Cape & Cowl Book It

Before the silliness commences, I wanted to say that NIU’s Northern Star resumed publishing and classes started again, on Monday. This is after a week hiatus due to the shooting tragedy. The students and staff of NIU are still in our prayers.

As we saw with last week’s strips, Cape doesn’t have powers and needs something to occupy his time. So this week I gave him a job as a cashier at the Illinois University Bookstore, a completely unique place I invented and certainly not based on any actually location. *ahem* If I’m lying, may lightning strike me right n—— Read the rest of this entry »

Champions United!

Wow, so this is a week late - there were site issues and as you can see, the images are still presented funky. Oh well, England prevails.

This was a week of cameos and the formation of Champaign’s first (and last) super team. Muffy returns from earlier this year and Dan Dougherty’s Beardo and Adam Foto’s Dragon and Goat stopped by.

Plus, we learned a bit about the enigmatic Cowl and her powers, and Cape with his lack thereof.

Cape & Cowl © Matt Knicl 2008
www.shanesmithart.com

Of course, saying that is not ground-breaking. The people that participate know that. What I am amazed at is these “intelligent” future leaders display incredible acts of stupidity all under the pretend veil of “It’s college” and alcohol.

If you participate in Unofficial, you’re a child. That’s the crux of it.

Read the rest of this entry »

All For None

I just picked up the Justice League: The New Frontier DVD. This is the second straight-to-DVD animated movie released by Warner Bros and DC in the past year, the first being The Death of Superman. This movie is based on Darwyne Cooke’s comic series of the same name, which is collected in two trade paperback volumes and one over-sized hardcover Absolute edition.

The basic premise of the comic/movie is to look back to the early comics of the DC characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Cooke wanted to portray the characters as they were originally were in the 40s and 50s, but to infuse their origin stories with the absent historical events of the time, like McCarthyism and the Korean War. There is nothing wrong with this. It is a great premise - super heroes interacting with the history they are a part of. Read the rest of this entry »

For once, comic nerds won’t have to travel to San Diego, New York, or even the fabled shores of Chicago to immerse themselves in fandom.

At 10AM at 1907 N. Cunningham Ave., Urbana (The Eastland Suites) this Sunday, come check out the booths and look for the collectibles and comics you’ve been craving!

more info >>>

The Savage Sword of Conan Vol. 2 TPB (Dark Horse/Marvel) - Reprinting old Marvel Conan comics, Dark Horse has been bringing most of the Conan books to us as color comics in slim, expensive trades. These Dark Horse Presents books are like the Marvel Essentials - about twenty issues of black-and-white reprints in one volume. It may seem nit-picky, but it seems to me that the paper quality is much better for these Dark Horse editions when compared to Essentials or Showcase Presents. This volume contains classic Conan adaptations like “The Slithering Shadow” and “The Pool of the Black One.” Read the rest of this entry »

Ludo Down

Ludo is one of those popular unknown bands. You can find hardcore, really intense fans all across campus, but outside of this close-knit cult, few know of this pop-punk emo band. They have come to the Canopy Club several times in the past year.

With the release of their sophomore (technically) album, “You’re Awful, I Love You”, today that may soon change. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the O.Z. (Don’t call it that)

I know this miniseries came out awhile ago, but I just got to see the 6 hour show on DVR. I remember at the time the project created some buzz and the DI even covered it.

Tin Man is the alternate, modernized version of of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz that aired on the Sci-Fi channel. Virgin Comics also did a comic prequel online. Of course, you don’t actually have to have read the original book or seen the Judy Garland film, because this series is so far off it becomes its own thing. Read the rest of this entry »

Why the Last Man?

As of last month, the 60 issue series Y: The Last Man ended. Written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Pia Guerra, this is the best comic you may not have heard of.

Yorick Brown is an English major with a crazy pet monkey, Ampersand. There is nothing special about them. That is, until every male on the planet dies, but Yorick and his male pet monkey. What follows is a quest across the world to understand what has happened and why Yorick was spared. This is an energetic series and flows like you’re watching a TV show.

I recently spoke with Pia Guerra about the series. Read the rest of this entry »

Or, Clusterf#@&

I didn’t like the sound of this or any of the other Gilded Age projects. The Next Issue Project had a somewhat unique idea - that each issue would be a continuation of the last 30s or 40s public domain series. So if Fighting Yank was canceled at issue #X, then this would be issue #X + 1.

Image courtesy:
Image Comics

But the first issue of this delayed series, “Fantastic Comics #24″, was far worse than any of my wildest low expectations. What I figured we’d get with this series were stories in the vein of Alan Moore’s 1963 series. Basically, comics drawn and written to be like crude, poorly-written comics of that time. We would get to see old characters in their same time period, but in a new light.

Instead, what we get is an anthology book of random short-shorts about several characters. The illustrators and writing shifts every few pages and I don’t know why we should care. This isn’t about the legacy of these old heroes. This wasn’t a series that needed to be done. This was clearly made because Erik Larsen and company could, not that they should.

Hopefully next month’s Next Issue Project will become it’s Last.