Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

This Week In X: All-New Wolverine, Generation X’s big moment, & more!

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It’s the third week of new comics in 2018, and it brings a batch of five X-titles that vary very widely in quality.

We have another installment of “Orphans of X” in Tom Taylor’s All-New Wolverine (2016) #29, Declan Shalvey’s Deadpool vs. Old Man Logan (2017) #4 (of 5), a pivotal issue of Christina Strain’s Generation X (2017) #86, a new arc in Greg Pak’s Weapon X (2017) #13, and an epilogue to the “Negative Zone War” in Marc Guggenheim’s X-Men: Gold (2017) #20/

I’m incredibly impressed with All-New Wolverine and Generation X, and several different shades of disappointed with the other three.

(Weirdly, YouTube decided to only feature a low-res version of this episode.)

Crushing Comics S01E062 – Jonathan Hickman’s Infinity + brushes with the supernatural

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I open this episode by discussing my abridged history of brushes with the supernatural, including memorable stories CK posts like the blue hair dream and the graveyard ghosts. Then, I unwrap a pair of books that were the anchor to the early part of Jonathan Hickman’s run on Avengers and New Avengers – Infinity and Infinity Companion.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 62 features Jonathan Hickman’s Infinity and the Infinity Companion hardcover. See my Guide to Marvel Events for more information.

Crushing Comics S01E061 – Comic Book Tattoo + The Music of Tori Amos

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Today brings a rare book that I could identify in its wrapping simply by picking it up thanks to its peculiar shape and heft. Comic Book Tattoo is an anthology of stories based on the songs of singer/songwriter Tori Amos, including work from comics stars like Colleen Doran and Jonathan Hickman. That makes this a sort of hybrid episode that’s half Crushing Comics and half a journey through Tori’s massive discography.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 61 features the hardcover slipcased edition of Comic Book Tattoo: Tales Inspired by Tori Amos.

From The Beginning: Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman (1989), Issue #1

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Tonight’s discussion focuses not only on Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman (1989) issue #1, but who Gaiman was as an author at the time. (Spoilers: he wasn’t very well-known!)

The Sandman (1988) #1 is not a perfect comic, but it’s an excellent one. The issue tracks Dream from his imprisonment in 1916 through his reemergence in 1988.

He does very little in those years, but the world changes around him even as some people sleep the entire time away and others never have a true dream. While Dream is imprisoned and they dream, his tools are stolen and dispersed around the world and his original captor passes away.

Gaiman’s script here is impossibly tight, filled with little details in every inch of narration. Sam Kieth’s art is memorable but a bit haggard at points – this is early in his career, still a few years before defining work on Ghost Rider or Maxx.

Some of Kieth’s long-faced, dropping facial work detracts a bit from the otherwise stellar issue – it’s probably not what you expected from Sandman based on the covers, later interiors, or Overture.

From the Beginning: Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman

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Today’s episode of Crushing Comics will be coming to you 12 hours later than usual, and it will be something very different than what I’ve been doing since the show debuted in November.

Tonight, I’ll be joined by my friend the illustrious FanGirl on a live broadcast where we will discuss and dissect Neil Gaiman’s classic series The Sandman, starting from the first issue!

Want to watch this all-new, all-different pilot episode? Tune in tonight at 8pm ET / 5pm PT / 2pm New Zealand time.