One…

And, really, who am I to argue with the comic’s own creator? Unless he’s wrong, of course — but he’s not, so let’s just trudge on ahead, shall we?

Which, as far as compliments go, is admittedly about as high as they come, and while looking at these may have reminded me of times in my youth when I was about “as high as they come” myself, in truth even the most intense acid trip imaginable has some ground to make up if…

As with the first installment of this story, that red stuff is depicted in black and white, but honestly — Keck’s solid, thick-lined, “crunchy” art is best experienced with the full impact of his rich detail unobstructed by color. This is visceral work, to be sure, but cartoonishly so, which is to say that it hits home precisely due to the force of its aesthetic outlandishness. I could spend all day looking at this art if I didn’t…

On the surface, the narrative that unfolds in this gorgeous self-published squarebound book is deceptively simple : two people strike up a friendship and decide to transform into a bird and a flower in order to spend their lives together seeing all that there is to see. But there are layers upon layers of meaning and import to unpack…

To call his self-published, magazine format comic The Future Is An Open Mouth “one of a kind” is to sell it short, because in truth it’s several things at once, none of them exactly new, but all of them coalescing into a singular visual and literary experience that propels the reader into frames of mind previously unknown and…

Which is a weird thing to say when we’re talking about a realm populated by ancient wizards, immortal monsters, and giant robots — the latter of which is our protagonist in this latest adventure — but nevertheless, it’s true. When a person thinks of Cardini’s work, phrases like “mind-blowing,” “highly imaginative,” and “far fucking out” come to mind, of course, but “emotionally resonant” and “thematically complex,” maybe…

I have to admit that when I first started to haphazardly plan my week-long tribute to The King Of Comics, reviewing Black Panther #1 (cover-dated January, 1977) wasn’t on my radar screen. It’s not that it’s a bad book, mind you — anything but — just that the schedule was already looking a little full, and while I left a few makeshift “slots” open to be filled by whatever struck my fancy, I was thinking those would most likely be a good fit for more obscure entries in the Jack Kirby canon like Dingbats Of  Danger Street or Manhunter.

And yet, it has to be said — while not too many people look back at Jack’s brief run chronicling T’Challa’s exploits in the late ’70s as one of the highlights of his career, in retrospect this was exactly the right direction for Marvel to take the character in at…

Sometimes, nothing beats a short, sweet, simple, self-contained comic book adventure story — and the next time you find yourself in the mood for exactly that, you could do a hell of a lot worse than issue number three of Jack Kirby’s last original Marvel Comics series, Devil Dinosaur.

Cover-dated June, 1978 and bearing the story title of “Giant,” about all you need to know about the basic premise going in is that Devil is an unusually large, unusually strong, and unusuallysmartprehistoric beast who took on a sort of bight, “fire-engine red” color due to — well, we won’t go there, since I’m not sure that particular part of his origin story necessarily stands up to even casual, much less anything approaching rigorous, logical scrutiny. It was painful as all hell for the poor creature, though, no doubt about that. His constant friend and companion is one…