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a brief rest stop

February 12, 2024 by krisis

Happy Monday, y’all! This is just a brief note to let you know that I am in the middle of seeing all 650 kilometers of North Island’s Highway 1 right now as I head on a road trip from Wellington to Auckland and back.

That means no new comic guide for Patrons this week (and maybe not next week, either). Plus, some of my regular Drag Race coverage might be slightly delayed as I get back to my daily routine.

This is my first “away from the house” vacation since 2019, if you can count more than 16 hours of driving in a 60 hour period as a vacation. But, if all goes to plan I should get to go on proper amusement park rides with the kid for the first time since she was not-quite four years old, so we’ll call it a win!

If you’re seriously missing my comic book opinions, mark your calendars now for this Thursday @ 1pm US ET (Friday @ 7am NZT) – where I’ll be continuing my string of appearances on Near Mint Condition’s YouTube channel with a major Marvel live stream. In fact, you might call it “oversized”… but, more on that later this week.

Guide to Howard the Duck (New for Patrons!)

January 22, 2024 by krisis

He’s trapped in a world he never made, but I finally made a guide for him! Today, debuting exclusively for Pledgeonaut Patrons of Crushing Krisis is a brand new guide for a Marvel character who just celebrated his 50th anniversary in the world of pink hairless apes. It’s a Guide to Howard the Duck, including a complete reading order of his every appearance!

Guide to Howard the Duck

As with many children of the 80s, I’ve always primarily known Howard the Duck from his flop 1986 film with Lea Thompson. I don’t explicitly recall watching it, but I know in my heart that we absolutely rented it at some point. After all, it was the only Marvel Comics movie released since the 1940s, and it was produced by George Lucas! I’m sure plenty of kids came home from the video story with this odd duck of a film clutched to their chests based on that credit alone.

Guide to Miracleman & Marvelman – New for Patrons!

January 17, 2024 by krisis

Today is a historic day in modern comics history, so it’s also a big day for Pledgeonaut Patrons of Crushing Krisis! That’s because one of the longest-dangling plot threads in comics has been tied up neatly with one of today’s new releases. The more I thought about it and got curious about it, the more I realized that no one else on the internet would approach explaining it quite like I would. And that is how I wound up spending my week creating a Guide to Miracleman!

Guide to Miracleman

Today’s historic event is the release of Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham: The Silver Age (2022) #7. Aside from being a mouthful, today’s issue is the final installment of the middle “book” of Gaiman & Buckingham’s planned trilogy of Miracleman arcs. Why all the fuss about a middle chapter? Because they started that middle chapter in June 1992, and for nearly two decades it seemed like they would never have the chance to finish it.

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – September 20, 2023

September 19, 2023 by krisis

It’s time to take a look at what’s out from Marvel Comics this week! This post covers Marvel Comics September 20 2023 releases.

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. For each new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

Plus, I’m getting close to caught up on reading all of the Marvel Universe – so I have some commentary on some of the single issues and new collections.

Marvel Comics September 20 2023 Collected Editions

The Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection, Vol. 22: Round Robin
(2015 paperback, ISBN 978-0785192688 / 2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950545 / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (1963-2018). I’ve just updated all of the Amazing Epic Collections on the guide and I was shocked at how many of them have been back to print in the past three lines. Even Epics of relatively insignificant runs! Marvel has truly found a way to create a Manga-Style, well-organized, evergreen line of their entire comics history and we love to see it.

The Avengers Omnibus Vol. 4
(2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953621 / digital)
See the freshly rebuilt Guide to Avengers (1963-1996)! This is the last of the four reprints in addition to a brand new Volume 5 out this month. We love to see this line advancing without new Avengers movies on the big screen, which used to be the only way it got a new volume.

Bloodline: Daughter of Blade
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302924423 / digital)
See Guide to Blade. This series has an awkward history – originally it was meant to be launched by Tim Seeley several years ago, and then it was shelved and seemingly lost before it was revived (and revised) by Danny Lore. Unfortunately, this just didn’t hold together for me. It wasn’t Lore’s fault – I think the artist had trouble keeping up with a story that repeatedly mixed casual scenes with action scenes. The discontinuity of storytelling in the art eventually wore me down.

Captain Marvel: The Saga of Carol Danvers
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951818 / digital)
See Guide to Captain Marvel – Carol Danvers. This is a peculiar trade that’s more of a sampler for the movie crowd then a trade for a consistent bookshelf. It collects the opening eights issues of Kelly Sue DeConnick’s 2012 Carol Danvers series (which includes a great pair of issues where she meets up with Monica Rambeau) as well as the origin-redefining The Life of Captain Marvel (2018), which brought her comic origins more in line with the MCU (booo!).

It’s gonna be May! Oh, wait, it’s ALREADY May…

May 9, 2023 by krisis

Hello, friends!

Unfortunately, my non-CK life and workload have piled up and gotten in the way of making my planned posts for the month of May. I’m doing well and I don’t plan on taking the month’s-long break I did in 2022, but I do need to suspend daily posting for a bit while I focus on other responsibilities.

It’s a bummer, because I had a rockin’ editorial calendar designed for y’all! Alas, sometimes the best laid plans of bloggers must fall by the wayside to make room for the rest of life. I will be back soon with posts about Drag Race, especially with All Stars starting later this week!