Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

May 25, 2023 · 4:42 pm

Maximus Blade (#1) comic book review

Cover art by Franco Bevilacqua

Maximus Blade #1. w. Chris Warren a. Ken Lavin Chris Warren Media. $4.99

The first issue of a comic book, especially from an independent publisher, can be a very exciting thing and Maximus Blade does not disappoint. The writing is crisp and crackling with urgency and humor. The art is spot on, transporting the reader through time and space with a cast of engaging unlikely heroes up against a truly motley crew of villainous baddies.

Maximus Blade, a sentinel on a mission.

Our story takes places way into the future, 2480, enough to make my head spin. But that’s part of the fun, of course. Time enough for all sorts of mayhem to have happened leaving good ole planet Earth a mere shell of its former self. Time enough for the upper class to have gone even higher, all the way to an outpost on Earth’s moon. Everyone else stays behind back on Earth which has devolved into a Mad Max wasteland.

“When” the hell am I?

Despite all the dystopia, there is hope, or at least it seems that way. There’s no shortage of possibilities to this comic. Meet Steve, a guy from our own present who had it all, only to be swept up by a time portal. Meet Penelope, a member of the super elite who lives on the moon but not anymore. And meet Maximus Blade, the result of some heavy genetic mutations and not much for words. Between the three of them, you’ve got everything you need to keep the adventures rolling along quite nicely.

Maximus Blade and Steve.

My favorite scene in this issue is probably the first scene between Maximus Blade and Steve, who is no slouch back where he comes from but is totally out of his depth in the distant future he’s been teleported into. Maximus, in the few words he grunts, makes it pretty clear he needs a tech guy and fast. Steve hesitates, but not for long. Just as Maximus is walking away for good, abandoning the “stupid kid” to certain death, Steve chimes in to say he’s actually the best tech guy ever. It’s a funny moment and pivotal to what happens next. I’m not sure why Maximus was so easily convinced but maybe we’ll find out in the next issue. For now, Max, Steve and Penelope are up to their eyeballs in death-defying adventure. This comic does a fine job with balancing action and humor leaving the reader wanting more. Not bad at all for a first issue.

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May 25, 2023 · 6:40 am

George’s Run Chronicles The Rise of Genre

It begins with a little hook . . .

Then a question . . .

An initial response, and quick answer . . .

Then your concise answer!

That’s the magic and power of graphic storytelling.

Yes, the gang, or The Group, is all here!

I was just minding my own business when I stumbled upon a delightful review on Amazon of my new book, George’s Run. This was from I Forgive Heathcliff (depending upon your browser, you may need to do a separate search) and it gets to the heart of what my graphic novel is all about. All I can say to any fellow creative, no one will love and understand your work as much as you do until, all of a sudden, it does click and people do get it! This review made me think and gave me pause. It helped me to better appreciate my own efforts. One of the goals of my graphic novel is to connect the dots and make the subject at hand accessible. That is what graphic novels do best. Here’s an excerpt from I Forgive Heathcliff’s review:

The best thing about this graphic novel, spurred on by the brief, blossoming friendship between George Clayton Johnson and Henry Chamberlain which describes George’s life and adventures as a writer, is the sweet and straightforward artwork combined with a sort of stream of consciousness storytelling that picks you up and floats you along, moving forward through years, events, and situations. I particularly loved the author’s humorous, respectful nod toward the entire group of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers by depicting them as shambling zombies.

So, yeah, this review got me to thinking. I did hit the nail on the head. I have George as our guide, our main character, who connects us with a significant movement in contemporary writing. It doesn’t get much better than that, folks. You’ve got one of the most colorful and engaging of individuals, George Clayton Johnson, who acts as a main character in a novel about his own life and times while also taking on the role of tour guide into the inner workings of much of what we take for granted today in entertainment, both high and low culture. The members of what came to be known as The Group were fully aware of what they were doing: along with a wide variety of offshoots and variants, they were primarily engaged with reshaping genre writing for a contemporary audience.

Well, what can I say? I can and will keep saying more and more! For now, if you’re looking for one of those kind of books that helps make sense of it all while also being a fun read, then George’s Run is the book for you. You can buy it directly from the publisher, Rutgers University Press, or any number of other platforms and outlets, including Amazon.

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May 10, 2023 · 8:50 pm

COVID COP by Dean Haspiel review

COVID COP. Art & script by Dean Haspiel. Dean Haspiel Deep Cuts. 28 pp. $15.

Dean Haspiel is in fine form with this short work in comics that transforms the Covid pandemic into a surreal parody of a sci-fi/horror story. In this scenario, the virus has completely taken over to the point that the government has clamped down hard on anyone disobeying protocol. It’s a take-no-prisoners battle plan and one police officer, Lincoln Bio, is doing his best to follow orders. If you’re a fan of Dean Haspiel, then you can expect that kooky sense of humor, bathed in pathos, made famous in the Billy Dogma comics series.

Our anti-hero Lincoln Bio is aware that he’s living in very strange times making very strange demands on him. How he comes to terms with his marching orders and how he confronts an insurgent group out to kill everyone makes up a good part of this dark comedy. Drawn in the mock heroic style that Haspiel is known for, this comic book will deliver a weird and entertaining jolt right to the jugular and then some. You probably won’t have nightmares from reading this but I can’t guarantee it. And, if there’s a sequel, all bets are off. This comic, by the way, is the first in the developing line of indie comics, Dean Haspiel Deep Cuts.

This comic will defy your expectations, especially if you don’t really know what to expect, and offers up the most recent example of a cartoonist at the top of his game. The winner of a recent Kickstarter campaign, this comic book is making its way to its backers and will make its way to you. Keep up with Dean Haspiel for more details.

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April 19, 2023 · 8:00 am

Van Jensen interview: ARCA, from IDW Originals

It’s the end of the world. Money is meaningless. But the billionaires have got a plan. Sort of like Noah’s Arc, the elite have a space vessel, the Arca, that will take them to a better world, Eden. All they have to do is make sure to keep their slaves, or “settlers,” in line. Effie is one of the teen servants on this vessel. As far as she knows, she should be grateful to have been spared from the billions of people who perished when Earth died. But things aren’t always as they seem. That is the premise of Van Jensen‘s latest graphic novel, ARCA, published by IDW Productions. It is my pleasure to present to you this interview with one of the great writing talents working today in comics.

As I say in my review, this is a story about a reluctant hero who must rise above her quiet demeanor and confront the powers that be. Persephone, or “Effie,” is in the long tradition of reluctant heroes in fiction and particularly in science fiction: the person who emerges as a leader despite their hesitation. As you will come to see for yourself, Effie is a lot like you and me.

In the course of this brief interview, I asked Van if he’d share a little something about the creative process and he provided a gem that I will long cherish and that I’m sure you’ll enjoy too. It involves a tea kettle. Imagine that you’re moving into your new home and you’ve got a thousand things to figure out. Try boiling it down to a tea kettle. If you can pin down your tea kettle, then everything else will fall into place. It’s a wonderful writing exercise: your “tea kettle” can be a brief description of your main character, or a snatch of dialogue or the first couple of sentences in that first chapter. Whatever helps to kick things off. So, I hope you enjoy this interview, stick around for the writer tips, and seek out this remarkable graphic novel.

ARCA comes out July 11, 2023 and is available for pre-order on many platforms including Penguin Random House right here.

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February 4, 2023 · 5:00 pm

GEORGE’S RUN, Sci-Fi Graphic Novel in March Previews

The time has come to start spreading the news. My graphic novel, George’s Run, will be out soon. It is in the March edition of Previews, and you can find it here. The book will become available as of May 12, 2023, published by Rutgers University Press–and I could not be more thrilled. If you’ve ever set foot in a comics shop for any significant amount of time, then you’re aware of the monthly Diamond Comic Distributor Previews catalog. Each catalog provides previews of comics and graphic novels that will be available in the next couple of months. The issue for March, which comes out on February 22, features items scheduled to ship in May 2023 and will have my book in it. This is a big step towards getting the book out into the world! And, for a comics fan, it’s a huge big deal.

This is the book for any fan of comics, pop culture, and great stories!

George’s Run has been years in the making. If you’re one of my loyal followers, then you already know that this book is about the power of storytelling, a special blend of it going back to pulp fiction, especially science fiction. I’ll keep you posted every step of the way. For now, if you happen to visit your local comic shops, ask them to check out my book in the March Previews catalog and seriously consider ordering some copies of George’s Run. Your support means everything to me!

Here I am debuting a mini-comic version of George’s Run at Short Run!

An early color version of a page from the book.

I love the promotional material put together by Rutgers. It sums it all up quite nicely:

George Clayton Johnson was an up-and-coming short story writer who broke into Hollywood in a big way when he co-wrote the screenplay for Ocean’s Eleven. More legendary works followed, including Logan’s Run and classic scripts for shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. In the meantime, he forged friendships with some of the era’s most visionary science fiction writers, including Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, Richard Matheson, and Rod Serling.

Later in life, Johnson befriended comics journalist and artist Henry Chamberlain, and the two had long chats about his amazing life and career. Now Chamberlain pays tribute to his late friend in the graphic novel George’s Run, which brings Johnson’s creative milieu to life in vividly illustrated color panels. The result feels less like reading a conventional biography and more like sitting in on an intimate conversation between friends as they recollect key moments in pop culture history, as well as the colorful band of writers described by Chamberlain as the “Rat Pack of Science Fiction.”

Here is more marketing material:

New Graphic Novel Traces the Origins of Pop Culture Through the Life of Eccentric Storyteller George Clayton Johnson

“George Clayton Johnson was one of the most brilliant and important writers of the 20th Century, creating classic episodes of The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, as well as co-authoring Logan’s Run and Ocean’s Eleven. George’s Run spectacularly and charmingly invites you on the amazing journey of his life and legacy, from 1929 through the Fifties and Sixties to 2015 and beyond. It’s a trip down Memory Lane via time machine and rocket ship—and it will definitely blow your mind!”

—Marc Scott Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion

George Clayton Johnson

George’s Run: A Writer’s Journey Through the Twilight Zone (Rutgers University Press; May 12, 2023, 978-1-9788-3420-0; $24.95) is a mashup of gonzo journalism and whimsical storytelling with the overarching theme of how a group of writers influenced each other to create some of the greatest pop culture of all time. This is an exploration of self and creativity.

The reader follows cartoonist-journalist Henry Chamberlain as he seeks to reveal secrets and insights from a unicorn from a golden era. George Clayton Johnson was one of the greatest television writers of the 1960s. George showed up, as if out of nowhere, to command a significant place at the writer’s table for the original Twilight Zone and Star Trek. Co-writing the cult classic novel, Logan’s Run, was to be the cherry on top of a career that began, believe it or not, with George co-writing the story that was to become the original Rat Pack classic, Ocean’s Eleven.

Henry Chamberlain is a cartoonist, artist and writer living in Virginia Beach, originally from Seattle. Henry regularly writes about comics and pop culture on his blog, Comics Grinder. He writes for other venues, including The Comics Journal.

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February 3, 2023 · 2:15 pm

ARCA by Van Jensen & Jesse Lonergan review–clever dystopian graphic novel

ARCA. IDW Publishing. w. Van Jensen. a. Jesse Lonergan. 176 pp. $16.99

Welcome to your next favorite dystopian graphic novel. This is a devilishly good take on the one-percenters behaving badly trope. The focus is on Effie, short for Persephone. She is one of “the settlers,” the youth who are in servitude to “the citizens.” When settlers turn eighteen, they are promoted to something better, although it is unclear what that is. Earth, they’re told, had to be abandoned because of all the usual reasons and so everyone is on this spaceship heading towards “Eden.” But Effie isn’t buying it and it’s up to her to figure out what is really happening.

Things are not what they seem; they never are. The more twisted the reality, the more profound the journey to find out the truth. This is what makes Effie’s journey so dangerous–and compelling for the reader. From the very beginning, I was intrigued by all the heaviness hanging over Effie. Heck, the first page has Effie flying in a plane full of skeletons. She goes for the emergency exit, yanks open the door, and gasps for air when she’s flung out into outer space. It’s a nightmare but, her wide-awake world isn’t much better. Effie is constantly being monitored. People are disappearing. She risks her life every day for the chance to read a book. She’s not even supposed to know how to read.

Van Jensen (Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern) knows how to write a slow burn story with a propulsive bite. Jesse Lonergan (Hedra, Planet Paradise) has a loose and lively drawing style. Together, they bring to life a quirky and moody sci-fi thriller. Everything about this story gives off a disturbing and muted vibe, like you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, finding out secrets you shouldn’t know. In this low-key and understated world, Effie is queen. She is a very reserved person forced to push back, and bit by bit, in a quiet and determined way, she gets closer to her would-be killers. Like any good work of science fiction, you get hooked in by the weird kid in the corner who nobody notices, until they need a hero.

A few notes on the art. I’m really pleased to see Lonergan having fun and experimenting. He spills over all the action, including the atmosphere, into various panels in unexpected and creative ways. There’s a moment when a glass full of eyeballs (don’t ask) is knocked over flinging eyeballs that bounce from panel to panel. This approach is part of Lonergan’s signature style and he does it very well with bookshelves, crowd scenes and things that go boom. The color is also applied in a dreamy and spacey way (soft watercolors that glide and pop)  that compliments this more loose and fluid way of drawing. Nathan Widick brings home lettering and design that is spot on. The final results are fantastic and a joy to take in. I’d love to have him help me with my next comics project.

Science fiction means a lot of things. Often, we’re working with a vocabulary, both written and visual, going back to classic 1950s pulp-style science fiction. This book is in that spirit and turns it on its head. Effie is a classic sci-fi hero, unlikely and unassuming. But she’s not a shrinking violet. She’s more of a lone wolf. Leave her alone unless you need her. The best science fiction is not just about the future, robots and time travel. No, the best science fiction is about people. Readers want that; they hunger for it. This is a clever dystopian graphic novel following the rhythms of a bookish lone wolf. And remember, she’s not even supposed to know how to read. The elites don’t have a clue who they’re messing with. But now you do.

ARCA is available on July 11, 2023. You can pre-order it here.

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January 26, 2023 · 5:35 pm

We Are Not Alone review — Roku Original is a Delightful Sci-Fi Comedy Series

The Office on the dark side of the universe.

We Are Not Alone, a new Roku Original, debuts on January 27 on The Roku Channel and it is a promising sitcom: not one moment is wasted; solid casting; creative production value for a low budget sitcom; engaging story; solid humor; characters jump right in. In my previous post, I discussed what content like this can mean for Roku’s future. In this follow-up post, I share a few observations from viewing an advanced release. From what I can tell, this is a feature-length pilot for a sitcom.

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January 23, 2023 · 9:00 am

Roku Original Sci-Fi Comedy: WE ARE NOT ALONE

Maybe, like me, you are a Roku person. And maybe you noticed this new offering, a sci-fi comedy, We Are Not Alone. I’m intrigued. I’m intrigued on two main tracks: first, I genuinely think I’ll like watching this; next, I have a feeling this could be one of those turning points which adds to Roku’s profile as an original content provider, as it moves beyond its original purpose of just making streaming devices. Last year’s Weird: The Al Yankovic Story was a significant step forward for Roku as a serious original content provider.

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February 13, 2022 · 11:10 am

Review: PIXELS OF YOU

Pixels of You. written by Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota, art by J.R. Doyle. Amulet/Abrams. New York. 2022. 176pp. $16.99

How many times do we experience a true inflection point in our lives, something that significantly changes our attitude and approach to life? This is a story of such a change: a story about two polar opposites who must confront the challenges posed by each other. Set in a future when AI androids are co-existing with humans, this graphic novel provides a delightful slice-of-life series of exchanges between Indira, a young human, and Fawn, a “young” robot. Both are creative types struggling to establish careers. It’s an intriguing premise that steadily builds and beautifully plays with coming-of-age tropes: uncertainty; a sense of adventure.

So, Fawn is a robot caught in the same rat race as human Indira. For this story, we don’t need a deep dive explanation as to why that is. Part of the charm of this book is the natural and light approach it takes. You just accept the tech and go from there. It seems, for the purpose of this story, that robots and humans have reached a point of co-existence where they treat each other as equals. Thus, we have the evolving relationship between Fawn and Indira. They are rivals. They are friends. And maybe more.

The writing team of Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota provide a very tender exploration of what motivates these two characters: what may cause friction; and what may stimulate attraction between them. The artwork by J.R. Doyle is right in step with this easy-going vibe. The characters and settings are rendered in a loose semi-realistic style that evokes the spontaneity of a sketchbook. It all adds up to a pleasing glimpse into the lives of two complicated characters, one human, one android, sometime in the future.

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October 9, 2021 · 4:40 pm

Paul Buhle on Comics: Review of ‘Street Cop’ by Robert Coover and Art Spiegelman

Street Cop. Robert Coover and Art Spiegelman. London: IsolarII, 2021. 104pp.  $20.

Guest Review by Paul Buhle

This vest-pocket size story-and-comic arrives to a world without…vests! But it is the same size, more or less, as those once-famous Little Blue Books, printed by the millions in Girard, Kansas, at the former office of the Appeal to Reason, aka Temple of the Revolution. That hoped-for revolution had been quashed by the repressive blows of the Woodrow Wilson government against antiwar socialists. The print revolution of Little Blue Books, if it may be called so, is actually part of a larger saga about comics as an art form and its connections with Modernism-become-Post and Post-Post Modernism.

Art Spiegelman and Robert Coover. From Street Cop.

Readers of Comics Grinder need not hear much about Spiegelman. Maus won a Pulitzer and has circled the world dozens of times. It may be said to have validated comics as art, at least in the US, where that designation had lagged. But actually the advance was twice-over, because Art and his wife Francoise Mouly had created, via their RAW Magazine of the 1980s-90s, an avant garde sensation. A collaborator, Ben Katchor, caught the flavor best by suggesting that RAW positioned or marketed itself as the organ of comics seen anew, a child of obscure or forgotten avant-garde French poetry and art. It was perhaps an extended reach if not actually a dubious claim, but never mind. The occasionally-appearing RAW was unlike any comic ever produced, more global, more arty, and in a curious way, the uneasy cousin of Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky’s Weirdo, which was just plain…weird.

Novelist and lit prof Robert Coover is nothing if not the ungrateful, bastard grandchild of modernism, or possibly in his own world of categories. In novel after novel, story after story, Coover manages to lambaste the disordered society, indeed the disordered world, that we live in. Here, in a Manhattan of the future, neighborhoods are manufactured anew through computer printing, and they are never quite solid. The notoriously corrupt as well as brutal NYPD is put into a situation at once hopeless (cops chasing robbers into buildings disapper entirely) and favorably permissive toward ever higher levels of brutality.  Actually, we seem well on our way to parts of this dreaded future already.

Coover’s protagonist is the cop of title, an ex-criminal badly paid, but without any other definition to his life, and true to noir traditions, he continues on what could only be called existential grounds.

I do not object in the least to flying cars, low-down characters of all kinds, to say nothing of a collapsing city-scape. This part actually seems closest to current reality, although the destruction of historic architecture is part of Capital’s plan. When our cop steps into a ghoulish pet shop with very ghoulist pets, I stop to object. My own work environment has avians walking and flying around me through the day. Ghoulishness is not in their remit. Or perhaps we are in a worse version of The Birds, where the animals are wreaking revenge upon the wrong-doing humans?

The story seems to dissolve somewhere around here, but the illustrations by Spiegelman remain wonderfully strange  in their shape and colors. The artist who once did bubble gum cards, mixing the mundane with the more or less fantastic, delves popular culture imagery again and again here. The cop himself looks remarkably, sometimes, like Sluggo. This is a hell that is, at least, pretty funny.

Paul Buhle

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