Author Archives: shelbykpeterson

Jun 26 2014

Saga 20

saga 20Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing Saga 20, originally released June 25th, 2014.

Shelby: I have a friend who always flips to last page of a comic book first before he reads it. I know, I can hear your millions of voices crying out in terror at the thought, but he says knowing the ending means he looks forward to it while he’s reading. I’ll always give him shit for it, but in a way I can see where he’s coming from. There’s a certain appeal to the anticipation that comes from knowing where the story will end up. Brian K. Vaughan gave us that in last month’s issue of Saga, and now we’re stuck with this building anticipation for an ending we don’t actually want. In case you were hoping last month’s, “This is the story about how my parents split up,” was a mean trick on Vaughan’s part (Suzanne, I think you might have been hoping that), this issue will definitely crush that hope, and I mean that in the best way I possibly can.

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Jun 23 2014

Thunderbolts 27

thunderbolts 27Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Thunderbolts 26, originally released May 28th, 2014.

Shelby: It’s really hard to write about a new creative team on a title; how do you manage to discuss the book as a stand-alone piece without comparing it to the previous issues? It’s even harder when you liked the title before the change, because now you have to make sure you stay objective. If there are things I dislike about the new team, is it because I genuinely dislike it, or is it just because it’s different from how it used to be? I’m faced with this dilemma now as I consider the first issue of Thunderbolts without Charles Soule at the helm, and some of the decisions Ben Acker and Ben Blacker have made with this book definitely have me scratching my head.

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Jun 20 2014

Wonder Woman 32

wonder woman 32Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Wonder Woman 32, originally released June 18th, 2014.

Shelby: Often times for me, the hardest part about writing any of these posts is this very intro. I always want to find some overarching theme in the issue, or one relevant anecdote from my past to broadly introduce the issue. I used to write the intro last on a regular basis, so I could find that one theme as I was writing. I couldn’t possibly use that approach with this post, however. Brian Azzarello has given me so many individual moments to get excited about this issue, the best I can do at coming up with a unifying theme is to marvel at how beautifully the pieces fit together to create the whole.

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Jun 16 2014

Lumberjanes 3

lumberjanes 3Today, Shelby and Taylor are discussing Lumberjanes 3, originally released June 11th, 2014. 

slim-bannerShelby: As much as I enjoy Do-si-dos, I was never a Girl Scout. I grew up on a farm in rural northern Wisconsin, so the FFA (that’s Future Farmers of America) and 4-H were the dominant players in my household. While I never went to camp or earned badges, I can still recite the 4-H pledge from memory, so I understand the impact and importance of scout-type organizations for kids. While 4-H is for both boys and girls, and you’re just as likely to see gals struggling to show a stubborn heifer at the county fair as boys, I definitely appreciate that there are scouting and excursion groups for girls as well as boys; you may not have realized this, but I strongly support equal opportunities for both genders. Even if the series weren’t crazy and fun, I would appreciate Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis’ Lumberjanes for this very reason. Oh, and if you were wondering:

I pledge my Head to clearer thinking,
my Heart to greater loyalty,
my Hands to larger service,
and my Health to better living,
in my club, my community, my country, and my world.

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Jun 13 2014

Batman Eternal 10

batman eternal 10

Today, Shelby leads a discussion on Batman Eternal 10, originally released June 11th, 2014.

Shelby: I have some friends who are legitimate circus performers, one a pole dancer and the other a trapeze artist, and so I naturally have attended a cabaret-style circus performance held in an old warehouse. It was exactly as awesome as it sounds, with acrobats of every flavor, a hoop dancer, clowns, and a juggler. This guy was incredible, he used a rainbow array of balls that lit up, and they shut off all the lights in the place so all we could see were the glowing orbs and the trails they left behind. Comic books aren’t totally dissimilar; we don’t see the creators specifically, just the art they leave for us. Also, sometimes it feels like a team is juggling waaaaaaay too many ideas, and it’s only a matter of time before things fall apart. Continue reading →

Jun 9 2014

Black Widow 7

black widow 7Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Black Widow 7, originally released June 4th, 2014. 

slim-bannerShelby: Sometimes it takes other people to really see something about a character.  Seeing a character’s actions and internal monologue when it’s separate from others can almost numb you towards that character’s actions. It’s with the inclusion of another point of view that you suddenly realize the character is not all right, or that they need more help than even they realize. If there’s any character out there who needs more help than they realize, it’s gotta be Nathan Edmondson’s Black Widow.

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Jun 5 2014

The Wake 9

wake 9 Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing The Wake 9 originally released June 4th, 2014. Shelby: Death is a pretty easy way to end a story. In most mediums, you wouldn’t be wrong to say it’s the ultimate end of a story; dead is dead, right? We’ve learned time and time again, however, that comic books play by their own, messier set of rules when it comes to the death of a character. Usually it’s an eye-rolling sort of resurrection we all begrudgingly saw coming a mile away. Sometimes, like in Charles Soule’s last issue of Thunderbolts, we love the “just kidding, not dead!” moment despite knowing with complete certainty it was coming. Sometimes, though, the death/not death of a character catches us so off guard we don’t know where to go next. That shock is exactly what I got at the end of Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy’s penultimate issue of The Wake. In case you didn’t catch my drift (ocean puns!): here be spoilers. Continue reading →

Jun 3 2014

Inhuman 2

inhumanity 2Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing Inhuman 2, originally released May 28th, 2014

Shelby: Serialized media has it’s pros and cons. I rather like having to wait a bit between installments; as long as the wait isn’t too long, and I know when I’m going to get my next chunk of the story, that waiting period adds delicious tension to the tale. I think it also makes things more special, having to wait for them; anticipation can definitely make things sweeter. But, like everything, there’s a downside to dragging a story out over months; when the reader wonders, “wait, is this still happening?” when we’re only on issue 2 of the book, you know there’s a problem.

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May 29 2014

Superman 31

superman 31Today, Shelby and Scott are discussing Superman 31, originally released May 28th, 2014.

Shelby: I hate being in the way. Like, to the point of anxiety: if I’m with people, trying to help, but just getting in the way, I have a really hard time with it. It’s frustrating on two levels; not only am I not helping like I want to be, I’m probably making things harder by being in the way. Apparently, I’m just like Superman; he’s infected with Doomsday spores, and while all he wants to do is, you know, help save the world over and over, he’s stuck being in the way. And by the way, I mean threatening everyone and everything around him. Heads up, I’m not reading Superman OR Doomed, so I am definitely approaching this from an outsider’s viewpoint.

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May 27 2014

American Vampire: Second Cycle 3

american vampire 3Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing American Vampire: Second Cycle 2, originally released May 21st, 2014.

Shelby: Appropriately enough, I watched Bram Stoker’s Dracula last night. In the movie, Vlad the Impaler becomes a vampire after desecrating a chapel, denouncing God, and drinking the blood that pours from a cross he himself stabbed. That’s why crosses make them recoil and pieces of the Sacrament burn; their powers are derived from the Devil. Despite this connection, American Vampire: Second Cycle finds our blood-thirsty protagonist being hunted by the Devil himself. If you know the world Scott Snyder created with his first cycle of American Vampire, though, it’s not all that surprising. The American vampires have had a rebellious, outlaw streak in them ever since the first one came around.

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