Tag Archives: Ken’s Comic Ramblings

NOTE: This is essentially an expansion on my thoughts written here on a previous Batman Day. Welcome to Batman Day! Where DC Entertainment arbitrarily chooses another day in this year to shill out more merch from their sacred coERRRR I mean where the publisher, creators, retailers and fans get to celebrate all things Batman with …

So, I have my problems with Marvel, the X-Men and a whole bunch of aspects with how one treats the other and how creators and fans regard them. In fact, my inaugural post of this column was all about what the X-Men meant to me, a bisexual fan who has no nostalgia for the 90s …

The last few years have sucked royally as a Tim Drake fan. Is that a bit hyperbolic? Maybe when I can count on one hand the amount of scenes with the character that didn’t feel like shoving that hand into a combine harvester since 2011 and the ever more prevalent thought that the character is …

Okay, this week’s topic isn’t exactly about comics, but it does deal with finding inspiration from other mediums to strengthen one’s work. Yeah, let’s go with that. Tonight will see the conclusion of one of the most interesting and surreal shows on cable, NBC’s Hannibal. With a magnificent cast, clever writing and excellent cinematography and …

WARNING: Spoilers from all over Attack on Titan volumes 1-15. Last week, I introduced the novel idea that manga is very much part of the sequential art storytelling medium and people that are exclusively fans of western comics dismissing them are short-sighted at best, arrogant, elitist gatekeepers at worst. It was also there that I …

Let me explain my history a bit. I was very much a child of DC Comics. However, it was around the time of really learning about anime that I began to gravitate towards single issues (the much maligned Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day and the odious Identity Crisis being things at the time helped moved me …

Welcome to Act II of “The Marvel Players Present: A Midsummer Night’s Journey Into Cultural Irrelevance”. For those coming in at the Intermission, we left off on the tragicomedic scene of the Duke Alonso holding the accursed Blade of Straightwashing over the bearish corpse of Hercules. Now we just have to see on whether the …

Let’s get one thing out of the way, I normally do not like to call out specific people out of fear of perpetuating bullying and/or harassment towards that specific person, but in the last two weeks, Marvel Editor-In-Chief Axel Alonso has been saying some really stupid things in regards to Marvel’s real lack of diversity …

Well, after a week off to celebrate that, for all the horrid racial issues, the systematic breakdown of the middle class, the disintegration of our education system and so many other problems, America can be pretty good now and again, we come back to our favorite industry. And boy-oh-boy, have Marvel and DC announced some …

Before I get deeply into the topic of this week, I just want to give a tip of the hat to the Supreme Court of the United States for being insanely awesome this week in upholding the Affordable Care Act and for declaring that bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional. In times when I look …

Normally, I don’t want this column to talk about comic shows. I mean, I’ve made my love for The Flash known, I think Legends of Tomorrow looks pretty decent and even Arrow can be good when it’s trying to be Arrow. I wanted this column to firmly be about comics and the industry. So, while …

Last week I went to the Special Edition: NYC convention, a spin-off convention of the New York Comic Con that has a focus completely on comics and their creators. Now, we could discuss the bitter irony of New York Comic Con requiring such a spin-off, but the fact that Special Edition actually had legroom kind …

Anyone who follows me on Twitter probably knows about my growing fascination/obsession with From Software’s Dark Souls. It has been an experience in video games that I haven’t had in so long. As I delved deeper and deeper into the world of Lordran I began to notice a deal of similarities with something else that …

You know, I’m mad. Why? Because I was all geared up and happy to be able to write about Dark Souls in comparison to a comic that I have been loving. I barely get to talk about Dark Souls in a long-form since most of my friends are comic fans and don’t know what the …

This new era of fun inclusive books is astonishing. Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, Batgirl, Gotham Academy, and so many more have been great. I hope to see more of these in the coming years. But I do have a problem when they say that this was a recent phenomenon. These books that emphasized fun and …

  Last week, I started a discussion about the growing comic business, Valiant. In summary, I talked about how that, despite loving a great deal of their work, they have some faults. In particular, their efforts to include people that did not fit the typical male, white, straight demographics in their casts is lacking, made …

This morning, Archie Comics, a publisher with 75 years of history, launched a Kickstarter campaign to help finance new books in their, what they are terming, “New Riverdale” lineup that is to follow up on the launch of an all-new Archie #1 this summer. The three books include a Jughead ongoing written by Chip Zdarsky …

  WARNING: Spoilers from several Valiant books, specifically the recently concluded mini-series, The Valiant.   Those of you who have followed my writings around here (by “here” I mean doing a monthly annotation of one of their books) or on twitter know that I have been giving heaps of praise to the resurgent comic publisher, …

In which I talk about names and why you shouldn't pick ones that go the opposite of your company's new mission statement.

O’, how I “Ummed”.   O’, how I “Erred.”   O’, how I kept putting this one off for a while. I have talked a bit about my thoughts on the Marvel franchise X-Men occasionally on my Twitter feed. I never have really gone into true depth about my feelings on them though, their premise, …