Comics Anatomy: The Aesthetics of Artifice in Victory Point
Harry Kassen returns to Comics Anatomy with a look at Owen D. Pomery’s Victory Point and the ways in which it leans into both visual and narrative artifice to convey its themes.
Read MoreComics Anatomy: The First Night of Klaus
Guest writer Sean Dillon looks at the measured pacing and sometimes whimsical action of Klaus, by Grant Morrison and Dan Mora. A deeply incisive look into the mechanics of the first night of Klaus’ gift giving mission, this article is a must read for fans of Santa Claus, swashbuckling adventure, or both.
Read MoreComics Anatomy: Providence #11 and the Inescapable Infection of Ideas
Staff Writer Jacob Cordas returns to Comics Anatomy to explore Jacen Burrows’ panel layouts in his and Alan Moore’s Providence, looking at how the structure of the page emphasizes the series’ creeping dread.
Read MoreComics Anatomy - Creator Perspective: Character Introductions in Young Offenders! #1
Writer Mark O. Stack goes behind the scenes on Young Offenders! #1 to unpack how he and artist Mike Becker crafted a team debut that introduced all new characters and got them working together with space to spare for story and action.
Read MoreComics Anatomy: The Age of the Sentry
This month’s edition of Comics Anatomy sees guest writer Zoe Tunnell taking the reigns for an examination of the craft behind the Marvel Comics mini-series, The Age of the Sentry.
Read MoreComics Anatomy: Shade, The Changing Girl/Wonder Woman Special
By Harry Kassen — Hello and welcome back to Comics Anatomy. This will be the last of the charity commissions and I wanted to thank you all for reading these. I hope you all enjoyed this series-within-a-series (to crib a DC marketing term) as much as I have. It’s been an interesting challenge starting with the title and finding something to write about as opposed to starting with both of those things already. I also want to thank the people who donated money and chose books for me, both for giving money to people in need and also for choosing such an interesting array of books for me to write about.
Read MoreComics Anatomy: THE FIX, when artwork does the heaviest lifting
By Harry Kassen — Welcome back to another Comics Anatomy Charity Commission. I’ll be doing these through the Summer and then returning to the previous setup in the Fall. I want to thank Sean for his request for From Hell for last month’s article and I want to thank everyone who read and shared the article itself. I had a great time writing it and I’m proud of the work I did preparing for it.
Read MoreComics Anatomy Charity Commissions: FROM HELL
By Harry Kassen — Hello everyone and welcome back to Comics Anatomy. To those who read last month’s article: thank you, and I hope you found it interesting. Last month was a request based on a giveaway I ran last year (very overdue) and this month begins the Comics Anatomy Charity Commissions. For this article I’ll be writing about From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, as requested by fellow critic Sean Dillon.
Read MoreTHE WILD STORM by Ellis and Davis-Hunt - COMICS ANATOMY
By Harry Kassen — Hello from quarantine. I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. Due to the pandemic, and the related economic crisis, some plans I had in place for this column have changed, and I want to explain what the next few months are going to look like. I’ve been really pleased with the little experiment that I began this year, bringing in guest writers to write about things they see in some of their favorite comics.
Read MoreComics Anatomy: Theomachy by Goran Gligovic
By Harry Kassen — Hello readers, Harry Kassen here. I’m back this month, but I want to thank Jed McPherson for taking the time to write an article for Comics Anatomy last month and all of you for being cool with new stuff as I work on developing this column. If anyone else would like to write a guest article, please contact me or Zack and let us know what you’re thinking.
Read MoreComics Anatomy: Signal and noise - an exploration of world building in Transmetropolitan
By Jed McPherson — World building is difficult. If you scrimp on the details your world feels hollow and empty. You go too heavy, and you may as well be writing a Dungeons and Dragon’s source book. Now, if you’re working on a series set in the real world, you can cheat it a little. After all, we all live in the real world — it’s familiar. But for fantasy and sci-fi, you’ve got to do the work.
Read MoreComics Anatomy: A Walk Through Hell Vol. 1, clinical horror that gives readers space to feel
By Harry Kassen — Welcome back to another year of Comics Anatomy. I want to thank everyone for making the first year so great and for coming back this year. We’ve got some exciting new things coming up in 2020 that I think are pretty cool, but we’re going to kick things off with an article about one of my favorite books to come out since I’ve been reading comics — A Walk Through Hell.
Read MoreComics Anatomy: The Best of 21st Century Batman, Pt. 3 - Batman (1940) #656
By Harry Kassen — Hello everyone, and happy holidays. Welcome to the final installment in our 21st Century Batman series, and the final Comics Anatomy of our first year. I want to thank Zack for giving this feature a home, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou for inspiring me and teaching me, and everyone who reads these for the continued support. I have some exciting and fun things coming up for Comics Anatomy next year, and I can’t wait to share them with you, but until then, let’s talk about Batman
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