Comic Book Sabbath

One thing that I have loved about every one of Marvel’s slate of Netflix shows is their opening scenes. Daredevil opens with the accident that would define Matt Murdock’s life and then transitions into the dark of the confessional booth. Jessica Jones pulls us in by letting us see the world through her camera lens. It sets up the way she deals with most of her city now; at a distance. Because if you get too close, things get rough. Just ask the guy she throws through her own door in the next scene. Luke Cage starts us off with, arguably, the deepest sense of place and culture. Pop’s Barbershop is full, hopping, and discussions about basketball and the dominance of King James are a bedrock of the day to day. The one thing that all of these opening scenes have in common, is that they communicate place, space, and character in such easy and effective ways. When I fired up the Roku to start Iron Fist , I was waiting for that moment, and I got it. Outkast’s “So Fresh, So Clean” sta...

Well, as most of you should know, a new Batman movie is out this week. And in this funky new religion of mine, that means a high holiday. So the blog this week will be a little late, as I'm going to be watching a full marathon of the Nolan films tomorrow. But please come back for the next update, we have a week of female led books, plus recommendations of new series, and my take on announcements from Comic-Con. It promises to be a big week. See you after the movie.

The Pull List: Batman Earth One  - DC Batman #11  - DC The Walking Dead #100 - Image Well, there was no post last week. The 4th of July holiday kind of got in the way. Not that comics weren't delivered, but I was spending the holiday in St. George with my girlfriend and didn't get around to my comics until Thursday. And to be blunt about it, getting my comics on a different day really threw me off. I was surprised by how much it threw me off.  The title of this blog, Comic Book Sabbath, is a play on a joke I had with one of my ENGL 2010 classes. A student was worried that they wouldn't have enough time to get their homework done over the weekend because of "The Sabbath". My response, well I come into work every day on my sabbath. And a joke about my holy day started. This joke has gotten a bit out of control, I have even built up a Wednesday ritual involving when I go to the shop, where I go to eat afterwards, the people I see are even usually the same peop...

The Pull List: Justice League Dark #10 - DC Also Read: American Vampire #28 - Vertigo American Vampire: Lord of Nightmares #1 - Vertigo Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft #1-#6, Head Games #1-#6, Crown of Shadows #1-#6, Keys to the Kingdom #1-#6, Clockworks #1-#6  - IDW My pull list for the forth week of each month is usually pretty weak. It is my version of Fast Sunday. (In the Mormon church, one Sunday a month is Fast Sunday, which means you don't eat anything for a few meals. In my head, Wednesday is the sabbath and a small pull list is like fasting.) And last weeks experience of going without any superhero books really did carry over into this weeks reading. I'm not going to spend time with Justice League Dark , if you want to know about the series, check my post from four weeks ago. When I teach my English 2010 comics class, I am sure to point out to my students (especially those who have no experience with comics) that the medium of comics and graphic novel...

The Pull List: X-Men #51 - Marvel (Thumbed Through) The Punisher #12 - Marvel (Not Read) Birds of Prey #10 - DC (Not Read) Batwoman #10 - DC (Not Read) Wonder Woman #10  - DC (Not Read) Before Watchmen: Comedian #1  - DC (Not Read) The Walking Dead #99  - Image What I Did Read: The Massive #1 - Dark Horse Morning Glories #1 - #19 - Image Scalped #1 - #50  - Vertigo Last week I made a goal for myself, no superhero comics. I didn't realize how difficult that was going to be. Yes, superhero is the primary genre that people think of when comics comes up. It is also the genre that got me into the medium and the main money maker of the big two. But come on, I know there is more than just that. I only teach one Superhero book a semester in my Writing About Graphic Narratives class, I'm the one that recommends the non superhero stuff to students. I guess that's why I was so surprised when I looked at the potential for this week. Aside...

The Pull List: X-Men #30 - Marvel Comics Ultimate Comics X-Men #13  - Marvel Comics The Massive #1  Dark Horse Comics (Not yet read) Batman #10  - DC Comics Batgirl #10 - DC Comics This week was a pretty unique week. I actually matched my number of DC titles with Marvel titles. And this can all be attributed to one person; Brian Wood. It seems more and more that Brian Wood is the big name that showing up in comics. He is now on these big two titles and you may of heard about him recently. Hold on a second while I put on my hipster glasses, a deep V t-shirt and a scarf. I have been reading Brian Wood way before he was writing X-men books. Okay, hipster me goes back in the box. Here at SUU, they have 4000 level English classes that are variable topic, major authors. You get Hemingway, Faulkner etc. If I was teaching one of those it would be ENGL 4430  Brian Wood. Okay, I would probably name it a bit different, but I will someday teach a Brian Wood Class. ...

The Pull List: Before Watchmen - Minutement #1 -  DC Comics Earth 2 #2 - DC Comics Animal Man #10 - DC Comics Swamp Thing #10 - DC Comics The Boys #67  - Dynamite (Not Read) I started reading The Boys  around Christmas time and tore through the series and the attached miniseries over the break. If a series catches my attention, I can burn through it pretty quick. And that's what happened with this series. The only problem with this method of getting caught up on new things is, I'll read through 60+ issues of a series and be caught up to the regular monthly releases. So I got caught up on The Boys  and now have to wait four weeks to get a new issue and this week, I couldn't get my hands on the new issue. I've actually never run into this problem. I can usually get what I want to read when I want to read it, but the thing is, I'm not as irritated as I thought I would be about not getting to it. The series has been really great and Ennis has stated that he wil...