Graphic Novels and Comics

Latest Articles

Review: Marmaduke

Bad dog!
Add director Tom Dey's dreadful live-action adaptation of the long-running comic strip to the pantheon of dog flicks that'll make you cry — for all the wrong reasons.
By ALICIA POTTER | June 09, 2010

26 cent book bin

Big Fat Whale
Books never to come
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | May 19, 2010

Interview: Daniel Clowes

On going from Enid to Wilson
"If you had told me then that there would be cute girls coming to comic conventions in 15 years, I would’ve told you you were out of your mind."
By MIKE MILIARD | April 27, 2010

Super friends

Move over, Clark Kent. All over New England, mild-mannered citizens are suiting up and doing their part to play the hero.
THWAK! I swing with my right fist, trying to connect with my opponent's face. In a smooth motion, he deflects my punch with his forearm, which is protected with a black and metallic-plastic arm gauntlet. I swing with my left fist, and am again knocked away effortlessly. I can see my reflection in his sunglasses, framed in white.
By TEA KRULOS | December 11, 2009

25-cent book bin

Big Fat Whale
Books
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | December 02, 2009

Slideshow: Inside today's graphic novels

An exclusive look into a collection of graphic novels
Images from graphic novels like World War 3 , Drunk , Asterios Polyp , and more.
By PHOENIX STAFF | October 14, 2009

Review: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

Marvel's "Secret War" comes to consoles
Comic-book games are all about wish-fulfillment: What comic book fan hasn't dreamed of laying the telekinetic smack down Dark Phoenix-style, or flinging a few of Gambit's explosive cards?
By MADDY MYERS | September 30, 2009

The hub of film criticism?

A peek into the Phoenix archives
In his deep survey, Gerald Peary hardly conceals his opinion that Boston is the epicenter of film criticism.
By CHRIS FARAONE | September 02, 2009

Big Fat Whale gets even fatter

Laugh Factory
Brian McFadden's comic strip Big Fat Whale — which can be seen semi-regularly in these very pages — had an inauspicious beginning.
By MIKE MILIARD | August 26, 2009

Comic-strip author declares war on Jamba

Juice justice
While the Shepard Fairey–AP showdown was busy raising the public-domain bar, a new case concerning intellectual property recently cropped up on the Internet. This one pits David Rees and his defunct Get Your War On ( GYWO ) comic strip against national smoothie giant Jamba Juice.
By LEOR GALIL | August 05, 2009

Interview: Alan Moore, author of Watchmen

From the Boston Phoenix archives: the watchmaker speaks.
The winner of several "Best Comics Writer" awards on both sides of the Atlantic, he's best known in America as the author of the DC Comics series Swamp Thing and, of course, Watchmen.
By M. HOWELL | March 05, 2009

Robert Crumb at MassArt

In Crumb's world, everything appears tantalizingly available, all options are on the table, all bets are off.
R. Crumb's Underground at MassArt
By GREG COOK | February 06, 2009

Globalized

The world in comics
This season, there are two best buys when it comes to bang for your comic-book buck.
By MIKE MILIARD | December 02, 2008

Is he being served?

Tony Millionaire's still best on the page
In the first animated adaptation of Tony Millionaire's sumptuously debauched comic strip Maakies , the soused Drinky Crow was voiced by erstwhile Conan O'Brien sidekick Andy Richter.
By MIKE MILIARD | November 18, 2008

The nature of the beast

Kevin Hooyman’s ‘Dark Walk’ at Proof, ‘The Exquisite Line’ at BU, ‘Material Meditation’ at The New Art Center
In the world of graphic novelist Kevin Hooyman, whose show opens at Proof Gallery on September 13, packed line drawings take you deep into strange and fantastical scenes.
By RANDI HOPKINS | September 10, 2008

Terror 'toonist

Dept. of gallows humor
Earlier this month, syndicated cartoonist Matt Bors found a new fan in none other than Salim Hamdan, the man tried and convicted for once having been Osama Bin Laden’s driver.
By CLIF GARBODEN | August 20, 2008

Mound wisdom

Cartoons of pitchers and catchers talking are a New Yorker staple. What is so funny about rubbers?
The first pitcher/catcher cartoon in the New Yorker was also the simplest.
By MIKE MILIARD | August 19, 2008

Funny fundraiser

Hip cash for Kansas rep
The term “Internet famous” brings a few things to mind.
By JONATHAN SEITZ | August 13, 2008

Parody flunks out

Political humor is no longer welcome in Academia as administrators choke the life out of parody
Artist Barry Blitt’s brilliant illustration — which sought to satirize the naysayers who portray Obama as a flag-burning, unpatriotic Muslim and his wife as a black-power radical — cut to the core of today’s political paradox.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | July 30, 2008

William Lemmer: Coming home

The further history of a Vietnam-era informer
This article originally appeared in the July 11, 1978 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
By JEFFREY STEIN | July 10, 2008

Repression illustrated

People’s history in graphic format
Graphic novels are an acquired taste.
By CLIF GARBODEN | July 01, 2008

Iron Man

Robert Downey, Jr. saves the day
Though a Marvel Comics fan, I never thought much of Iron Man.
By PETER KEOUGH | May 01, 2008

Scare tactics

When comics were too crude for school
A steady ripple of anti-comics sentiment was crystallized in the early ’50s.
By DOUGLAS WOLK | March 24, 2008

Letter from Candorville

An African-American cartoonist reacts to being pulled by the Post
An African-American cartoonist reacts to being pulled by the Post
By ADAM REILLY | February 13, 2008

Sex and (comic) sensibilities

Dirty pictures
Josie and the Pussycats were sexy for cartoons, but they were a fairly chaste trio — too shy to appear in full-frontal shower scenes.
By CAITLIN E. CURRAN | January 30, 2008

Making book

Ben Katchor explains The Rosenbach Company
If obsession is at the core of The Rosenbach Company, says co-creator Ben Katchor, that only makes the pop musical a human story.
By CLEA SIMON | November 14, 2007

Comics for Christ

Evangelicals are speaking in bubbles — and fighting God’s war on pop culture
Young Laurel Templeton spends her summer vacation “kidnapped by five cyborg flies and shrunk down to insect size so [she can] travel back in time with them to save the world from an evil spider.” You know, typical stuff.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | October 10, 2007