Hair Shirt By Patrick McEown Abrams/SelfMadeHero, 119 pages, $24.95 A second chance at love or happiness is often cause for celebration, but as Patrick McEown explores in his graphic novel Hair Shirt, it is not always for the best. From the murky cover color through the final page, the book’s emotional spectrum tends towards the…
In the early days of comic book fandom, it took its cues from science fiction fandom since there was quite a bit of overlap. The early SF zines included names and addresses so as others began publishing, they knew where to find eager subscribers. The first pure comics zine, Richard Lupoff’s Xero, didn’t arrive until…
Few made a bigger debut in the 1990s than Edward Burns who wrote and starred in The Brothers McMullen, which remains a quiet classic, often overlooked. These days, he is perhaps better known for his run on HBO’s Entourage, playing a version of himself. Thankfully, he continues to be a creative force, continuing to appear…
The great television series Naked City used to close each episode with the famous tag, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them.” It’s very compact size and dense population means people are intersecting in new and unusual ways all the time. This has given rise to some…
The greatest pitfall television series featuring high school cast members has is that the cast is already older when the series begins and they age out rapidly. Smallville stopped setting stories in the high school because the cast looked ridiculous on the sets. Confronting the inevitable graduation challenges the producers to find tortured ways to…
Most television series hit the fourth season mark with the characters firmly established allowing the creators and performers a chance to stretch a bit, certain they won’t lose their audience. The better shows know just how far to stretch, how far to push the formula, and when to pull back. Thankfully, TNT’s Leverage toed the…
We’ve partnered with Warner Home Video to offer three lucky readers to win a Blu-ray disc, either Blood Work, U.S Marshals, or A Perfect World. Here’s how you can enter the contest: tell us what, in 300 words or less, Father’s Day means to you. The contest ends tomorrow night at 11:59 and we want…
As many recall, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman and I have been writing bible material for 2013’s After Earth film starring Will and Jaden Smith. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, its set in the future and we’ve had a ball filling in gaps and expanding on concepts found in the script. Early last week, Peter…
I’ll tell you right up front that I had a stronger emotional reaction to the film than most audience members, largely because of the theme of loss that permeates most of the story. As a result, I found myself loving the We Bought a Zoo and have been recommending it to families ever since. Now…
Recently, DC Comics has made a big deal over the fact that the Earth where the New 52 comics have been telling stories is the Main Earth. This is to clearly separate it from the Earth-One seen in the hardcover graphic novels – the first of which, [[[Superman: Earth One]]] came out to great acclaim…
To celebrate the upcoming release of The Descendants to Blu-ray and DVD March 13, author Kaui Hart Hemmings will be participating in a special Featured Author Group Chat on social media network GoodReads next Tuesday. GoodReads members can join the group and be notified when it officially starts and begin submitting questions. If not a…
While television at first reflected American culture, it then tried to mold it in the 1950s before giving up all pretense towards reality in the 1960s. The seismic cultural shifts in the latter part of the decade could be felt everywhere, including television. A rule of thumb is that the theater reflects society fastest with…
