27 (TWENTY SEVEN) #2 (OF 4)   …

I don’t care all that much about what everybody else thinks.  I’ll make up my own mind, thank you very much.  Sometimes that means I find myself defending what’s popular because I don’t automatically reject the mainstream just for being the mainstream.  And sometimes I find myself in the minority, honestly liking and earnestly defending something that the majority decries as…

ACTION COMICS #896   …

Let’s say it’s Thursday evening, on the fifth of January, 1961, and you stretch out in your easy chair to watch a new television show listed in TV Guide, a mid-season…

Scripps Howard News Service

Dec. 21, 2010 -- What’s Christmas without comics? Well, it’s still Christmas, because there’s nothing especially Christmas-y about comics. Still, there’s lots of red and green in comics, which is enough for me to recommend Christmas Classics: Graphic Classics Volume…

28 DAYS LATER #18

ABATTOIR #2 (OF 6) (MR)

AGE OF BRONZE #31 (MR)

ALAN MOORE NEONOMICON #3 (OF 4) (MR)

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #10 (MR)

AMORY WARS KEEPING SECRETS OF SILENT EARTH 3 #7 (O

ANGEL ILLYRIA #2 (OF 4)

ARCHIE #616

ARCHIE & FRIENDS TP VOL 07 BETTY & VERONICA STORYB

ART OF VAMPIRELLA HC

ARTIFACTS #3 (OF 13) CVR E 2ND PTG

ARTIFACTS #4 (OF 13)

ATOMIC ROBO DEADLY ART OF SCIENCE #2 (OF…

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Dec. 14, 2010 -- Titan Books has released the second volume in its library of comics by the team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and it’s like finding the Rosetta stone of superhero comics.

As most comics fans know, Simon and Kirby were the rock stars of the early…

Every once in a while, I’ll come across a great title for an article or a discussion thread; then I’ll start to read it and discover that the article or discussion wasn’t what I thought it would be.  On those occasions, I like to write the article I wish I had read, or hopefully launch a discussion in the direction I…

As "Relocating the Marvel Universe" continues to ring the Washington, D.C., area, this blog series takes a look at the heroes of Virginia, and among them you'll find the king of Atlanteans, a man-demon, a Man-Wolf and even a few mutants.

What's "Relocating the Marvel Universe"? It's my blog series on how the Marvel Universe would…

Stop the presses! DC’s precious resources are being depleted!

Well, maybe that’s a trifle alarmist, but that’s what occurred to me when I realized what a large portion of DC’s digital release program is devoted to Green Lantern… and how precious little of the current run is…

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #650 BIG

ANGEL #40

ASSASSINS CREED THE FALL #2 (OF 3) (MR)

AVENGERS ACADEMY #7

AVENGERS VS PET AVENGERS #3 (OF 4)

BATGIRL THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD TP…

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

We’re almost out of year, so let’s buzz through as many recent books as possible:…

I haven't done one of my trivia quizzes in a long time, and never here in my Deck Log column. For one thing, the development and expanse of search engines has made it difficult to find truly challenging questions. Oh, one can format a question to make it virtually Google-proof, something like "What do 'X' and 'Y' and 'Z' have in common?" But…

I had an epiphany the other month. It wasn’t anything earth-shattering. And, honestly, it’s an epiphany I’ve had before. So it’s more like a repiphany.

Here it is: I can only keep up with so many comics.

I was reminded of this following a conversation with a friend. We had taken a family vacation to Washington DC this past summer and were staying just outside…

27 #1 (OF 4)…