America’s Got Rising Stars: America’s Got Powers #1 Review

America’s Got Powers is a book that is based on a simple and brilliant idea. That idea is J. Michael Straczynski’s Rising Stars.

Writer Jonathan Ross is a well-known BBC television host who has dabbled in writing comics (he wrote Turf for Image Comics last year), and who has gone on record for saying that he loves comics more than masturbation. Which is a bold statement; I personally buy about 30 comic books a week and spend more on them than I used to spend on my two-pack-a-day cigarette habit, but compared to the Happy Slappy? A distant second, my friend… although I must admit I sometimes read my comics with my left hand so it feels like a stranger’s reading them. But I digress.

Ross is writing about American popular culture from the point of view of a European, which means that he sees us from the lowest possible common demominator view: a sporting event and television-obsessed unthinking angry mob, who would not only happily watch and / or attend an event where people are beaten to unholy and crippled pulps, but would bring their children and buy them cheap plastic souveniers of the savagery. Note that I am not saying that Ross is wrong about us. However, it is a little insulting to hear that kind of broad generalization from a lime-sucking buck-toothed rampant practitioner of pubic school buggery. But I’m getting off point again.

Further Adventures In Digital Comics: The Gorilla, In The Panda Habitat…With A Candlestick? – Review Of Sanctuary #1-4

EDITOR’S NOTE – This review is on issues #1-4 of Sanctuary, by Stephen Coughlin and is based on preview copies forwarded to the Crisis Home Office by Mr. Coughlin. Also, there will be spoilers. Mystery solved!

When I examine my pull list, I have to admit that deep down I’m kind of a Capes and Cowls sort of girl. As someone who got back into reading comics by way of Transmetropolitan and Preacher, I didn’t think I was. But, lately, my weekly take skews heavy to The Big Two and The Big Two are mostly Flights and Tights. After that, I have a healthy chunk of Vertigo books, which tend to not be super powers books, but still generally have magic and weirdness. Following that are Image books, which could be about anything, but often deal with super powers though. Rounding out the pack are books from Boom Studios and small press (which, I guess you could say would include Boom, if only because it’s not Marvel or DC). Small press books tend towards the quirky and are less likely to be “traditional”, at least the ones I get. Maybe the protagonist is a talking teddy bear whose mortal enemy is the family cat. Or maybe the protagonist thinks he’s a superhero, but he’s really an oddly nigh invulnerable nut job who runs around in blue spandex doing more damage than good. Either way, for good or bad, my pull list tends toward the big established guys with their big established, practically heirloom, hero properties. Furthermore, my weekly take is also, entirely, physical paper copy.

Enter Slave Labor Graphics.