I was teaching about what resonates in communicating a message to an audience to my students this week and one of the points they glommed onto was emotion. At this time of year, emotions run high. Eliciting an emotional response from a viewer, reader – whatever the medium, is the …

If a story can completely capture my attention and allow me to lose myself in it for a brief segment of time out of my day, then I consider that time well-spent, and that’s what keeps me coming back for more. The immersive factor a story can generate for me …

Mark Millar's promised holiday surprise comes just in time for Christmas. A modern nativity story, 'American Jesus: The New Messiah' is the long-awaited sequel to 'American Jesus: Chosen,' and issue #1 gets the series off to a stellar start.

This week’s theme is taking care of business. Yep – pretty simple, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s best to boil life down to its essential elements and so it is in life, as it is reflected in comics. There’s a great deal of comfort in getting things done and this week, …

Ever felt overwhelmed by life’s many challenges? I think that’s a common experience we comic readers can relate to. Sometimes it feels like there’s too much daily stuff on our plates and too hard to make sense of it all. In our weekly devotional comic fixes, we read about compelling …

Ever feel like you’ve got too much to do? Yep – me too. The great thing about fiction though, is that we can love the fact that so do our heroes, but for some reason, they get it done! That’s the theme we are looking at for this week – …

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge and mourn the passing of comic artist, Tom Lyle. For me, his Scarlet Spider will always stand out as one of the most recognizable character designs in comic history. Rest in peace, Mr. Lyle, and for your work, we are thankful. The theme …

Adversity is the theme for this week’s review. It’s in everyone’s lives, to be sure. We all handle it in different ways, But the great things about reading other accounts – even fictional ones – help us to deal with them by seeing other people’s solutions. The visual nature of …

I’m all about completion. While I admire quality in pursuing one’s craft, I am also about getting the job done. Depending upon the situation, sometimes I would settle for just getting the job done to a level of acceptability than to a point of perfection. That happens in writing. Creators …

I miss the sense of discovery in life I had when I was a kid. Not that I’m a jaded old grump with no thought to what’s new in the world … well, depends on who you talk to, I guess, but reading comics was an essential part of that discovery process for …

Biting off more than we can chew is the theme we’re looking at this week. It happens. I mean, there’s something to be said for striving for a goal: that’s admirable and something we teach our kids to do, right? Shoot for the stars and you’ll hit the moon, remember …

Okay, it’s Thanksgiving weekend in Canada as I’m writing this, so it’s no stretch of the imagination that the focus for this review has to be on what I’m thankful for! So, without a further delay, let’s look at comics that I’m thankful for! DC Comics Sadly, I wasn’t able …

This week, it’s the villains who come to our rescue as we consider the good … in being bad. Image Comics East of West #43 This book is always an intense experience to read. However, we have now entered what seems to be the endgame stage – of course, I’ve …

Cursed is the new Young Adult novel from Tom Wheeler and the legendary Frank Miller. Their collaboration is clearly built on a foundation of a shared appreciation of the Arthurian Mythos.

Dealing with adversity is a good topic for this week’s review. DC’s Greg Capullo is a real motivational guy on the subject and I think he and I share a similar philosophy. It doesn’t matter what life throws at you; it matters what you throw back. Adversity and my family …