The Vulgar Eclectic

Category: comics

  • House of Mystery (Bernie Wrightson!)

    I’ve been in the process of packing up all my comics in order to prepare for an upcoming renovation project in my bedroom. While sorting, I came across this coverless issue of House of Mystery (#211, February 1973). When my brother and I were kids, we had a gigantic box of coverless comics my parents…

  • Nubilous

    I recently came across a word I wasn’t familiar with. That happens a lot when I’m reading but it was surprising in that, this particular time, I was reading a comic book. That’s not a medium usually thought of as having a difficult lexicon. The word is “nubilous,” an adjective meaning “cloudy, foggy, misty” or…

  • The pathos of the Hulk

  • Ninja

  • This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

    I just finished reading This One Summer (2014), a graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki. It is a realistic coming-of-age story focused on two friends and their respective families during an annual summer trip to a lake. I found the characters complex and interesting and the artwork fantastic. Many of…

  • The Hard Switch by Owen D. Pomery

    I finished reading The Hard Switch (2023), a graphic novel written and illustrated by Owen D. Pomery. It’s a science fiction tale set in a world in which interstellar travel has long been an established reality thanks to a mineral called alcanite. However, the end of such travel is fast approaching, as the finite galactic…

  • My Crowd by Charles Addams

    I just read My Crowd (1970), a collection of cartoons by Charles Addams. It’s the first time I’ve read one of his books and I found a lot of it hilarious. It reminds me very much of The Far Side…both share a similar sense of the absurd. I would definitely like to read more of…

  • Snapdragon by Kat Leyh

    A few days ago, I finished reading the graphic novel Snapdragon, written and illustrated by Kat Leyh and published in 2020. The main character, Snapdragon, is a middle school kid navigating her world the best she can. Along the way, the readers meet those who populate that world–particularly her mother, her best friend, and an…

  • Wulf the Barbarian

    In a continuation of my recent sword and sorcery (and specifically barbarian) comic book reading foray, I jumped into the world of Wulf the Barbarian by Atlas Comics. This is the Atlas publisher from the 1970s, usually referred to as Atlas/Seaboard to distinguish it from the much earlier pre-Marvel Atlas of the 1950s. If Claw…

  • Claw the Unconquered

    Sword and sorcery is a genre that I find often appealing and only sometimes satisfying. Perhaps it is the propensity for a general deficiency in characterization, or the oft over-used tropes and situations. Regardless, it’s a realm of fiction I return to time and again and, despite my previous criticisms, thoroughly enjoy. Recently I delved…