Shelfbound

The Royal Historian of Oz #1 Written by Tommy Kovac Illustrated by Andy Hirsch “Can’t you make up your own characters, and your own made-up crazy-ass fantasy world? At least then people wouldn’t want to kill us.” I’m no particular fan of Oz. Sure, I saw the big movie growing up and liked it well [...]

Critical Mass Written and Illustrated by Garret Izumi One of my favorite things about traveling is visiting unknown comic book stores.  I can always find something new, whether it’s a locally-produced comic or a secondhand book I’ve never heard of.  Six years ago I was in Chicago visiting Smitty and bought Critical Mass on a [...]

Smitty and Dixon are self-avowed lifelong fans of comics (y’know, in case you’re joining us for the first time).  But they wonder how people are introduced to comics, and on occasion will be bringing you Habit Forming, a column that looks at a comic and asks: “What if this was somebody’s first?”  Today, it’s X-Men [...]

Back in 1992, Shelfbound was a four-page fanzine typed up, stapled, and distributed by hand each week to tens of comic book fans on Saturday afternoons. Smitty and Dixon–back then signing as N.W. Smith and HmD–were already hard at work bringing you witty, cogent dissections of new releases and old favorites. To celebrate the upcoming [...]

Vimanarama Written by Grant Morrison Illustrated by Philip Bond Look, finding true love is difficult under normal circumstances.  These are not normal circumstances: Ali is getting ready to meet the girl of his dreams.  He hopes.  His father has arranged a marriage to the young Sofia but Ali has yet to meet her.  Before all [...]

Doom Patrol was Grant Morrison’s second ongoing series after the brilliant Animal Man, and is probably his most consistently bizarre work. Now before you say, “Smitty, I think all Grant Morrison comics are bizarre,” let me stop you.  You are wrong.  Morrison’s work is often big, complex, idea (and sometimes drug) fueled, sure. His comics [...]

We3 Written by Grant Morrison Illustrated by Frank Quitely “Is Coat Not We.” We3 has the attention of Hollywood execs, and it could end up being a killer film if put together as lovingly as the graphic novel itself. Short, sharp, and brutal–not to mention showcasing some of Frank Quitely’s best artwork ever–this thing will [...]

The Invisibles: And We’re All Policemen Written by Grant Morrison Illustrated by Philip Bond and Glyn Dillon The Invisibles is a vast saga that spans seven volumes in its collected form.  The events of the eight-page short story “And We’re All Policeman,” while published about half-way through the series’ run, actually takes place after the [...]

Dixon and I have been talking a lot about Final Crisis this last week, and through it all I’ve been thinking a lot about Wonder Woman, and how her trajectory in the story compares with that of the other two members of DC’s “Trinity.” (Yes, they’re really called that, as two different series will tell [...]

Final Crisis Written by Grant Morrison Illustrated by J.G. Jones, Doug Mahnke, Carlos Pacheco,  Matthew Clark, and Marco Rudy Final Crisis is 352 pages long.  I want to talk about five pages that occur a little over a third of the way through the story.  These five pages are a lens through which not only [...]