Comics

Given what has been an unprecedent year for comics, culminating in an overwhelming number of nominations from independents and crowdfunded titles vying for the honor of Best Comics of 2020, it isn't surprising that the competition for the Best Comic Artist would be just as heavy. A sign of this is that "Other" -- a housekeeping category that usually represents about 1% of total votes every year from write-ins, gathered up a sizeable 9% this year, representative of just how many new up-and-coming artists are on the horizon. In fact, "Other" is the faceless hominid standing in the bronze position of our Comic Artist Olympics, having placed third among all other nominees and write-in candidates! So congratulations, Other, and better luck next year!

Every year, Critical Blast opens up the polls to our readers to select the best of everything entetainment, in multiple categories. And while some categories slimmed down this year due to the spread of coronavirus forcing people to stay home, the comic book business has seen a boom, thanks largely to a number of independent creators who have turned away from the traditional publishing market and toward crowdfunding to get their four-color fantasies fit to print and into the hands of readers.

While I appreciate that Dynamite Comics is embracing the whole "many worlds" theory and integrating their diverse titles, the journey has led to a state of crossover fatigue, the nadir of which may actually be manifest in this new miniseries, Sonjaversal, in which Red Sonja, the infamous She-Devil with a Sword, crosses paths with... Orange Sonja.

Yes, Orange Sonja, herself fresh from watching a mech battle a dinosaur -- who were Purple Sonja and Green Sonja, respectively. And, yes, color-coded lettering is included in the story.

The misguided attempt to turn Vampirella into Supervamp continues with this second issue of Vampirella: The Dark Powers. The Dynamite Comics concept of "plural worlds" is the tableau against which Project; Superpowers gathers all its members from various alternate Earths, finding Vampirella on Plural Earth 0666. The majority of the membership isn't comfortable with her being on the team, partly because in their last adventure her methods of attack was responsible for one of their members being put in critical condition. Also, plunging in without knowing the facts about the enemy allowed the enemy to regroup with an even larger threat, adapted to what it has learned of Vampirella's power set.

Dynamite has, for quite a while now, been pulling off crossover comic book miniseries with their licensed characters -- most recently in the very entertaining zombie epic, Die!Namite. But with Red Sonja: The Superpowers (in conjunction with Vampirella: Dark Powers), it appears that Dynamite is building up something larger, and much more audacious: they're creating a cohesive multiverse, with Red Sonja a part of it.

The story opens as your typical sword-and-sorcery tale: Red Sonja has been approached and hired to remove an evil wizard who has been subjugating people who don't have the means to fight back. Sonja vows to do the deed, and battles the wizard's henchmen who have been sent to stop her. As she rages her victory cry to the sky, declaring that she is coming for him... things get weird. A strange lightning streaks across the night sky, and Sonja realizes that perhaps this wizard isn't your usual charlatan with tricks.

The 306th Best Actress in America returns to show she's not just a sexy horror star, or a sexy western star, or a sexy sci-fi star -- she can also be a sexy superhero star! The name that's tanked a thousand ships is back on the screen, fresh from her performance in the widely lauded (as in "My laud, is this movie over yet?") production of Spider-Shark vs. Snake-Bear, as that voluptuous vigiltante of virtuous victory, Violet Vixen!

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Actually, it was 2020, so scratch that first bit entirely. But as ugly as the past year has been, there were still a few moments that perked things up. So as loath as we may all be to actually look back at this year, we're asking our readers to do so for just one more month as we collect votes from you, our readers, to select the award winners in our BEST OF 2020.

The movie theaters were bereft most of the year, but production companies found ways around that, and many movies went straight to streaming services. Streaming options also presented us with several nominees for our Best Series.

But it was the crowdfunding renaissance in the comic book arena that really shook up the nomination processes this year, shouldering their way past the mainstream giants to stand side-by-side with them for Best Comic, Best Comics Writer and Best Comics Artist.

Once upon a time, there was a genre of Saturday morning cartoon that followed the formula of "teenage rock band fights bad guys." They were usually not real supernatural bad guys like Mystery Inc took on, of course. Josie and the Pussycats usually ended up finding spies or corrupt real estate tycoons. The Neptunes (and Jabberjaw) faced down megamaniacal world beaters. Kidd Video and his crew almost exclusively battled Master Blaster.

THE WRASKLES falls into the category of storytelling, only with anthropomorphic characters. The musical crew of conies is on their way to a battle of the bands when their vehicle mysteriously breaks down at a crossroads. If you know anything at all about musicians and crossroads, you can feel the foreshadowing coming on. And, sure enough, as they sit stranded, they meet up with a mysterious old goat (literally, an old goat) who strikes a deal with them: if they can play a better song than he can, he'll fix their van.

She's the 306th best actress in America, blessed to work with some of the top talents in the country on films that... well, don't exactly get screened for members of The Academy. She's Sonya Devereaux, and through a crowdfunded effort on Indiegogo, fans -- and those about to become fans -- can see her in all her glory (tastefully, of course, and only when it serves the plot) in this marvelous collection of distinguished classics, collected for the first time anywhere in trade paperback.

From directors Todd Livingston and Nick Capetanakis, from a grant made possible by American Mythology, come four of Sonya's most beloved films.

In what may turn out to be a lump of coal in the stockings of supporters of the Comicsgate movement, Richard C. Meyer and Mark Waid announced jointly on their social media platforms that the litigation against Waid for tortious interference had been dropped, citing the independent success of Meyer's graphic novel, Jawbreakers, which had been at the center of the tort, as well as the unexpected impact of COVID-19 on, well, everything.

Here's the thing about streaks: When you're on one, it's increasingly harder to stay on it. Eventually -- inevitably -- there will come a moment when that streak sputters, stalls, and ends.

For the publishers at Hero Tomorrow, PUNCHLINE AND THE VAUDE-VILLAINS #1... ain't that moment.

An octogenarian Miss Fury? A fanboy Peter Cannon? A scalped Vampirella? A smart-ass possessed smiley button? All banded together with others to fight an insurmountable zombie apocalypse of galactic proportions that has already claimed Project: Superpowers?

Gawt dam, son! What more could you ask for in comic book entertainment?

I love the horror comics, particularly the anthologies where stories had to be told in a few pages and grip you from beginning to end. But there's an art to the telling of these tales. Storytellers around campfires know it. The EC (and DC) writers of your knew it. It involves a setup, a hook, and an unexpected twist. But tying that all together requires one important thread: irony. That's what makes a good horror short story, and it's unfortunately missing from the entire string of tales in this years GRIMM FAIRY TALES 2020 HOLIDAY SPECIAL.

The 44-page one-shot sports an appropriately eerie cover by Igor Vitorino and Ivan Nunes, although I would rank it last among the four alternate covers available for this issue, which also includes enticing fronts from Ron Leary Jr., Michael DiPascale and Sanju Nivangune, and Harvy Tolibao and Mohan Sivakami. The insides are actually decently illustrated as well, by Babisu Kourtis, Marcelo Basile, Dario Tallarico, and Rodrigo Xavier.

Vampirella has gone through a number of iterations over the decades, but it seems that over at Dynamite Entertainment she's going through them at a rapid clip. You never know which Vampirella you're going to get when you pick up one of her titles. Unlike the Warren years, when Vampi's tales were an ongoing series of adventures with Pendragon, Pantha, and her other friends, every other Dynamite incarnation of Vampi tends to recreate her, whole cloth.

Such it is in this most recent adventure arc, VAMPIRELLA: THE DARK POWERS #1 by Dan Abnett and Paul Davidson, packaged and edited by Nate Cosby. Yes, I know, I seldom mention the editors when going over a book's credits, but trust me -- there's a method to my meanness... er... madness.

If there’s one thing in this last decade that nearly everyone’s taken part in, it’s the enjoyment of superhero-related content. It isn’t the first time the superhero trend has made its way into the mainstream in history, but this time it’s certainly had the biggest impact. It seems that these days no matter where we turn we see an iconic hero character proudly showing off their emblem, but for newbies that aren’t too familiar with the genre, knowing where to start can be a bit daunting. If you’re looking to ride along with the superhero trend, here are a few things to get you started.

Casino Games

Mike Grell. He's a verified legend. That's not hyperbole -- he's been officially inducted into the Hall of Legends, so he's entitled to use the honorific. He's given us iconic visions of superheroes like the Legion of Super-Heroes and Green Arrow, before becoming a trailblazer in the realm of creator-owned projects like Starslayer and Jon Sable, Freelance.

Grell's Jon Sable series is now being collected into hardcover omnibus editions, the first of which is funding on Kickstarter, and is well on it's way to becoming a fait accompli.

It was our honor to sit with Mike and talk about some of the highlights from his much-storied career, as well as focus the attention of our readers on this extremely cool project that is bound to become a sought-after classic.

Move over Sharknado -- there's a new species set to wreak havoc in a made-for-TV way.

Steve Urena's SLOW POKES is the kind of fun schlock you'd expect to find on 1990s Syfy late at night, in terms of both plot and execution. The story follows a group of high school seniors on their last field trip to a high tech think-tank-and-amusement-park, where the chief scientist, Eden Rare, makes scientific strides before breakfast. However, her latest world-saving foray has gone incredibly awry. Attempting to speed up the metabolism of three-toed sloths so that their accelerated mating cycles might save them from extinction, she instead made these creatures -- with their already extremely long claws -- swift, deadly killing machines.

In the world of Peter Milligan's HAPPY HOUR, the government has all but eliminated societies ills and unrest by treating the root cause of unhappiness -- unhappiness itself. A surgical procedure, performed on everyone, makes the brain incapable of feeling sadness, which gives everyone a peppy, optimistic outlook on everything, including terminal cancer.

But when Jerry suffers a head injury in an automobile accident, he awakens to a room of smiling doctors and nurses who tell him his sister is dead. When Jerry is outraged by their lack of appropriate reactions, they realize Jerry's injuries have worked against his surgery -- he's sad about his sister's death, and something has to be done about that.

Sometimes when an actor finishes a film, he or she retains a prop of some kind, a souvenir or memento they can look to in the future for a conversation piece.

Zachary Levi seems to have come away from his stint on SHAZAM with the coolest and most valuable vestige ever: The Wisdom of Solomon. (The superhero character more commonly known as Captain Marvel gains his powers by shouting out an acronym, which gains him the combined powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.)

During the trying and tiring time of the last few days, as votes were being tabulated with deliberation and states were switching colors more slowly than leaves in autumn, Levi interected a thought onto Twitter -- a place designed ostensibly just for that purpose but, ironically, in abject opposition to the ideal on most days.

Presidents have been featured, satirized, and flat-out lampooned in comics for as long as there have been Presidents and free speech. Superboy and Superman both managed to meet President Kennedy. Spider-Man met President Obama. President Roosevelt was nearly a junior member of the All-Star Squadron.

But unless my comics memory is failing (it could be -- I'm getting older, and I've read comics for a long, long time), there hasn't been a deluge of praise-and-parody comic books such as that which has been unleashed following the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. From Antarctic Press's TREMENDOUS TRUMP and TRUMP'S SPACE FORCE, Keenspot's TRUMP'S TITANS, and a cascade of others, Trump comics has become a cottage industry over the past four years.