The end, as they say, is nigh.

It’s been quite the first season for the DC Universe original streaming series Doom Patrol, has it not? And in the next-to-last (and fourteenth) episode, appropriately titled “Penultimate Patrol,” we’re treated to the return of old friends (Danny The Street) and old foes (Tommy Snider’s cringe-worthy, and now apparently reformed, Beard Hunter), but by and large the focus here is on the team — and, yes, now it really is a team — and the culmination of their own personal journeys, quite literally.

Yes indeed, everything “showrunner” Jeremy Carver has been building toward reaches a customarily-bizarre crescendo here, with Alan Tudyk’s Mr. Nobody being treated/subject to some revelatory period-piece “backstory” of his own here (superbly realized by director Rebecca Rodriguez) before placing each of our “Doom Patrolers” at the precise moment before the accidents/incidents that changed their lives and offering them, in…

There’s a particular line in Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell that has always stuck with me : Netley, who’s assisting the Moore/Campbell iteration of Jack The Ripper, Sir William Withey Gull, with his monstrous work is having an entirely understandable existential freak-out and says “I don’t know where I am anymore,” to which Gull replies that they are in a “radiant abyss where men meet themselves.”

I suppose that must be true. When you do something that’s so far beyond the pale, so undeniably evil, then you’re forced to confront yourself , to acknowledge what you’re capable of, to either live with it or go completely insane — maybe both.

In more recent years, another diamond-sharp Moore line that resonated deeply came in his superb Lovecraftian masterpiece done with artist Jacen Burrows, Providence, which at one of its most harrowing points shows its protagonist, Robert Black, sexually…

For some cartoonists, 16 pages is all it takes to fully transport readers into a new and unfamiliar frame of mind that they come to know as intimately as their own (for good, ill, or both) by the time it’s over.

Well, okay, maybe for one cartoonist — that cartoonist being the remarkable Tana Oshima.

I raved about one of Oshima’s previous self-published efforts, Vagabond, on this very site in the none-too-distant past, but now she has two new minis soon to be released, both boasting superb production values (heavy-duty paper between thick, card-stock covers) and yours truly is genuinely honored to provide you, dear reader, with advance reviews of both. Filthy is the logical of the two (the other being Masquerade) to start with in that it both expands upon and, remarkably, deepens themes that carry over from Vagabond — namely the alienation, isolation, and de facto

And so the moment has come : the thirteenth episode of the DC Universe streaming series Doom Patrol, appropriately titled “Flex Patrol,” finally introduces us, in proper fashion, to Grant Morrison and Richard Case’s (and, some would argue, Frank Quitely’s) so-called “Man Of Muscle Mystery,” Flex Mentallo, after several hints, and an amnesia-riddled debut last week. Was the moment worth waiting for?

The quick answer to that is “yes,” not least because Devan Chandler Long really sinks his teeth into the role of the meta-human molded after Charles Atlas’ “Hero Of The Beach,” but also because script-writers Tom Farrell and Tamara Becher-Wilkinson imbue his backstory with a generous helping of legit pathos that sees him go from “Ant Farm” refugee to ebullient returned champion to unhinged vehicle of pure rage (and not without good reason) by the time all is said and done.

Except, ya know, nothing is said…

You may not have known — I certainly didn’t, and I pride myself on being something of an expert on movie minutiae — that William Wyler’s 1942 Oscar-winning cinematic classic, Mrs. Miniver, was followed by a sequel, The Miniver Story, in 1950, but that’s okay : Michael Aushenker did, and he decided that one lame follow-up probably deserved another,

Mind you, his 2016 self-published comic, Professor Mrs. Miniver, is intentionally lame, and that makes all the difference in the world. Aushenker hails from the “batshit-crazy slapstick” school of cartooning, and as such, his sensibilities are pretty well right in tune for a project of this sort — which only makes sense, I suppose, given that he’s the one who came up with it, amirite?

Well, yeah, I am — it happens sometimes — but the laughs in this one, plentiful as they are, may fall just a…

It’s no secret that Chicago’s Alex Nall is one of my favorite cartoonists on the face of the goddamn planet. I’ve previously reviewed his long-form works Teaching Comics Volume One, Let Some Word That Is Heard Be Yours, and Lawns on this site, but for this week’s Round-Up column we’re going to look at four of his mins, not least because two of ’em are brand new and you should get your hands on them by whatever means possible! Or, ya know, just head over to his Storenvy site and see what he’s got, or bug him for what he doesn’t until he does. Here’s a link for that :http://alexnallcomics.storenvy.com/products

The Rain Is Slow Coming is one of his brand new ones, a wistful and lyrical “love letter” from a farmer to his daughter about the land they’re barely hanging onto by the skin of their teeth…

There needs to be a new word word in the English language for something less than a fixed and deliberate “event” and more than a random, happenstance “occurrence.” A middle ground of some sort that defines things that are happening, but are just — I dunno, happening.

Cartoonist and musician Christopher Adams has, to date, self-published two issues of his apparently-ongoing series Tack Piano Heaven, and if somebody does come up with this new word, it would describe the succession of less-than-events-more-than-occurrences that play out in its pages perfectly, but until then — shit, I’m kind of a loss to do so. I’ll do my best, but fair warning : it may not be good enough.

Which is, of course, what makes this comic so exciting and interesting — it’s literally impossible to pin down. Adams lays out pages in a way you’ve never seen before, intercuts his…

Ariel Cooper’s first self-published comic, Ghost Sickness, blew me away. Her second, Castle Of The Beast (sub-titled A Theory Of Time Travel) goes even further, shattering your view of the so-called “fourth dimension” and re-assembling it into something immediately and intrinsically familiar, but nevertheless altogether different. And I say this, mind you, as somebody who’s felt that the concept of time was complete bullshit pretty much since I was a teenager.

Linear time has been assaulted from every angle in the not-too-distant “past” — scientific treatises from Stephen Hawking, anarchist broadsides from John Zerzan, and 1,300-page literary masterworks from Alan Moore have all taken a crack at the foundations of its crumbling edifice — but Cooper is taking a different tack, presenting a work of art that makes you feel your way toward a better, deeper, and yes, more accurate understanding of the ultimately undefinable force…

Here’s the thing about Seattle cartoonist Kalen Knowles — yes, his stuff is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. And yes, some of it’s admirably and astonishingly weird. Anyone even mildly familiar with his work knows these things. What’s less remarked upon, though, at least as far as I can tell, is how — dare I invoke the term — heartwarming a whole lot of it is.

He’s also well-attuned to the perspective of the genuine outcast and outsider, the person (or, more often, creature) who simply doesn’t fit in, who stands apart, whose individuality can’t really be subsumed under layers of “going along to get along” deliberate obfuscation. Combine that sympathetic understanding with that penchant for the — again with the dread word — heartwarming, and the results can be pretty special, indeed. Example number one of this was Journal, the innovatively-told story of Atticus the squid boy previously reviewed…

After a long period of silence and speculation, iconoclastic small-press mainstay publisher 2dcloud has re-emerged with their 2019 kickstarter campaign. I recently spoke with co-publisher/founder Raighne (the surname “Hogan” is no more) about matters past, present, and future. Full disclosure : I’m rooting for their campaign to be successful and plan on contributing myself, but there are a number of people in the small-press community who feel that they’d like some more concrete answers as to what’s going on before they make the decision of whether or not to back the campaign themselves. His answers here may or may not satisfy, but after well over a year of shying away from anything resembling the “limelight,” it’s important, I feel, to give Hogan the chance to answer some questions so that people can make an informed decision on whether or not they wish to support his company’s efforts going forward.

For…