Quarantined Comics

This week we are reading Matt Wagner's GRENDEL...or at least the Grendel Omnibus, the first part of a MUCH longer running series of noir comics - which ultimately evolved into a study on the nature of aggression. But for us, Grendel is just an anti-hero that poses the question, what if Batman were a viiglante mob boss with a sweet double pointy stick (don't forget the orphaned little girl and the Native American werewolf arch-nemeisis who uses his violent compulsions for good). Grendel was...

This week we are reading IN WAVES, by AJ Dungo. An equally informative and heartbreaking sober work of a young man's love, along with a history lesson. This book is NOT just about the history of surfing, tracing the tales of Duke Kahanamoku and Thomas Blake,...it's also a heartfelt recollection of young love and loss, as the author recounts his time with his girlfriend Kristen, who succumbed to cancer. A beautifully heavy book that caught me off guard a couple of years ago, and continues to...

As a high schooler, the cartoonist Derf Backderf was part of a fan club that formed around one of his more eccentric friends: Jeffrey Dahmer, who eventually grew up to be one of America's most infamous serial killers. In "My Friend Dahmer," Backderf recounts what it was like growing up with Dahmer in that particular milieu, and tries to unravel the sequence of events that made Dahmer the monster he ultimately became. More recently, Backderf leant his storytellilng powers to unraveling the...

はるか昔、はるか遠くの銀河で... (a long time ago in a galaxy far far away...) These ARE droids you're looking for my dear Padawans! This week we're veering BACK veering off course - this time to a galaxy far far away for STAR WARS VISIONS - the new Disney+ series of nine anime shorts where the Japanese have their way with some sweet sweet Lucasfilm IP. Featuring fanime tropes like extreme destruction, long fight scenes, ridiculously reimagined lightsabers, super cute anthroporphized robots, and/or...

A man returns home to his empty childhood home and calls an old friend. A woman gets an office job. A boy is inspired by his mother's old friend. The stories of Chris Reynolds seem steeped in the mundane... and then they go way off the rails, hinting at such strange phenomena as time travel, a secret cult, and alien invasions. But his stories just hint at such extraordinary activities. If you're the type who wants answers from your comics, Chris Reynolds is not the sort of cartoonist who...

This week we masked up and hit some empty-off-hour theaters, so we could talk about Shang Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings, the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Based on the 1972 comics of the same name based on a VERY different context / pretense, Marvel's Shang Chi is a completely new story, carrying over only a some surface level elements of the source material. The latest comic book film to strike our fancy, Shang Chi was directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, and...

This week we are FINALLY reading DRAGON HOOPS, written and illustrated by Gene Luen Yang. DRAGON HOOPS won a 2020 Eisner Award (the Oscars for comics, and not Yang's first). The book is a nonfiction account of the high school basketball team - Oakland's Bishop O'Dowd Dragons - where Yang was a teacher before we went full time into comics. Yang's not a fan of the sportsballs - which is what makes it such a great book about sports, and taking big steps.

This week, we review "No Longer Human," adapted by famed horror creator Junji Ito from Osamu Dazai's semi-autobiographical novel. It's a deep dive into awful way depression and social anxiety impact the life of a man named Oba Yozo, whose ways of dealing with his problems inevitably drags down anyone with the misfortune of being associated with him. While "No Longer Human" seems on the surface different from Ito's other work — the monsters are mostly internal rather than external, and the...

This week we are reading "I Am Not Starfire" written by Mariko Tamaki and artist Yoshi Yoshitani. Many would argue would Tamaki (someone we've read numerous books by) is one of our generation's best voices on growing up in this increasingly strange world....so for DC to tap her to relate to one of their most popular characters, is an intriguing concept. I AM NOT STARFIRE tells the tale Mandy, a 17 year old who is NOTHING like her of super-famous superhero Starfire....a tall, gorgeous,...

This week we are reading "Year of the Rabbit" - written and illustrated by Tian Veasna. The book is an autobiographical depiction of the author's family journey in Cambodia, from the moment he Khmer Rouge took power...three days before his birth. Taking place in the late 1970s, the book is a harrowing, triggering account of one family's journey to make sense of, attempt escape, and survive what is now regarded as one of the great human disasters of the 20th century, that most people don't...

In Grass, Gendry-Kim tells the real-life account of a Lee Ok-sun, who was forced into sexual slavery as a young girl during World War II. And in The Waiting, she tells the story of a family suddenly torn apart when Korea was divided between North and South — a fictionalization based in Gendry-Kim's own research and family history. Each is an emotional gut punch. The legacies of both the comfort women and of the country's split is both traumatic and heavily politicized, both of which greatly...

Y: THE LAST MAN is an award-winning, post-apocalyptic sci-fi comic series by Brian K. Vaughan (Saga, Lost, Paper Girls) and Pia Guerra published from 2002 through 2008 by DC's Vertigo imprint, and soon to be adapted to a live-action TV series on FX / Hulu - https://youtu.be/0EEQ5Lj-cXM Written in the heart of the post-9/11 era, Y centers on the realities of a seemingly far-fetched scenario - when a mysterious global pandemic wipes out millions...in this case ALL male mammals on the planet...

This week, we're reading THE SUMMIT OF THE GODS (神々の山嶺, Kamigami no Itadaki) - an early 2000s manga by Jiro Taniguchi, based on a novel and script by Baku Yumemakura. The series traces several climbers' journeys across decades around the world - from the European Alps, to the peaks of Japan, to the Himalayas of Nepal and Tibet - all bookended by the greatest summit - Everest. The story is told from the modern perspective of Fukamachi, a photojournalist who finds a camera which may change the...

This week we're reading MARVELS, the 1994 mini series by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross. MARVELS retells he origins of the Marvel Universe from a decidedly... pedestrian point of view. Over 4 volumes, we traverse New York City through the decades, from the eve of World War 2 and the first appearance of larger than life heroes, to the 60s and 70s when superheroes were a part of mainstream pop culture. Guiding us on our journey is Phil Sheldon, a photojournalist obsessed with these "Marvels" ...as...

As you might know, Raman also hosts the podcast MODERN MINORITIES, where each week Raman + QC-pal Sharon hope to generate greater empathy and understanding through the stories of others minority experiences. One of our all time favorite comics is GOOD TALK, by Mira Jacob - a moving, autobiographical take on Mira’s conversations with her son, husband, family, and friends about race in Obama and Trump’s America. After reviewing the book on Quarantined Comics...

During Quarantined Comics “summer hiatus” (Ryan in a Korean gulag, Raman changing more diapers), we wanted to make sure you still got your sweet, sweet weekly comics content, so we’re proud to share Raman’s OTHER comic book podcast project “CHARACTER STUDY” -with friend-of-the-pod Paresh Jha. Character Study is a 4-part series that examines the history of DICK GRAYSON (aka Robin, aka Nightwing), the other half of Batman’s dynamic duo. CHAPTER 4: “Batman gets Dicked!” - looking under the cowl...

During Quarantined Comics “summer hiatus” (Ryan in a Korean gulag, Raman changing more diapers), we wanted to make sure you still got your sweet, sweet weekly comics content, so we’re proud to share Raman’s OTHER comic book podcast project “CHARACTER STUDY” -with friend-of-the-pod Paresh Jha. Character Study is a 4-part series that examines the history of DICK GRAYSON (aka Robin, aka Nightwing), the other half of Batman’s dynamic duo. CHAPTER 3: "Night-wing' it (There will be Blüd)" - we...

During Quarantined Comics “summer hiatus” (Ryan in a Korean gulag, Raman changing more diapers), we wanted to make sure you still got your sweet, sweet weekly comics content, so we’re proud to share Raman’s OTHER comic book podcast project “CHARACTER STUDY” -with friend-of-the-pod Paresh Jha. Character Study is a 4-part series that examines the history of DICK GRAYSON (aka Robin, aka Nightwing), the other half of Batman’s dynamic duo. CHAPTER 2: “From Teen Wonder to Disco-collar!" - relating...

_During Quarantined Comics “summer hiatus” (Ryan in a Korean gulag, Raman changing more diapers), we wanted to make sure you still got your sweet, sweet weekly comics content, so we’re proud to share Raman’s OTHER comic book podcast project “CHARACTER STUDY” -with friend-of-the-pod Paresh Jha. Character Study is a 4-part series that examines the history of DICK GRAYSON (aka Robin, aka Nightwing), the other half of Batman’s dynamic duo. _ CHARACTER STUDY: Dick Grayson CHAPTER 1: “Holy Origin...

Josh Simmons' comics are always deeply disturbing. Sometimes, they read like dirty jokes, taken to the furthest extremes. Other times, they touch on unsettling emotional truths - while still embracing extremes. But what makes Simmons so interesting to read is even when his stories seem to clearly telegraph where they're going — the killer has snuck into the house, the woods are full of demons, or don't look up lest you disturb the spirits writhing in the ceiling — they never go quite where...