Much is made of the lack of well thought out female heroes in comics these days. While Marvel and DC have attempted to bring female heroes into the limelight as of late, the implementation, in my opinion, has been subpar. Marvel made a lot of noise about its new female Thor comic series but I was skeptical from the beginning.… Read more →
Author: ddrury
Battle of Gods: Goku v Superman
East vs. West. Saiyan vs. Kryptonian. For many reasons this seems to be the most popular fictional battle of heroes for fans of both Western comics and Japanese manga. One search for “Goku vs. Superman” on the internet will lead you to a seemingly endless amount of threads on comic book forums discussing the fictional clash of titans. It makes… Read more →
The Trouble with Omnipotent Characters
Graphic novels often feature protagonists and other characters capable of performing godlike feats beyond human comprehension. While these characters are certainly impressive to behold, they can also cause a graphic novel to succumb to certain narrative pitfalls. After all, if a character is all-powerful and cannot be defeated how can there be any sense of urgency to the story?… Read more →
Dissassembly: Persepolis
This panel is taken from Persepolis, an autobiographical graphic novel written by Marjane Satrapi depicting her childhood growing up in Iran. The graphic novel takes place as she grows up during the Islamic revolution in Iran. In this particular scene the veil was made mandatory for all girls in Iran to wear to school. A constant theme throughout Persepolis is… Read more →
From Sun Wukong to Son Goku: Mythology in Graphic Novels
In the age of the incessant reimagining, remake, and reboot it can often be difficult to get excited about new releases in a market cluttered with subpar entries into beloved franchises. The best remakes are the ones we tend to forget were remakes in the first place. One graphic novel series that has never failed to deliver, and which very… Read more →