By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

If you thought Hollywood strip-mined comic books for movie ideas in 2011, you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet.

Which is not to say that all you’re going to see is superhero movies. Actually, so many genres, media and themes repeat this year that it makes me wonder if Hollywood screenwriters all get drunk in the same bar. I mean, do we really need two movies about riots on an orbiting space…

Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

The Golden Age of radio is a nearly forgotten era, which makes it all the cooler that writer/artist Ernie Colón has brought it back in graphic novel form.

Inner Sanctum: Tales of Mystery, Horror and Suspense (NBM, $16.99) is a collection of stories adapted from…

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

My introduction to Lee Falk’s “The Phantom” was in comic books, not the syndicated comic strip. Thanks to Hermes Press, you can experience both at the same time.

“The Phantom” is the great grand-daddy of costumed heroes, first appearing as a newspaper comic strip in…

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Ever since Neil Gaiman’s astonishingly literate Sandman series ran from 1989 to 1996, I’ve wanted someone to point out the cool stuff I missed. And now, with DC/Vertigo’s lavish The Annotated Sandman Volume One ($49.99), that project has begun.

As…