Category Shelby Peterson

Shelby Peterson, Editor, Designer
shelby@retcon-punch.com

Location: Chicago

History With Comics: While the X-Men will always hold a special place in her heart, Shelby’s first love was Batman. Between Michael Keaton and Kevin Conroy, she fell hard. Like many, her first graphic novel was The Watchmen in college, followed by a handful of the Batman must-reads. Fast forward to last year: Shelby discovered the awesomeness of the DC universe through Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern Rebirth and Blackest Night. She once again fell in love with a comic book character, but this time it was Neil Gaiman’s Morpheus from his Sandman series, and now all her thoughts are translated into 8 or 9 panels per page with the occasional 2-page spread.

New 52 Favorites: Batgirl, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Batman

Other Favorite Comics:

Jan 30 2013

Superboy Annual 1

superboy annual 1

Today, Shelby and guest Freakin’ Animal Man are discussing Superboy Annual 1, originally released January 23rd, 2013. This issue is part of the H’el on Earth crossover event. Click here for complete H’el on Earth coverage.

Shelby: I’m usually pretty excited for annuals. They’re an extra opportunity to spend time with the books I’m reading; about twice as long, and often separate from the main continuity, for me annuals are a fun, special thing to read. Lately, however, my streak with annuals has not been so great. I hated the New Guardians annual, because it was so removed from main continuity as to be an intro to a new book. Moreover, DC led me to believe otherwise by showing me a cover featuring Kyle, and then changing the coloring slightly to have the cover actually feature Jedidiah Caul of Threshold. I’ve got a similar complaint here with the Superboy annual; DC promised me Rose Wilson, daughter of Slade Wilson a.k.a. Deathstroke, and gave me a regular issue stretched out to annual length by repeating the same terrible dialogue and character posturing over and over again. Continue reading →

Jan 29 2013

Before Watchmen – Minutemen 6

minutemen 6 B4W

Today, Shelby and Michael are discussing Minutemen 6, originally released January 23rd, 2013. Minutemen is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Shelby: You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. When it comes to delicious, delicious cake, you can either have it in your hands or eat it so it’s gone forever. Sometimes, your only options are mutually exclusive of each other, and you just have to decide which option you value more. Unless you are Darwyn Cooke: then you will manage to find a way to satisfactorily appease every concern I have regarding the conclusion of Minutemen, even when the answers I want seem to contradict each other.
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Jan 28 2013

Wonder Woman 16

wonder woman 16

Today, Shelby and guest writer James D’Amato are discussing Wonder Woman 16, originally released January 23rd, 2012.

Shelby: Gods, gods everywhere. Brian Azzarello does not take a “less is more” approach when it comes to the pantheon; we’ve got old gods, older gods, demigods, new gods, and non-gods. Not to mention ice giants and cyborg women. If it all sounds a little confusing, well, it is; Azzarello is juggling a lot of chainsaws with Wonder Woman. On top of it all, we’ve still got the $64,000 question that everyone seems to have forgotten about: where is Zeus?
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Jan 28 2013

FF 1-3

ff 1-3

Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing FF 1-3, originally released November 28th, 2012, December 19th, 2012, and January 23rd, 2013.

Shelby: What do you do when things go wrong? When something doesn’t happen the way you’ve planned, how do you react? If you thought ahead and have a back-up plan, there’s nothing to worry about. But what if you are the back-up plan? What if you are the one who has to step up when things fall apart and figure out how to hold everything together? Between FF and Fantastic Four, Matt Fraction shows us both sides of the coin, and it gives him an opportunity to tell a pretty unusual kind of story.

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Jan 28 2013

Green Lantern: New Guardians 16

new guardians 16-3rd

Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing New Guardians 16, originally released January 23rd, 2013. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage. 

Shelby: It’s finally time for Kyle Rainer to learn to master the power of love. He’s saved it for last because it is the most difficult, but why is that? Surely rage or greed or even fear would be much harder to command and control. While the more negative end of the emotional spectrum is difficult to control, it is easy to feel. I know I feel ready to puke red-hot plasma just about every morning on the commuter train to work. The difficulty of love lies in the challenge of letting yourself experience love. It’s an emotion that be very painful to the person feeling it; sometimes it’s just easier to block it out entirely. Kyle learns the hard way: you can’t master an emotion you are afraid to let yourself feel.

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Jan 25 2013

Green Lantern 16

green lantern 16-3rd

Today, Patrick and Shelby are discussing Green Lantern 15, originally released January 23rd, 2013. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage. 

Patrick: At the beginning of this issue, Simon Baz takes a thorough tongue-lashing from (adorable) veteran Lantern B’dg. The little guy is all about the accusatory questions: “Who are you?” “Where’s your lantern?” and, my personal favorite:

b'dg thinks Baz is a bad green lantern

But Baz isn’t bad; he’s just new to the position. Everything from fighting bad guys to trusting his powers to meeting the Justice League is new to him. And in a medium so caught up in what is old — and especially caught up in the task of making old things new again — it’s interesting to see what such a fresh character is capable of.

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Jan 24 2013

Batwoman 16

Today, Drew and Jack are discussing Batwoman 16, originally released January 23rd, 2013.

Drew: The notion that myths gain their power from our belief in them has been a primary focus of Batwoman in the New 52. It’s a theme that has come up explicitly in the text — as Maro conjures the myths that haunt our dreams, and as Kate seeks out the myths that inspire us to greatness — as well as implicitly in our analyses. Indeed, we’ve made the case that comics are modern mythology so often, I’d forgotten what “myth” might mean besides “story.” It’s parsing that very detail that makes Batwoman 16 such a pleasure to read, as J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman remind us of the pleasures of form afforded to modern storytelling. Continue reading →

Jan 22 2013

Saga 9

Alternating Currents: Saga 9, Drew and Shelby

Today, Drew and Shelby are discussing Saga 9, originally released January 16th, 2013.

Drew: My trumpet teacher used to talk about the “Ascending Spiral Groove Thang,” the notion that you can gain a lot from an idea by returning to it after you have different experiences to relate it to. He was using it as a (valid) justification for retreading the same lessons for his advanced players that he gave to his beginners, but I often think about it in terms of appreciating narratives. Many stories that I enjoyed well enough as a kid became significantly more meaningful once I had my own experiences with loss, heartbreak, or leaving home. Of course, I’m a far cry from having seen it all, and nothing reminds me of that more than parenting stories. Whether they feature uptight professionals (or lazy slobs) whose lives are turned upside down by an adorable street urchin, or a good old-fashioned “we’re having a baby!” story, the moral is always the same: having a kid changes everything. I suspect these stories keep being told because artists keep experiencing it — a kind of “no, seriously: HAVING A KID CHANGES EVERYTHING” — and because the stories themselves can never really do the experience justice, all of which leaves me feeling like I’m probably missing something all parents just get. Fortunately, that ignorance doesn’t prevent me from enjoying said narratives, as Saga 9 so ably demonstrates. Continue reading →

Jan 21 2013

Indestructible Hulk 1-3

hulk 1-3

Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing Indestructible Hulk 1-3, originally released November 21st, 2012, December 19th, 2012, and January 16, 2013.

Shelby: The Hulk is not a complex character. He exists as rage incarnate, smashing his way through everything in his path, and basically unstoppable once he gets started. There’s no ulterior motive, no hidden agenda, no personality, just smashsmashsmash. He makes for some sweet action sequences, but that’s about it. The Hulk gets interesting when you consider his relationship with Bruce Banner. Because Banner can basically turn into a nuclear bomb at any moment, he doesn’t exactly get invited to a lot of backyard barbecues; his life has been spent in isolation, desperately seeking a cure for his chronic Hulk-itis. Mark Waid has decided enough is enough for sad science Banner, and is pointing both Banner and the Hulk in a whole new direction.
Continue reading →

Jan 21 2013

Captain America 1-3

captain america 1-3

Today, Patrick and Shelby are discussing Captain America 1-3, originally released November 21th, December 19th, 2012 and January 16th, 2013.

Patrick: Captain America is a character defined by his time. Other characters may be products of the time during which their creators were writing them – Superman, Wolverine, Deadpool, Hal Jordan – all of these guys bear the stamps of the decades they were introduced. But that Captain America concept is frozen in time, locked in place by a character-defining opportunity to kick Nazi-ass. So how does one update the intentionally old-fashioned? It’s not even like you can just drop Steve Rogers into a modern American military conflict and watch the action play out: we’re not exactly storming beaches anymore. So where’s an old soldier supposed to feel at home? Why, a dangerous, barren wasteland that ignores the laws of physics, of course!

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