Monstress is a comic-book series where incredibly messed-up things happen. We’re talking child slavery, lynchings and cannibalism. Thank the poets it’s also got a magical, two-tailed talking cat named Master Ren.
The Fix starts with a great high-concept opening: the march of technology has made reliable, old-school, brute force law-breaking obsolete. So, how can a thug indiscriminately shoot and rob people and get away with it nowadays? The Fix answers this conundrum in a way that makes it the most hilarious comic of 2016.
People hate Superman because he’s an alien. The X-Men get giant robots sicced on them because they’re mutants. Racial prejudice has informed the subtext of loads of storylines in superhero comics. But Power Lines moves it to the foreground, giving people who hate each other powers and abilities beyond those of mortal…
Rock and roll and science are commonly thought of as polar opposites: one sexy and dangerous, the other nerdy and inscrutable. But a great comic-book series imagines that the world would be a million times cooler if the two were one and the same.
The idea of a Superman-like figure dropping into the ‘real’ world—more like ours, in that it’s not filled with superheroes—is one that’s fascinated genre fiction writers for decades. Now, we’ve got an odd take on it that merges moments from America’s past and present in a quasi-fairy tale.
Everybody has a little bit of caged, writhing terribleness inside of them, frightening for what it can reveal about oneself. Monstress makes that metaphor literal and shows the struggle of one young woman trying to make her demons serve her angels.
“And how come you ain’t dead?” “‘Cause God’s a fucking asshole, that’s why.” Sunday school, this is not.
Cops work with facts. Evidence comes from things they can see, feel, and hear. But Detective Rowan Black has a foot in the hidden world of the occult, too. In Black Magick #1, the two parts of her life collide, marking the very promising start of a new horror suspense series.
When it started two years ago, Sex Criminals seemed like it was going to be a crime caper comic with a lot of semen-centric humor and a soupcon of bittersweet romance. It’s done those things really well, but has also morphed into something really special: an exploration of how we think about sex.
Bitch Planet is the best kind of fucked-up: a comic that entertains, breaks hearts and wields the power to change the way you look at the world around you.
I never thought a comic book would make me feel sorry for Katy Perry. But The Wicked + The Divine generated some real empathy for someone whose music I can’t stand. It’s that damn good.
Do you miss Angel? You remember it, right? The Buffy spinoff where the hunky vampire-with-a-soul was a PI who worked cases involving mystical creatures? Well, there’s a new comic book series that’s similar in concept but with a few different twists.
We don’t know why the United States Canada are at war in We Stand on Guard #1. But it sure seems like America is the bad guy that deserves to get its ass handed to it.
I’ve been taking Saga for granted. Some of you have been taking Saga for granted. Let’s not do that. This comic book is a miracle. One that will make you cry.
Descender is a comic book series where humans perform an ethnic cleansing of robots. Imagine the universe of Mass Effect, bled dry of its small amounts of hope or optimism.
Todd McFarlane's demonic anti-hero comic Spawn is reaching its anniversary #250 issue this month and Image is not only celebrating it with a triple-sized release, but with some cool small things like this illustrated chart, that shows all of Spawn's costumes.
Sure, you know about Alan Moore's must-read work on Watchmen, From Hell or Swamp Thing. But one of his earliest triumphs has been out of print for a long, long time. Now, it's returning and we talk about whether Miracleman is worth your time.
2013's pretty much over and, boy, was it ever a great year for comics. Here's what I and other Kotaku staffers loved reading over the last twelve months.
When’s the right time for a kid to learn how to shoot a sniper rifle? What’s your kid up to when you’re not looking? Is the spy agency’s secretary really just a secretary? Comic books can answer these questions. Thank God.
Time was, there were loads of rootin’, tootin’ cowboy comics on spinner racks everywhere. But none of those books were narrated by a dead bunny. That's only the tiniest piece of the macabre brilliance inside the first issue of Pretty Deadly, an acid-trip twisted fairy tale western which comes out tomorrow.
