Tag Archives: Derek Charm

Nov 20 2018

Defusing the Tension in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 38

By Drew Baumgartner

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 38

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

You guys, I love The Thing. That’s the John Carpenter movie, not Ben Grimm (though he’s cool, too). I’m a sucker for parlor mysteries in general, but the thought that “the killer” might actually be an imposter adds room for extra little twists that make the mysteries more mysterious and the tension more tense. Ryan North and Derek Charm play with this concept in the opening scene of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 38, as Doreen and her computationally-minded friends devise a perfectly logical means of verifying everyone’s true identity. In Squirrel Girl’s world, there’s no white-knuckle blood-test scene, just the shortest route to diffusing that tension. It’s a choice North and Charm make throughout the issue, and while it sounds like it would rob the scenes of drama, it actually helps keep the pace moving along at a dizzying clip. Continue reading →

Oct 12 2018

How The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 37 Hides Everything in Plain Sight

By Drew Baumgartner

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 37

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Doreen Green’s honesty is a key part of her character. It allows her to find nonviolent solutions to so many of her conflicts, helping her adversaries find a better path forward. But it also means she’s not great at subterfuge. It’s a weakness that Ryan North and Derek Charm lean into hilariously, as Doreen and Nancy don some truly absurd costumes in order to infiltrate Squirrel Girl’s own funeral.

Bass Lass and Fish Miss

As silly as these costumes are, they also reinforce Doreen’s natural honesty — she’s simply incapable of selling a lie convincingly. It’s a philosophy that North and Charm use to inform the whole aesthetic of the series, which tends to overshare and lampshade niggling details we might have otherwise overlooked. But unlike Doreen’s compulsive honesty, North and Charm can use our trust against us, landing a thrilling twist in this issue’s final page. Continue reading →

Jul 16 2018

The Many Irreconcilable Definitions of Redemption in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 34

By Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Kraven the Hunter is not only the very first enemy Doreen Green defeated way back when Ryan North and Erica Henderson launched The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, but he’s also the first enemy she reformed. Unlike the other villains whose lives Doreen has helped turn around, Kraven has continued to pop up as a recurring character ever since, allowing the creative team to explore life after redemption and just what, exactly, Kraven looks like as a “good guy.” With this image now firmly in place, North and artist Derek Charm use The Unbeatable Squirrel 34 to muddy and complicate it in fascinatingly complex and nuanced ways. What redemption means for Kraven may not be the same for Doreen, or Spider-Man, or the police, or the people of NYC, and there may simply be no way to reconcile these various viewpoints.  Continue reading →

May 11 2018

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 32: Discussion

by Taylor Anderson and Michael DeLaney

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 32

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Taylor: Usually when I go to work, I wear contact lenses instead of glasses. Generally, that’s a decision I make based on comfort, or more accurately, on how late I wake up that morning. This being so, people at work don’t see me in my glasses that often and frequently express surprise that I’m bespectacled. My students think it’s hilarious to lovingly (I think) mock me by calling me “Professor Anderson” in their best nerd voice when they see my Clark Kent look. This just shows that superficial changes to one’s appearance often lead to you being seen differently, and the same can be said of comics. Being a visual medium, how things look matters. And when that look changes, it’s a total gambit as to whether it works or not. Continue reading →

Sep 8 2017

Young Readers Will Love Star Wars Adventures 1

by Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

One of the most valuable lessons anyone can keep in mind when consuming media is that not everything is for you. Different works have different target audiences, and just because a particular work doesn’t appeal to you specifically doesn’t mean it doesn’t have worth. I’ve always felt like this has been a problem especially in mainstream comics, where attempts at books for all ages or younger readers are met with derision from some of the more entitled fans. We need younger readers to keep this medium alive, and kids deserve stories created especially for them — it makes no sense to judge those books by the same standards we would titles aimed at adults. That’s something I had to keep in mind while reading Star Wars Adventures 1 — I am decidedly not the target audience for this book, but I’m glad it exists nonetheless. Continue reading →

Jul 5 2017

Crisis Reveals Character in Jughead 16

by Ryan Mogge

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

When things are at their most dire, it can be surprising who will step up. Crisis allows people to drop their posturing and bluster and actively work on a shared goal. In Jughead 16, Ian Flynn, Mark Waid and Derek Charm show a new side of Reggie Mantle by putting Jughead in crisis. Continue reading →

May 24 2017

Jughead 15

Today, Ryan M. and Patrick are discussing Jughead 15, originally released May 17th, 2017. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Ryan M: If fiction is to be believed, magic is dangerous. If a character starts dabbling in magic, it is not long before a wise elder tells them to be careful, that there are consequences. Sure, a parlor trick is fun, but the power inherent in breaking natural laws can easily get out of control. Magic can consume your soul, inspire a sense of megalomania and, sometimes, make you a sidekick in your own comic series. When Sabrina casts a spell in Jughead 15, our title character is lost in the shuffle even as he inspires and amphitheater of admirers.

Continue reading →

Apr 10 2017

Jughead 14

Today, Ryan D. and Taylor are discussing Jughead 14, originally released April 5th, 2017. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Ryan D: After five years of teaching high school, it became clear to me that I do not envy teenagers in this decade. Kids have an entirely new plane for making mistakes to which I was not privy in the early 2000s — one which revolves around the ubiquitous little pocket-computer everyone has now, coupled with unlimited internet access and an expectation to hold a social media presence. Technology is, in many ways, a blessing and provides opportunities beyond our dreams less than twenty years ago, back when the world-wide web pretty much just hosted cool websites like “HampsterDance,” but I can only imagine the trouble I would have gotten into if I were sixteen today. Jughead Jones finds himself in a predicament in issue fourteen, a very modern problem, and he just can’t seem to please everyone when the internet is involved.

Continue reading →

Jan 18 2017

Jughead 12

Today, Ryan M. and Spencer are discussing Jughead 12, originally released January 11th, 2017. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Ryan M: Cliques get a bad rap. The term itself conjures groups of snotty teens keeping out the riffraff and wearing coordinated charm bracelets. But, really, a clique is just a group of friends with shared interests that hang out consistently. The chemistry of clique is essential. I can think of a few times that a friend group went through a few permutations before settling into a regular crew or times that I floated in and out of a group’s orbit without getting pulled in. Even when a friend group (see how concise and useful the word clique is?) is steady and cemented, you can still wonder why it hangs together at all. Ryan North explores the group dynamics of the Archie gang in Jughead 12 by focusing on the two characters least likely to get along: Jughead and Reggie. Continue reading →