Review: ‘Erotic Comics: A Graphic History Vol. 2’
There is sharp divide between erotica and pornography in any media, including comic books. To help draw attention to the former while casting a jaundiced eye at the latter, Britain’s Tim Pilcher has produced two strong volumes entitled Erotic Comics: A Graphic History
Pilcher breaks down the book into five sections — Porn in the USA, Gay and Lesbian Comix, European Erotique, Tits and Tentacles: The Japanese Experience, and Online Comics Eroticism – devoting a spread or two to specific creators or titles. As a result, we see the familiar such as Dave Stevens and Frank Thorne to those deserving of more attention in the states, such as Italy’s Giovanna Casotto, who provided the stunning cover artwork.
He does a good job quickly sketching in biographical details and telling you about the works that make them worthy of inclusion. Each section works in its own chronological order and oddly, the USA section covers the Comics Code, something better left to the previous volume, and largely ignores most mainstream efforts at erotica. Most disappointing was that Vaughn Bode and Phil Foglio were left out since both produced some of the most imaginative and clever erotic comics during their careers. The book relishes the controversies stirred up by someone as mainstream as Howard Chaykin producing [[[Black Kiss]]], or Barry Blair’s descent into porn comics in order to make a living.
After its success with [[[The Lord of the Rings]]], New Line wisely began scouring the bookshelves for other properties that could feed the appetite of a growing public to whom fantasy was no longer reserved for the geeks. They snatched up several including Cornelia Funke’s German novel, which first saw print in fall 2003. 
is a well-received novel, first in a trilogy naturally, about a family whose father was a “silvertongue”, who by reading aloud could bring the written word to life.
ABC’s Lloyd Berman had a nifty idea: turn [[[Survivor]]] into a drama. He handed the notion off to producer J.J. Abrams, who at the time was riding the critical wave of success with the network’s [[[Alias]]]. Abrams, in turn, sat with Damon Lindeolf and Carleton Cuse and they brainstormed a concept and characters. From there, they shot an expensive, moody, intriguing pilot that got everyone’s attention. And suddenly, Wednesday nights were appointment television evening as everyone wanted to watch [[[Lost]]] and dissect it the following morning.
The second volume of [[[The Complete Steve Canyon on TV]]] is just out and there are 12 more episodes from the one season series based on Milton Caniff’s wonderful comic strip. As with 
One of the first questions posed regarding digital comics is just how you make any money from a strip available for free. The usual answer is that the strip, if it’s any good, will find an audience who will then happily pay for a print compilation. That seems to be the model for DC Comics’ Zuda Comics as they released 
Every now and then you see a movie advertised as coming to video and you scratch your head wondering why you’ve never heard of it. 
We here at ComicMix write about heroes all the time. They tend to be muscle-bound, wear spandex and appear in the fevered imaginations of writers and artists. In the real world, people are given the title hero when they are bystanders, victims, or their feats are fairly ordinary. As a result, the term has been somewhat watered down and in need of rehabilitation.
made a lot of noise at the box office nor did they ignite a debate over the nature of heroism in times of war. And that’s a shame, really, since in the former, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, was a patriot, a German who saw Hitler for the devil he was and risked everything to take him down, paying for it with his life.
One of the really interesting aspects about the growth in graphic novels is that more and more people are using the form for memoirs and autobiographical works. Will Eisner explored growing up in the tenements, kicking things off, and since then we have had utterly fascinating works that detail romance, aging, life on the streets and the like.
hit my desk, I knew nothing about Brown. As a result, the book, now available from Touchstone Books, was a window into a new world and one I was pleased to visit. Brown’s growth from doodler to artist no doubt mirrors the journey many working artists took, but watching him lurch from school to work to art was interesting, since they all wound up informing his work.
America had won World War II, becoming the first true Super Power of the 20th Century. But with it came a price and that was a desperate desire among the populace to preserve their freedom through an amazing sense of conformity. Being different was seen as being un-American and you were likely to be accused of being a Communist, which had replaced being a Nazi as the vilest kind of person.
that was the first work of fiction to examine the cost this conformity exact from the soul of the individual and society as a while. The acclaimed work had resisted being adapted into film until Kate Winslet campaigned for nearly four years to get the film made by her husband, director Sam Mendes.
World War II seems to have generated countless stories about heroism and bravery, stories told for the point of view of the allies and the axis, stories told about life on the homefront and life in the foxhole. As a result, it remains an enduring source of fodder for filmmakers as more and more details come to the surface. Through the 1950s and 1960s, most of the WW II movies were highly fictionalized accounts and by the 1970s war stories were played out, fewer and further between. In the last decade, we’ve had history to sift through and we now know of [[[Schindler’s List]]]. 
, Bryan Singer’s entry into the pantheon, intended to tell us of the closest a plot to assassinate Hitler came to working. Presuming you were taught anything about the war in school, you might not even know there were over a dozen attempts to kill the Chancellor of the German Republic.
