Will the Human-Lizard’s date be able to save him from Rabb the Malevolent?

Canada has produced few successful superheroes. Comic fans like to recall Nelvana, but she’s better known for the animation studio that bears her name. Captain Canuck resurfaces regularly, but his series rarely last and he remains largely unknown. The most famous super-Canadian is Wolverine, the creation of Marvel Comics and more associated with American and international adventures.

Jason Loo tries to rectify the situation by giving North America’s fourth most populous city a handful of new super-doers. They all appear in the comic, but the focus is the determined, apologetic Pitiful Human-Lizard.

Continue reading →

The latest episode of the Unofficial 75 Greatest Marvels Countdown, examining Captain America Comics #1 with Jon M. Wilson, is now available for your listening pleasure.

Dark Horse has released Evan Dorkin’s complete Eltingville Club comics, 1994-2015, in hard copy and on Kindle. It’s savage, brutal, hilarious, and probably something every fan should read.

Some people (understandably, especially after the first couple of seasons) complain that The Big Bang Theory invites its audience to laugh at, not with, the nerds. Compared to Eltingville, Big Bang is tame. Dorkin satirically slashes at the worst of nerddom with Swift, Juvenalian anger. I make no assumptions about the author’s feelings and motivations here; he names it anger in the book’s introduction. The saving grace is that Dorkin, something of a nerd icon, attacks from within; these characters don’t represent all nerds; they represent the worst excesses, the people who foul up fandom.

Of course, even less crazed fans may see something of ourselves in Dorkin’s funhouse mirror.

Either way, a fannish Valentine this ain’t.

Continue reading →