Tag Archives: Cliff Chiang

Jun 8 2016

Paper Girls 6

paper girls 6

Today, Michael and Ryan M. are discussing Paper Girls 6, originally released June 1st, 2015.

Michael: I’d say that I had a pretty active imagination growing up – which is to say that I was a human child, really. Maybe it was due to a fascination with dinosaurs or an early notion of regret/paranoia at an early age, but I always loved time travel. Not just travelling to important moments in history but seeing what I would personally become in the future. After a brief hiatus, Paper Girls returns to semi-address my boyhood questions as Erin and her friends travel from 1988 to the present and meet her future self. Continue reading →

Jan 8 2016

Best of 2015: Best Artist

best artist 2015
Without artists, all of your favorite characters, scenes, costumes, and locations would just be words on a page. In short, they’re the ones that make comics comics. That’s a lot of responsibility, yet the best artists manage to juggle all of those tasks and inject some meaningful art and style into the proceedings. Whether its a subtle expression or a jaw-dropping action sequence, our favorite artists add the requisite magic to make their worlds and characters real. These are our top 10 artists of 2015.
Continue reading →

Jan 5 2016

Best of 2015: Best Covers

best covers 2015

You know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but that doesn’t mean you can’t judge the cover on its own merit. Some covers are so excellent that they pack all the drama, excitement and emotion of the whole issue into one succinct image. Sometimes they end up being their own surreal experience. And other times, we’re just exciting to see our favorite heroes kicking ass one more time. These are our top 10 covers of 2015. Continue reading →

Dec 9 2015

Paper Girls 3

paper girls 3

Today, Ryan D. and Michael are discussing Paper Girls 3, originally released December 2nd, 2015.

“Don’t trust anybody over 30.”

-Jack Weinberg

Ryan D: The Free Speech Movement, originally born out of the turmoil roiling in the belly of an America committed to both the Vietnam War and the tumultuous Civil Rights Movement, gave youths protesting a mantra regarding who is trustworthy and who is not. The original quote, spoken first in 1964 when an interviewer accused Weinberg and the Movement of being backed by Communists or some other nefarious group, asserts that people over a certain age always have an agenda. Though Paper Girls takes place twenty years after the FSM, this most recent issue’s reveal proves that the saying holds true, even in the far future, or alternate universes, or wherever it is that is invading the Earth in this ripping read. Continue reading →

Nov 6 2015

Paper Girls 2

paper girls 2

Today, Drew and Ryan M. are discussing Paper Girls 2, originally released November 4th, 2015.

Drew: How early in a narrative can you usually predict the ending? Usually, when we describe a narrative as “predictable” we mean that derisively, but most stories have prescribed endings — oftentimes, the genre of the story is enough to hint at the ending: how does a romantic comedy end? How about a murder mystery? What about a sports movie? There are obviously countless examples that subvert those expectations, but those play by the same rules — the ending can be flipped, sure, but the potential endings are still reduced down to a small handful of options. Unless, of course, that story “defies genre,” evading any of the pigeonholes that would dictate its ending (or at least evading them long enough for you to get sucked in). That’s exactly the case with Paper Girls 2, where the deepening mystery thwarts any expectations about what might happen next. Continue reading →

Oct 12 2015

Paper Girls 1

paper girls 1Today, Patrick and Spencer are discussing Paper Girls 1, originally released October 7th, 2015.

We all see what we want to see. Coffey looks and he sees Russians. He sees hate and fear. You have to look with better eyes than that.

Lindsey Brigman, The Abyss (1989)

Patrick: When The Abyss came out in 1989, the Cold War was still very much a part of the American Zeitgeist. So much so, that a James Cameron movie about underwater aliens necessarily had to address political tensions between the US and the Soviets and the fear of nuclear annihilation. Those themes are more clearly expressed in the lumpier director’s cut of the film, but even the theatrical release is colored with assumptions and anxieties specific to that period in time. I love The Abyss, but I probably didn’t see it until I was 11 or 12 (1994 sounds right), which means I was able to take it in from the other side of the Berlin Wall, and none of those relics of Cold War paranoia rang true to my personal experience. But rather than being alienating, those details tap into an existing international psychology, and create a world that is instantly recognizable as real, honest, and not so far outside the world we know. Paper Girls pulls a similar trick, filling the pages with 1988 details that don’t so much tell a story as set the scene for a story. Continue reading →

Jan 7 2015

Best of 2014: Best Series Part 2

Best of 2014: Best TitleWe all love a good one-off or anthology, but it’s the thrill of a series that keeps us coming back to our comic shop week-in, week-out. Whether it’s a decades-spanning ongoing or a short-run miniseries, serialized storytelling allows for bigger casts, bigger worlds, and bigger adventures. Indeed, we’re so enamored of serialization that we decided to split our favorite series list into two installments. Here’s part 2 our top 14 series of 2014 (click here for part 1).
Continue reading →

Jan 2 2015

Best of 2014: Best Artist

Best of 2014: Best ArtistWithout artists, all of your favorite characters, scenes, costumes, and locations would just be words on a page. In short, they’re the ones that make comics comics. That’s a lot of responsibility, yet the best artists manage to juggle all of those tasks and inject some meaningful art and style into the proceedings. Whether its a subtle expression or a jaw-dropping action sequence, our favorite artists add the requisite magic to make their worlds and characters real. These are our top 14 artists of 2014.
Continue reading →

Dec 31 2014

Best of 2014: Best Issue

Best of 2014: Best IssueEpisodic storytelling is the name of the game in monthly comics. Month- or even multi-year-long arcs are fine, but a series lives and dies by its individual chapters. From self-contained one-offs to issues that recontextualize their respective series, this year had a ton of great issues. Whittling down those issues to a list was no easy task (and we look forward to hearing how your lists differ in the comments), but we would gladly recommend any (and all) of these issues without hesitation. These are our top 14 issues of 2014.
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Oct 30 2014

Wonder Woman 35

Alternating Currents: Wonder Woman 35, Patrick and DrewToday, Patrick and Drew are discussing Wonder Woman 35, originally released October 29th, 2014

Patrick: A lot has been made of Hollywood’s apparent inability to adapt Wonder Woman for the screen. Is that driven by the sexism inherent in action film-making? Probably, in part. But Diana, Princess of the Amazons, suffers from a pretty severe case of “what the hell is she about?” We have easily understandable slug lines for just about any other bankable superhero: Batman is the mortal knight of vengeance; Superman is invincible alien boy scout, etc. There’s a how and a why expressed in both of those descriptions. Those attitudes have aged well, but for some reason, the essential nature of Wonder Woman is harder for creators to assert in perpetuity throughout the decades. What Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang have done in their 37 (and a half) issues of Wonder Woman is reassert just who this character is, and why her fundamental qualities are every bit as iconic as truth, justice and the American way. Continue reading →