Long before manga publisher Viz dope-slapped American pop culture with the juvenile juggernauts Pokemon and Naruto, they gave us the racy Crying Freeman. From 1986, this is a comic series that sits like a juicy stromboli among the publisher’s more recent, fruitier offerings. In other words, it’s full of stuff that’s really bad for you: [...]

I’m a big fan of delayed gratification. Like when rewards elude me, or when my schedule keeps pizza, television and the girlfriend just out of arm’s reach (pizza and Arianna hate me right now; television never loved me). My brain grows radioactive with desire. The anticipation of release cranks exponentially tighter. Then, suddenly– –I’m finally, [...]

I’ve been steering clear of featuring brand new comics, since recapping them takes up more space than it’s worth. But I’m proud to make an exception for this week’s Batman and Robin, an issue of mourning for Damian, Bruce Wayne’s latest teen sidekick. Damian was a different kind of Robin, however, since he was actually [...]

Once upon a time, Captain America was a werewolf. Do you really need to know any more? Why, yes. You certainly do. This here prime cut of absurdity, straight out of the day-glo 90s, marks my first post of a comic story that’s “so bad it’s good,” a phrase better applied to films. It hails [...]

Such is the noir humor of Slam Bradley, the pugilistic private eye whose 1937 Detective Comics debut beat Batman’s first appearance by two years. In 2001, writer Ed Brubaker (Sleeper) artist Darwyn Cooke (The New Frontier) got him standing for another round, this time to hunt for the supposedly dead Seline Kyle. You might know [...]

Well, a comic called Skullkickers couldn’t go unexplored forever. But I sure did avoid the Image publication, written by Jim Zub and drawn by Edwin Huang, as if goblin guts ran from its pages. The reason for such negligence? The simple answer is that I already own and read too much, and could continue this [...]