Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

comic books

Crushing Comics includes definitive comic book guides, essays about characters and titles, collecting strategies, comic reviews, and more!

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.

Crushing Comics S01E060 – X-Men by Claremont/Lee Omnibus, Vol. 2

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It’s part two of my Claremont/Lee Omnibus unwrapping, where I discuss the events that follow X-Tinction Agenda that briefly brought the teams together, split them apart, brought them together again and – finally – launched a new X-Men book!

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

Episode 60 features X-Men by Claremont/Lee Omnibus, Vol. 2, which covers material in both the Guide to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont and Guide to X-Men (1991-2001).

Back Issue Review: The Flintstones, Green Lantern Corps, Eugenic, Space Battle Lunchtime, and more!

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Welcome to our second pilot post of Back Issue Review, where I give you the run-down on all the not-new comics I read this week. (Did you miss last week’s edition?)

I know the knee-jerk reaction for a lot of readers to a post like this might be to say either “I don’t read comics” or “I’ll just tune in when you talk X-Men.”

My reply to you is that comics as a medium is so much more than what you’re seeing on the big screen or in the pages of X-Men books.

I’d love to connect you with a new favorite read, but also with a wider awareness of the medium.

Today’s back issue review includes write-ups on:

  • After Eden (2017) #1-4
  • Captain Canuck (2015) #3
  • Centipede (2017) #1
  • Cowboy Ninja Viking (2009) #1
  • Eugenic (2017) #1-3
  • The Flintstones (2016) #1-6
  • Green Arrow (2016) #10-11
  • Green Lantern Corps (2006) #1-3
  • Grimm Fairy Tales: Return to Wonderland (2007) #4-6
  • Jonesy (2016) #1, Scalped (2007) #1
  • Space Battle Lunchtime (2016) #1-8
  • X’ed (2015) #1-4

That’s a lot of indie comics and absolutely no Marvel!

Please let me know if you like this this post – it’s the second pilot of this new weekly series, but there’s no guarantee it will be back for more.

And now – let’s get to the comics! [Read more…] about Back Issue Review: The Flintstones, Green Lantern Corps, Eugenic, Space Battle Lunchtime, and more!