Before I reviewed Pirate Eye, I got a chance to chat with creators Carl Yonder and Joe Grahn. We talked about how to blend up pirates and detectives, Space Ghost, and the seedy underbelly of Pirate Noir. Check it out.

At some point you start to wonder when pirates will wear out their welcome. Will there come a time when people will tire of adventuring on the high seas, roguish types, and swashbuckling in general?

Plastic Farm likes to meander. From issue to issue the focus shifts from chronologically disjointed flashbacks to subtly related side stories, and I couldn’t help but feel a little motion sick trying to keep up. Art that evokes burnt out drug imagery and doodles sketched in the borders of textbooks, and mutating panel work promises that these vague characters with vague motivations will deliver compellingly weird diversions, but unfortunately the main thrust of the plot itself stays out of focus for almost fifty pages. Sprawling narrative, disjointed storytelling, and a lack of concern for the reader’s attention span leaves an impression that there could have been some judicious editing.

Bride of Prometheon has a lot of problems and the barest hint of a story that might have been a lot of fun, if most of its components had been done differently, that is. The book is poorly thought out, poorly constructed, poorly paced, and poorly drawn. Ostensibly,  the comic is a retelling of the classic Frankenstein tale, [...]

Greetings Spandexians! We’ve been under siege by the weather recently, so unfortunately getting back to our regular schedule has been a bit beyond our means. Thankfully, with the extra downtime we’ve been able to enjoy some great reads. I’ve been digging some stories that tackle the tumultuously mundane, David has been trekking through some fantastical childhood callbacks, Patrick continued [...]

And we’re back. After a lengthy break (in part due to our dedicated SPX coverage) I’m happy to report that Spandexless Reads is back on track, delivering our weekly roundup of pulls, reads, and recommendations.

Jared Cullum was the first artist I spoke with at SPX (his table being conveniently located near the entrance I walked through) and I’m happy to say he amiciably set the precedent for my experience at the con.  Here was a dedicated artist selling his wares to people who care, shoulder to shoulder with a [...]

The whole point of our SPX wrap-up/wind-down/reviewening is that we all go in hard to review every single comic we picked up at the show as swiftly as we can, so that we can deliver the full flavor of the SPX community and their wonderful work to you readers at home as quickly as we [...]

It’s fresh, it’s fascinating, and it’s free, it’s another fantastically full installation of Spandexles Reads! This week, Patrick checks in with the Locke & Key: Grindhouse one-shot, while David and I examine some of the more fascinating aspects of webcomics presentation, navigation, and interactivity.  That might sound mundane, by I can guarantee it’s a topic that more [...]

Lior Zaltzman’s adaptation of The Giver is an interesting concoction.  The cover illustration hangs askew, rocked to the side, a panel depicting Jonas and the Giver at odds with two mannequins bandying about a stiffly pointed woman.  Its style seems a child-like surreality, the figure’s features pointed into odd lines and grotesque motions.  It certainly evokes the feel [...]

Salutations loyal readers, welcome back to another spectacular round of Sandexless Reads! First, I have to apologize for our absence last weekend.  Unfortunately, my attempt to construct a computer out of spare parts found in the woods during my camping trip did not go as well as you might have expected.  Regardless, we’re back and [...]

Whatever Happened to the World’s Fastest Man? is an excellently executed short story. Written by Dave West with art by Marleen Lowe, this is a book with a high concept narrative that makes good use of the medium to explore a compelling idea.  If you were gifted an exceptional power, does that automatically guarantee that you [...]