to delve into the intriguing world that writer Jonathan Hickman has crafted in his most recent creator-owned series.

East of West opens in ritual and rebirth as we find three eerie child-like creatures return to the world pondering the absence of their fourth.

We learn soon enough that they are three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and that the one missing is Death. Like the denizens of Discworld in Terry Pratchett’s Soul Music they seem to have misplaced him, but that comparison is not to suggest that the tone here is light one. This is not Discworld and unlike the whimsical creatures that inhabit that place, the intent of War, Conquest and Famine is solemn and murderous. 

by Lewis Ryan 

What you have before you, dear reader is the first in an ongoing series of spotlights on various brand new indie titles. With so many new series starting every month it’s sometimes difficult (and costly) to keep track of them all so the aim here is to do some of the grunt work for you, breaking those rocks, finding those gems. With that in mind, I proudly present the first Indie Fiction Triple Feature!

by Lewis E. Ryan



The Last Man is the best hope for the continuation of our species.

I was fresh on the comic scene when I held that first volume. I mean, I’m still fresh by almost all modes of comparison but I was green, garden herbs green. So, I didn’t quite understand how significant an item I was holding. I had done the same thing I assume everyone does these days when they discover a new passion. I had opened up to the public forum that is social media and asked that most ill conceived of questions: “What’s good?”

Of course, the reply was an incongruous torrent of fan-boy rant, drool and vitriol, which left me more confused than before I had asked. There were a few consistent sparks of hope. One name that kept popping up was ‘Y’. “You must read Y.” “Y is the truth.” It continued like this for a while, filling my feed, but by this point I had moved on to an Archer-esque rampage through the work of Bendis and thus it came to pass that it was filed back there with Preacher and Transmetropolitan as holy ground yet untilled.