Underground #1–5 by Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber This book is perhaps more famous for the piracy/sales incident (see this Robot 6 piece or this Comics Alliance piece for more information) when somebody posted scans of the whole book on 4chan but Lieber interacted with the pirate and then saw a spike…
Turbulence by Samit Basu, Titan Books. Published 7 July (£7.99). Basu is not an author I was aware of before I read this novel, but he’s not a novice writer: he published the first book of his fantasy series, The Gameworld Trilogy, at 23 and has also worked on comic…
Hulk #25–30 by Jeff Parker and Gabriel Hardman I wrote recently about gambling on comic books, and these thoughts on this book can be considered a relative to that post. The reasons for buying this trade paperback are the creators: Parker is a good writer (Agents of Atlas was a…
House of Mystery: Room and Boredom (issues #1–5) by Matthew Sturges, Bill Willingham and Luca Rossi A young woman, Fig, an architect of sorts, is chased by a creepy couple and ends up escaping in to the House of Mystery, a strange house located at a supernatural crossroads between worlds. The…
Who Is Jake Ellis? #1–5 by Nathan Edmonson and Tonči Zonjić This is an excellent modern spy/action thriller with a hint of the paranormal, which I enjoyed immensely. The first sixes pages sum up the premise excellently: we see our protagonist Jon escaping some criminal types on a boat in…
I first saw Jason Pearson’s art back in the early 1990s. A chap with good taste had recommended the ‘Five Years Later’ Legion of Super-Heroes run, masterminded by Keith Giffen; I was unaware of the controversy surrounding the book at the time, but I thoroughly enjoyed the approach taken with…
The Good, The Bad And The Multiplex: What’s Wrong With Modern Movies? By Mark Kermode Mark Kermode is one of the most passionate and enjoyable professional film critics working today; I listen to the podcasts of his show with Simon Mayo, and I thoroughly enjoyed his first book, so it…
Trying to write something about Prometheus seems to be a Sisyphean task because there is so much internet discussion of the themes and the meaning of the film, any more would be pointless. I won’t be adding to the analysis of the film – for that, I would direct you…
I saw The Hunger Games in the cinema – it was enjoyable, with an interesting setting and characters and some social commentary, and certainly a lot better than Twilight – but it got me thinking about the success of film adaptations of best-selling genre book series. The sequel to The…
Star Trek: Crew #1–5 by John Byrne I did not know about the character known as ‘Number One’ in the Star Trek universe. Played by Majel Barrett in the original pilot episode, she was never referred to by name and was an intelligent, logical, calm first officer to Captain Pike.…