Isn’t That Kind of Stupid?

Yeah, I think if I were pursuing traditional publishing avenues, then yes, I think my strategy is kind of stupid. The thing is I am not really interested in pursuing traditional publishing for these stories. If someone wanted to publish the material, I’d happily pursue it, but not at the risk of compromising my desire to just share these two stories with as wide an audience as possible.

I am at a good place right now regarding finances where the motivation to make money through my writing doesn’t really factor in as much as it did earlier this year. I have done a lot of freelancing over the years and I am happy I can dial back on that. Now I work as a college English/Composition instructor (at full time, which I am just about used to) and can find time to just make things for people to enjoy.

Things like stories about werewolves and zombies.

I just want to make my stories available for anyone wants to read them, and right now that means posting these chapters for free, weekly, based on my current writing schedule. I’ve been doing this for a while, but I am feeling even better about that choice because of changing circumstances.

Aren’t You Worried About Quality?

Oh most definitely I am constantly worried about the quality of my serialized chapters. I am not turning a profit and can’t exactly invest in editors, so it comes down to me alone or the rare beta reader. Also, I know there is a perception of free things, especially fiction, being lesser quality. I knew this coming in.

So this a kind of two-part question. Regarding the first part, I am fortunate to have a Master’s degree in Literature and Composition. As an instructor I have a critical eye. Each chapter usually gets three rounds of drafts so maintain the pace of my schedule. A first draft for the narrative, a second draft for polish, and a third draft for the proofing. It’s about as much as I can afford to do and still maintain the pacing I want regarding the serialization.

Okay, Explain That Typo I Saw?

Does that mean errors slip in? Yes, it can happen. But I’ve seen proofed and published books with errors. Besides, if someone makes me aware of them, I fix them. No big deal. I’m a one-man team. Given the work I am doing out of my own pocket, some typos here and there are fair. I don’t think they are damning, especially when I can change fix them on another read through.

As for the other thing, free online fiction being perceived as lesser quality? Not much I can do about that. I can only control what I create – I work to my schedule, do three drafts, and keep running. The truth is, I don’t consider these chapters finalized and I am learning as I write.

I also think the latter half of the question may also involve unfinished or partial stories – things people read but stop updating. I don’t want to do that – I promise any readers as much.

Except if I die. Then it is what it is.

Why These Serialized Stories?

I chose to write Fang & Bone as a nod to pulp stories I’ve read. The whole story, if you’ve read it, is a lot of sword and sorcery elements. I mean, the titular Fang is a seven-foot tall werewolf swordsman. It’s all indulgence. I make no excuses for that.

I wrote an earlier draft of the narrative as a novella, and while it was fun and the readers enjoyed it, I knew I could make it even better. In the future I may write about some differences between the original draft and the current version sometime, actually. For what it is worth, my goals for the current version of Fang & Bone were twofold: one, double the length, and two, introduce more characters. I am succeeding at that so far. As for how much of the novella I am reusing, the novella is essentially just an outline. So much has changed already between this version and the first version.

Beyond that, I think the story itself is very accessible and has a lot to offer. But we’ll see how making the chapters serialized here on the website will go in the long run. I am optimistic the right audience will find the story.

The Dead Life

The Dead Life was a serialized novel I had already begun writing for a horror website called Haunted MTL. I retained the rights to the material and needed something to post on my website, so here we are. I had written about 24 chapters before I left Haunted MTL, so admittedly I am just editing and reposting existing material now. However, it has been nice to polish each chapter and find spots to improve the narrative.

If I had to put it in percentages, 85% of the material I post here is based on those older versions at Haunted MTL. But I do think the 15% coming in from this weekly chapter editing process has added a lot of nuance and character to the overall story. As this week’s update goes out, we’ll be about half way through the existing chapters and it will be time for me to continue the story. I am very excited about that.

How Is It Going So far?

Good, I guess. it’s an underwhelming answer, but it’s also about what I expected. Am I lighting the internet on fire with these stories? Not at all. But I am having fun posting them. They are available to everyone who wants to take the plunge, no paywall involved. I am also sticking to my schedule despite some hiccups regarding the recent job transition.

I find I am happy with the chapters I have released week after week, and as I am my own biggest critic, I think that is a good thing. Putting this stuff out there is risky. This isn’t polished and I know I could benefit from more readers and a copy editor. But I don’t have the budget for that, for now, so I work with what I have. And you know what? It works for now.

Once these two novels are done, I may go back and edit them and build on the foundations of this serialized collection. I recognize that these chapters are very much first drafts.

But I don’t think that’s going to hurt me very much. Especially as I am not really rushing to find a publisher here. I wouldn’t mind more readers, or financial support through Ko-fi subscriptions, but I am not hurting here, either.

So Why Do You Still Do It This Way?

For the love of the game, really.

I think as long as I am having fun and happy with what I am writing, that is all that really matters to me.

The post Sick Day Musings, or WTF I am Doing Writing Two Serialized Novels appeared first on hpkomics.com.

Apologies for the delay since the last post, back in… February? Wow. A lot has been going on in my life, but nothing will ever keep me away from horror. Speaking of horror, let’s jump into it.

Terrifier Franchise: Perhaps I treated you too harshly

To say I have had a tumultuous relationship to the Terrifier franchise is to put it lightly. I first approached the series during my 31 Days of Halloween essay project in 2024, where I had watched the first two films. In the time since, I have seen Terrifier 3, and re-watched the trilogy again. While I still have my criticisms about elements of the franchise, I will admit that the series has really grown on me and I consider it to be quite iconic; Maybe one of the most iconic series of horror films within the last 15 to 20 years or so.

So, what changed? What are my feelings now? What sparked this reappraisal?

It’s still kind of a mess, but in a fun kind of way?

Before getting into why I look at the Terrifier franchise a little differently, I should note that my assessment of the films still largely remains. I enjoyed the majority of the first film but found the move to the supernatural uninspired and damaged my overall impressions of start of what will be a quadrilogy. This only got worse with the commitment to the bit in Terrifier2 and Terrifier 3.

I don’t like the loss of the grounded, ugly psychopathy of Art the Clown. I still consider it the first film becoming a tool in a larger cosmic conflict between Heaven and Hell to be it’s biggest flaw. It comes off as a graft of self-importance to something that proved more interesting in a simpler, meaner state. Knowing Art as a tool of demonic forces just feels safe, rather than transgressive, especially for a film series that aims to be transgressive through depictions of violence. The cosmic struggle ironically makes the series feel safer and less terrifying.

While I don’t agree with how Damien Leone chose to shift the series, it is not about my choice. I need to take the art on its greasepaint face and either embrace it or not. With my re-watch of the film I have since accepted the direction it is going and bought into it to a degree. I don’t think the cosmic struggle is worth the squeeze, but if it gives me more horrific gore to enjoy in a 4th Terrifier film, then I will roll with it.

But if I am still so bitchy about the aspects of the film series, why am I reappraising it and finding myself more positive about it overall?

Haunted Houses and Art as an Icon

Ultimately, two things helped me to look at the Terrifier franchise with a new sense of acceptance. Hell, I am happy to admit I am a fan.

The first thing was seeing some graffiti in my Podunk SoCal town that depicted Art the Clown. The second was attending Universal Studios Hollywood’s “Halloween Horror Nights” this year. Both these points lean toward a central idea a single word: Icon.

Art the Clown is pretty goddamn cool as far as horror characters go. He has the recognition and the popularity. In many ways, the ascendance of Art the Clown through Terrifier evokes some of the greater slasher icons in horror history. Seeing him in his recognizable, stripped down form as graffiti art on the side of a paint-supply building reduces the idea to a singular image that is unidentifiably the character. Art the Clown is a capital-T Thing in horror.

This was only further emphasized to me in my trip to Universal Studios where among the festivities, the Terrifier house and the roaming Art the Clowns around the park were absolute standouts. Terrifier, by far, was the most popular of the scare attractions when I attended, even dwarfing wait times for the ever pervasive Five Nights at Freddy’s walk through.

It all just clicked for me then. I was most excited for the Terrifier walk through. It was exciting to round a corner of the park to see the Clown roaming around. It was great to see him menace park goers with a sudden honk of a horn. I saw him expressed as an icon on the side of a building in my town.

Art the Clown is today’s Freddy Krueger. Today’s Michael Myers. Today’s Jason Voorhees.

Art is a horror icon.

Terrifier, you’re cool with me

While I still have my issues with choices made in the films and general criticisms, I have really grown to enjoy them. I am able to buy into what Leone is selling and go along with the ride, hoping to see some gooey, fucked up kill I’ve not seen before in the fourth film, whenever that arrives. Just as not every film in other slasher icon oeuvre wins me over, I still find joy in the characters. They still give me that haunted house joy.

And I guess I even give a shit about the overall story now, if I think about it. Who knew that crazy clown was so magnetic?

I’m sure Damien Leone did.

Thanks for reading this installment of Revenge of Graphic Content. Please share your thoughts on this post in the comments below. If you want to support my writing, please consider supporting be on Ko-Fi. Special thanks to Fancaps.net for the Terrifier franchise stills.

The post Revenge of Graphic Content #14: Reappraising the Terrifier Franchise appeared first on hpkomics.com.

In writing, specifically, I have to tiptoe through a minefield of integrated AI “helpers” in researching information or the writing and editing process. These tools are “helpfully” integrated into every program I use. They often take up huge amounts of UI space, cutting into my flow state. Sometimes, they integrate themselves directly into my process without my asking.

As a podcaster I’ve spent hours researching and writing about generative AI and the weird things it does. I have yet to find any AI integration on a daily basis that truly makes my life easier. Nor have I seen generated content in an overall quality that is better than anything I could potentially do. It hasn’t really saved me time, either.

But AI in the classroom? That is by far the most intrusive, unhelpful aspect of all of this AI-bubble. It has been an active detriment to my practice. It is so bad I wonder if they is anything that can done?

My Background with AI

I write all this not as someone experiencing the sour grapes of generative AI affecting my livelihood, but as someone who has had a role to play in the development of generative AI. During times of desperation I found myself doing A/B testing and contributing to a couple of large AI companies as a freelancer. I am not sure if I am still under an NDA, but they rhyme with “Shmalfabet” and “Medduh.” It was enlightening to get a peek behind the curtain. I saw how data was processed, and the conditioning of the AI models regarding queries and safety issues.

And of course I’ve dabbled. Who hasn’t? I’ve prompted to see what can be generated. Yet, I never found results that were particularly compelling or useful to me. It just seemed faster to do things for myself and to my specifications. AI generators could never seem to quite reach what I asked for. Additionally, my output is more unique than what I was seeing generated. AI just isn’t for me, and I know that.

It’s for people who want to not have to deal with people like me. The promise of generative AI is to help the rich to eliminate the pesky human element of production. As long as the generative AI production pipeline can churn out material that is “good enough” for the population without resulting in profit loss, generative AI is deemed successful.

Unfortunately for me, however, the “good enough” has proven to be “good enough” for higher education as a whole. It is getting hard to combat the rising tide of AI generation in the classroom.

The AI Dam Breaks

This semester, specifically the past month of October, was the breaking point for me as an instructor.

I am someone who just wants to teaching students how to write; I teach them standards expected of upper-division college and have them practice those standards in the work, but I implement these things in intellectually interesting ways. Punk aesthetics, media, monsters… the intent is to provide students with a foundation in the academic standards of writing, but once mastered, they are free to indulge and experiment, all while writing about concepts that are outside of the English composition canon.

While I think I have been successful overall, the AI generation I have increasingly seen has just reduced the overall effectiveness of my philosophy in the classroom. Rather than mastering the essentials so that they can experiment, I am now finding myself dealing with students using AI who are not mastering the essentials and falling behind because the AI generative tools are “good enough” and not understanding why I point out their papers are flat, generalized, and boring.

My AI Experience In the Classroom

I have four classes I am currently teaching. I expect an AI paper or two per class. But in the most recent major paper assignments I had 20% of all submissions flagged as AI. And yes, I am aware false positives exist. I know enough to not blindly see these things as guaranteed AI-generated papers. But based on the internal metrics, analysis of writing style, and experience I have in processing thousands of AI responses, it was still 20% of submission that needed to be investigated. That takes time – a lot of time. Lord forbid you have a student who uses AI generators and wants to fight you on it, because how do you prove it?

You can’t. Not really.

You can point out that the writing has all the hallmarks of the LLM style, that sources are hallucinated, and that formatting is incorrect. But none of that constitutes “proof” today and students are more than happy to claim they are just bad writers.

I would find that mortifying, frankly.

So What Do I Do About AI?

I’ll let you know what to do about AI in the English classroom when I figure something out.

I kid, of course.

The reality is, until these generative AI modules feed on enough of their own output that they collapse, there is nothing that can be done, really. Outside of going back to handwritten assignments in general, I guess, but I doubt that would be worth the effort. Hell, a dedicated enough student could potentially just hand copy something prompted. Though you may wonder why go through that effort when they could just do the work themselves, do better, and learn something.

I also can still fall back on just grading for writing effectiveness. Flat, boring, and no personality? Then I can grade for that. Hallucinated sources? Bounce it back to the student to find the exact source and provide it to me. If they’re unable, they’ve clearly failed the research element of a writing project. Formatting issues? Failure to leverage the template and resources? That is a flat deduction because I have the tools there for you. Sources make no sense or seem not to exist? Please show me where it was found, as all sources must be properly documented. You lost it? Well, that sucks.

Moving Forward

In my own case, I am thinking a lot about moving critical thinking practices away from strictly writing. I have a few ideas to reduce the weight of traditional composition and lean more into projects that encompass the classroom concepts that lean into performative and aesthetic traits; things like presentations and producing zines that articulate argument and research as opposed to standard MLA-formatted papers. My thinking is that putting the practice of writing techniques into a different sort of craft can shake things up a bit.

The classroom I am increasingly leaning toward, even as I prep for next semester, is one of lower stakes, frequent check-ins. I am taking larger paper concepts, breaking them down into forms of writing that are more personality-driven and focus more on personal interpretation rather than research. Personalization, the quirks of the individual, and realistic “feelings” are things AI has yet to quite nail, and the idea is to shift that direction.

Of course, I still have papers – but the intent is smaller, lower stakes ones that are more specific and requiring material that may not be readily available to AI generators. The papers require more personal views and leveraging one’s sense of aesthetics, unique to them, not something generalized by an algorithm. I can only give them the tools and instruction, whether they are content to churn out garbage is up to them. It’s their money. But I feel I am doing my part in any case.

Of course there are ways around these things for an enterprising student who just doesn’t want to do the work. But they still will be churning out shit because they’re not learning anything. I can at least grade for that.

Thank you for reading, if you are an educator trying to figure out how to deal with this AI issue like I am, I would love to hear your thoughts! While I don’t have much regarding practical solutions, here, I hope my perspective might prove interesting.

The post Dealing with AI in English Classes appeared first on hpkomics.com.

For example, in the coming Spring semester I will be by teaching an Introduction to Creative Writing course. Right now, I am a faculty advisor for an on-campus creative writing club. There has been a learning curve to deal with. The club is making transitions into more long-term planning, now, thankfully. So as a result, I had the opportunity to step in and create a workshop and activity to lighten the load for the students.

This Tarot-based activity is what I am going to write about today.

If you want to skip to the actual steps of the activity, click here.

Creative Writing Activity: Embracing Fate with Tarot Cards

If you are here for a guide to Tarot and how it works, the complexities of divination, and interpretation, I am afraid there isn’t much here for you. But, if you want to use fundamental elements of Tarot pulls to shake up your writing and develop challenging story hooks, this is a great tool.

While I will cover elements of what Tarot is, has been, and how the Arcana are generally interpreted, this isn’t an actual guide to Tarot reading or pulls. Further, much of this activity is more about the writer interpreting Arcana, as they see it, and writing around these reveals. While I’ll sharet some context, this activity is more about writing than anything.

Any instance of Tarot being used in this activity the analysis of archetypes and not considered an actual Tarot pull. So please don’t be nervous about engaging. This activity is not considered a legitimate Tarot reading.

Tarot, Arcana, and Interpretation

From at least the 15th century, Tarot has been used in games and divination and fortune telling practices. Tarot cards are typically divided into Major and Minor Arcana. As you draw cards, these Arcana are interpreted. Additionally, when you draw the card, the meaning can shift based on the position when you draw it (upright vs. reverse).

Tarot is still a widely practiced art today. There is still a tremendous amount of discourse about it’s legitimacy. We’ll be borrowing from for our creative activity. In broads strokes, The art of Tarot is based on interpretation of archetypes, and archetypes can carry many meanings. By ascribing meaning to these cards in our creative writing process we can find interesting new angles by which to approach our stories.

Archetypes and Traditions

Part of the effectiveness of Tarot is it draws from deep narrative traditions and collective culture where the cards are based on archetypal elements of myth, legend, and lore.

We grow up absorbing these general ideas through culture and as Tarot cards are drawn and read, interpretations of archetypes connect to our personal narratives or broader views of how the world works. Self-pull Tarot is often used as a way to process things in our personal lives because it can channel what we’re already thinking. After all, you know your own story, do you not?

Arcana Examples

In this activity, it is good to have a quick reference to the Arcana and common interpretations. But note that you can broadly ascribe meaning of your own as these are archetypes that exists in multiple forms throughout human culture.

In any case, The Tarot Guide¹ has presentations for both Major Arcana and Minor Arcana that you can turn to.

Anyway, here is the Wheel, or Wheel of Fortune.

The Wheel (Major Arcana)

Traditionally speaking, the Wheel can represent many archetypes.
In most cases we can interpret the wheel to be representative of a cycle, but, the wheel can also mean chance. We see this in a lot of game shows, right?

Wheels can most obviously tie into good luck, destiny, change, karma, soulmates, decisive moments, cycles of life, fate, fortune, upheaval, and chance. How can the Wheel affect your story?

The Wheel Reversed?

Bad luck, upheaval, disorder, external forces, lack of control, disruption, unwelcome change, delays, set back.

And who doesn’t love a death card?

Death (Major Arcana)

In Tarot, the Death card does not always represent a literal death. Death indicates an ending or transition, though.

Some popular interpretations made of Death in a pull include spiritual transformation, new beginnings, letting go, endings, change, transition, or sudden or unexpected upheaval.

Even if nobody loses their life, Death can be a dramatic card and is sure to have an effect on your story.

Death Reversed?

Inability to move forward, fear of beginnings, repeating negative patterns, resisting change, dependency

As you can see, these cards carry many meanings. Even orientation can introduce complexity in how these cards as understood.

Embracing Fate – Tarot-Based Creative Writing Activity

As for the actual activity, it is very simple despite the prior set-up. It is just a timed writing task where Tarot cards are drawn and interpreted. Then the writer adjusts their story based on what emerges. There are only four steps:

1. Start writing a three-act story, spend 10 minutes writing the first act.
2. Draw a card, use the card to change the direction your story heads; write the second act for 20 minutes.
3. Draw a card, use the card to conclude your story; write the third act for 10 minutes.
4. Edit, find the connective tissue that carries the story across all three acts.

The challenge of this activity comes in the edit. Once you’ve written three acts you may end up with something disjointed. Going back, reading the work, and figuring out how each act connects. Figure out where ideas need to be introduced to make the third act work.

Results

Using this activity with creative writing students proved very enlightening. It ended up being very enjoyable for them, even if they were broadly unfamiliar with what Tarot is. Some students managed pulls that roughly kept the story in-line with their plans; while others had draws that radically altered their narratives.

Part of my reason for developing this creative writing activity was to introduce the editing process more broadly to the student-run club. From my observations, the club meetings focus on immediate sharing after writing. This isn’t inherently bad. But writing emerges significantly from the edit. As I see it, the editing process needs emphasis.

So, the activity was designed to not give them time to share. It occupied the whole meeting time and forced them to sit on what they wrote, hopefully, for the better.

Or at least to shake things up.

In any case, please share your thoughts or variation on this activity you want try. I am dying to know.

1. I know very little about the website beyond the generally useful information about the presented Arcana; your mileage may vary.

The post Creative Writing Activity: Embracing Fate with Tarot Cards appeared first on hpkomics.com.

I figured a great start for that would be to write about things I like, outside of the rigid structure of Panel By Panel and Graphic Content.

On YouTube

So, yeah. YouTube. I have been a registered user on YouTube since 2006, but never a YouTuber myself. I’ve not branched too seriously into video content, preferring to just find and archive ephemera I find that people post. It’s a fun time capsule with all those little hits of nostalgia. I also find myself watching more material on YouTube than any streaming service I pay for.

I really consider YouTube, as both a platform and concept, to be essential in internet culture and it is something I cover in one of my introductory English classes as a form of resistance and punk aesthetics. Specifically, I have students read Laurence Scott’s piece in The New Atlantic, “In Search of Lost Time on YouTube,” as part of this framing when we do “weird internet video week” near the end of the semester.

Basically, I take YouTube very seriously and I cannot think of a day in recent memory when it has not been part of my life. Yet I don’t really upload much. In fact, any video I have uploaded has only ever been private or deleted in time. I have done a lot of work behind the camera, but I never really produce any videos on YouTube of my own. Go figure.

The YouTube Channels I Love

Anyway, this isn’t about me. Here are five YouTube channels I adore, in no particular order. But these are the channels I keep close to my heart.

Project Kamp

Project Kamp is a project that scratches at a lot of niches that tickle my lizard brain. It is this entertaining documentation of environmentally conscious homesteading, experimentation, and construction projects. It is also a very seasonal channel so when the off-season hits I miss it terribly, which is about a close as any channel on this list gets to a television season model. That just makes the active season all the more exciting for me as it runs.

The long story short, this is a group of young folks out in Portugal who purchased some overgrown land and over the course of several years (5 as of the time I write) have managed the space and taken on sustainable living and building projects. Each season presents new challenges and new faces, as some regulars stick around, while new people join the volunteer program to contribute where they can.

This channel has really appealed to me since I discovered it and it is something I try to watch on Monday mornings to help prepare for the rest of my day. If you want to learn more about Project Kamp, you should definitely check out their website.

Anyway, here are some videos.

Matt Draper

There are no shortage of media analysis YouTube channels out there, and while I subscribe to many, I think I appreciate Matt Draper’s the most. Really, media analysis on YouTube is a 50/50 ratio of insightful commentary or dogshit, media-illiterate’s ramblings about things they have no business commenting on. Thankfully Draper’s channel as a whole is firmly in the former category.

It also helps that, generally speaking, the media he covers is the exact kind of stuff I would love to cover, such as a lot of horror. Matt Draper is probably the reason why I’ve not been to compelled to make my own YouTube channel because I doubt I could do it better. I’d actually love to talk to him one-on-one because we seem to share a lot of similar opinions on the subjects; but it is where we differ that would make for the most interesting conversations. He is definitely a content creator (god I hate that term) that I would love to invite to Supernatural Selection or The Distraction Hole. Matt, if you read this, please email me and we’ll get you on.

If I were to move into YouTube in any form of media analysis capacity, I’d probably follow Matt Draper’s lead, and that is really the highest complement I can give anyone. Plus, his Letterboxd reviews are pretty fun.

How about some videos?

Abroad in Japan

I am not a weeb – Okay, well. I am. Like every white man in his late 30s who likes anime and video games, of course I find Japan interesting and I would love to travel there. I’m just too financially unstable to actually do that. But, I am financially stable enough to afford internet access so I can live vicariously on YouTube, and I really like how Chris Broad’s Abroad in Japan covers his life within the country.

One of my favorite YouTube channels, I appreciate Abroad in Japan for many reasons, not just the exposure to contemporary Japanese culture (though that is probably the primary appeal). I do find Chris Broad to be a very effective filmmaker and documentarian from an ethical and aesthetic perspective. I am not expert in Japanese culture, but it really does appear, from my perspective, that he treats the culture even handedly, especially as a resident who came to the country to teach English and chose to stay there. There is a deep love and appreciation for the country, but there is a real acknowledgement of some social issues that emerge in a culture that to some degrees is fading due to depopulation.

I think Chris Broad is a funny guy and has a great sense of presence in his videos. But it doesn’t hurt he has surrounded himself with some great people in the “Abroadverse” who I am delighted to see in different videos. I also happen to listen to the podcast as well.

Anyway, video time!

Tasting History with Max Miller

Max Miller’s Tasting History is the compromise I made as I could have easily had five food-adjacent channels make up this list alone. I wanted to diversify, but I don’t want this to sound like I am settling on anything. Tasting History is a fantastic series and I firmly believe this would be a top-tier television series if networks weren’t busy having terrible ideas. Just let him keep creative control.

I think of Tasting History as the promise of YouTube as a TV-alternative: polished, well-produced videos that you just wouldn’t ever see on TV, because they’re more creatively uncompromised. It also combines my love of food and history, in the way of shows like Good Eats, back when I cared about Food Network.

But really, it is the little things about the channel that give that “cozy” feel, an almost comfort food. Miller’s polished presentation skills, with a delightful cadence to his speech. His format of breaking up the recipe with interesting history. His very clear facial ticks when he likes or dislikes the food he eats. The Pokémon toys that his partner tucks into the background of his videos. It’s all very wholesome and the videos inform, entertain, and make me happy – and that is everything about YouTube to me.

Also, I want his cookbook. I am not above asking for gifts on my website.

How about some videos?

Patrick (H) Willems

Patrick (H) Willems is the reason I am a Nebula subscriber. I know that I limited myself to one food channel in this list, but for some reason I am okay with two media-analysis channels? Am I a total hack? Probably – but I think the approach Willems takes is distinct enough and the production values are so genuinely good that I see him as a Mr. Rogers of film analysis; a wise man with an imaginative world that surrounds his particular niche.

I am not necessarily going to say Willems is cozy viewing for most. His videos are long (which I appreciate) and his takes can be controversial (because people love to die on pointless hills). But it is the expanded universe he has constructed and his fascinating aesthetics that elevate a form of discord that is frankly synonymous with YouTube at this point. Media analysis on YouTube is largely a swamp of opinion pieces that are structured around regurgitating plots and calling out “plot holes” with little actual genuine discourse worth any merit.. As it stands, YouTube’s greatest sin will always be CinemaSins; a channel that has done irreparable damage to film discourse in general.

But Willems is the antithesis of this trend. Patrick’s videos are smart, backed by great analysis, and include a puppet called Nobbles – so that’s fun. Also, he is completely correct about trains in film.

Here are some great Patrick (H) Willems videos.

… and the rest!

There are many YouTube channels I could talk about, but cutting myself at five seemed like a good idea. But I can of course drop a list of other creators and channels I really like. Gonna keep this one short: a channel and a video.

• Office Hours Live – Tim Heidecker has a call-in podcast show. Love it. Here he is talking to Marc Maron.
• Matty Matheson – That one guy from The Bear runs a cooking show as chaotic as his character. Here are some eggs that fuck.
• Mythical Kitchen – Probably one of the best things to come out of Good Mythical Morning. Last Meals is a wonderful series – here is Trixie Mattel’s episode.
• Phil Edwards – I am a big fan of Phil Edwards, even back to when he was working primarily at Vox. Here he covers Buc-ee’s.
• The Nando Cut – Solid media analysis channel with some takes I don’t agree with at times, but the casting videos can be fun.
• Feral Historian – I just dig the vibes. Here is a video about Starship Troopers and citizenship.
• Night Mind – Nick Nocturn covers all sorts of creepy things like ARGs and unfiction. Here is a video on an Adult Swim project, “Live Forever as You Are Now.”
• Renegade Cut – Leftist analysis and doom vlogging. Politics, gaming, pretty spicy stuff. Here is a video on Planet of the Apes.

At the end of the video… if this were a video…

Thank you for taking the time to read this nutty little “essay” about YouTube channels here on my site. it’s outside of the bulk of what I create here, but I enjoyed writing it and sharing a bit about myself. But what about you?

What are YouTube channels that you adore that you want to share with me? Who produces the must-watches in your day-to-day YouTube trawling? Fire off those suggestions in the comments and feel free to judge my choices.

Also, if you want to support my writing, please consider joining me on Ko-Fi for a one time donation, or consider a subscription for early access to writing and projects like comics.

The post Five YouTube Channels I Love appeared first on hpkomics.com.

Yes, that Watchmen.

I haven’t had a lot of time to read comics regularly as of late, such is the nature of my day job, freelancing, and project schedule. However, this weekend proved to be an exception and I had time to relax. I decided to finally watch the second part of the animated Watchmen adaptation of MAX, and it made me think about Doomsday Clock, a series I never finished because, unsurprisingly, I found myself busy and it didn’t hold my attention at the time

But hey, no time like the present to catch up, right?

DC’s Doomsday Clock – Gross IP Exploitation or Metacommentary Sandbox?

I re-read the first four issues of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s Doomsday Clock and still see a lot of things that I dislike. But, I am also one to talk about things I find genuinely interesting. For example? The fourth issue is brilliant. I’ll write more on that another time.

As a comic nerd, I have a great respect for Watchmen. It is a masterful work, though not without its problems. The worldview presented within is of its time and there are elements of the work that don’t hold up in certain regards of metaphor and messaging. It is still a major highlight of comics history and while I don’t consider it inherently untouchable, it is clear why so many adaptations and additions to the text fail to work.

The text is of the singular voice of Alan Moore and his perspective on history, society, and culture. That is not to dismiss the brilliant work of Dave Gibbons, of course, who is also of vital importance to the success of Watchmen, but Moore’s unique vision drives the meaning one pulls from the comics. Without Alan Moore, Watchmen does not work.

Dave Gibbons has shepherded the story in his way as the only one of the creators still willing to be engaged with the story in any way. Gibbons is a co-writer, but the tone and voice are so very much Moore. As great as he is, he can’t quite steer these post-Moore Watchmen projects in a way that evokes the specific mindset of Moore that suffuses the original work.

Doomsday Clock suffers a great deal from this. It does get close, at times, to Moore-ish language, plotting, and meaning, but far more often it stumbles, too content in trying to follow an idea of Alan Moore, rather than thinking like Alan Moore.

A Sequel to Watchmen? Really?

I’m not inherently opposed to a sequel to Watchmen, as it is a rather interesting alternative reality that initially ends with the Sword of Damocles hanging over alternate 1986. Who wouldn’t tempted to at least revisit that world if they had the option, especially as a creator? My initial thought wouldn’t be to tie it to the yearly Crisis storytelling of the DC Comics universe. My impulse would not be to play it straight, either, but such is the case with Doomsday Clock, a story that jettisons satirical exploration of the comic form of its era and instead arrives as a complicit cog in a vanity project.

But, we have what we have, and there is some attempt to provide the book with some depth, to varying successes. We will see that unfold into a rough thesis across 12 issues, but the first four? Kind of a mess, again, except for issue #4.

The comic feels as though It’s mainly about trying to play the greatest hits of Watchmen, merely out of marketability over narrative sense and respect for storytelling. It’s not all doom and gloom, however. The new Rorschach is a smart metatextual expansion and evolution of a character who is more of a meme than anything now. Also of interest is the usage of Doctor Manhatten and Ozymandias.

But really, the main appeal to this series is the juxtaposition and mirroring between the quasi-Charlton universe of Watchmen and the then-contemporary metastory of the DC Universe. Warts and all, there is still stuff to enjoy.

Metaphorical Meat

For what it is worth, the central crisis and parallels of Doomsday Clock are entertaining and an interesting, if somewhat masturbatory conceit that is established in the first four issues. Just as the heroes are outlawed in 1977 in Watchmen, there is a costumed avenger crisis in the contemporary DCU as the world comes to terms with the reveal of “The Superman Theory.” Not only a fun nod to the super-man who built DC, but it also creates a ticking clock of an impending disaster that echoes Watchmen. World War Three is not based on ballistic missiles, but the metagene.

The Superman Theory is one of the elements I enjoy in the storytelling of Doomsday Clock. However, at times, the main comic narrative feels too much like an uneven tug-of-war between the big faces of the universe and cramming in as many superheroes and villains as possible. I understand the desire to ensure every hero gets their 5-seconds of face time.

But where Doomsday Clock follows the path set by Watchmen, and best succeeds, is in the errata: News clippings, infographics, and excerpts from dirt sheets in 1950s Hollywood. Moore’s text blossoms with the errata, which came to its perfect execution across his League of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen books but shines, too, in Watchmen. Doomsday Clock does an able follow-up to this.

Also, “The Black Freighter” of the original comic, the metatextual commentary of the main narrative and comics at large that runs within Watchmen has its analog in the case of Nathanial Dusk, noir detective, and the life and death of his actor, Carver Colman, in Doomsday Clock. Though, even then, Carver Colman’s story becomes entwined with the narrative in a way that “Black Freighter” never did – the only connection between that comic and the larger story is its author being involved in Ozymandias’ scheme as a scenario writer, for which is later murdered by Ozymandias to cover his tracks.

Carter Coleman and his films are integral to Doomsday Clock in a way that works for the story being told. Again, a rhyme, but not the same – but it works. It is in the spirit of the original text.

So much of Doomsday Clock is meant to echo the experience of reading Watchmen. For now, I’d like to turn to something that bothered me. It may be a little petty, I suppose, but when you try to follow up on one of the most important comics ever released, your stumbles are that much more noticeable.

The Grids Matter

Let’s start at one of the more admittedly superficial elements of the Doomsday Clock production that bothers me. The handling of panels, specifically. I have written a lot about panels over at The Duck. Panels are a key language of comics that can carry interpretive meaning in addition to controlling pacing and setting time and tone. The original Watchmen is very deliberate in its 3×3, 9-panel grid, with occasional panels that combine rows and columns. The sense of pacing presented in this 3×3 grid is a key element to why Watchmen reads so easily and why breaks in this structure read as so critical to storytelling.

Pages can span minutes, to seconds, based on the breakdown of action from panel to panel. There is an intuitiveness to managing this across a simple grid, and between Moore and Gibbons, they cracked a certain code of fluctuating time. From page to page, there is no getting lost as far as temporality from moment to moment.

Consider the death of the Comedian in the first issue of Watchmen. The pacing is immaculate. Deftly woven between the scene of the present, and followed through with a splashy panel that breaks the 9-panel grid.

This page is even more impressive as it covers two different moments, simultaneously. Past and present play out in such an intriguing way. An economy of storytelling.

Panel Language of Disruption on Reality

Doomsday Clock is not paced so well, at times resorting to a 4×3 grid, resulting in an overly messy 12-panel page (issue #3, page 12) where the minutia of the action makes the sequence far less snappy. Ozymandias’ acrobatic escape from the Comedian reads as choppy as opposed to the feat of prowess it is intended to be. This sequence could have easily been handled in the 3×3 grid. it would have felt better. Here it feels bloated.

And yes, I recognize that Watchmen issue #7, page 18 violates the very grid structure I am harping on, but it makes sense in this case because the disruption in the panel structure reflects the disruption and unease presented in Dan’s nightmare. The nightmare is a violent intrusion into order and rhythm we have been following for several issues; the uncanny made manifest in the very structure of the book. It is an unreality intruding on the reality of Dan/Nightowl II.

In the Doomsday Clock escape of Ozymandias, we are still firmly rooted within the reality of the setting; the presence of the intrusive new grid is a tonal mismatch with its predecessor, Watchmen. Though as the modern DC sweeps into the metanarrative presented in Doomsday Clock, there is an allowance for this change-up; as far as Ozymandias’ escape, it feels off-putting. It just doesn’t feel in line with what Watchmen was. Doomsday Clock is not meant to be Watchmen, but it sure tries to draw from the association. In that regard, this grid situation just rubs me the wrong way.

And with that, the reading log for this week is down. Let me know what your thoughts are on Doomsday Clock. I’ll post a follow-up as I continue to read it, especially as I move into the issues I hadn’t read. If you are after these comics, be sure to check out your local comic book shop.

Also, I am still down to write traditional reviews, so if you have key issues you want me to tackle, or create your own comics and want feedback, please contact me about it.

The post Panel By Panel: Feb. 25, 2025 – Revisiting ‘Doomsday Clock’ appeared first on hpkomics.com.

The film is an adaptation of a Stephen King short story, written and directed by Osgood Perkins, and produced by James Wan. I highly recommend it.

Oh, and there will be spoilers. Avoid reading further until you’ve seen the film.

Hereditary Illness, Curses, and Drumming Monkeys

One element that one can quickly latch onto when watching The Monkey is the reading of the film as an exploration of hereditary illness. In humankind’s earlier periods, where the understanding of hereditary disease wasn’t quite there, they would be seen as curses. Today too. The spiritual and religious elements in society have made a great effort to build on this correlation. Even a Google query about the idea turns up a lot of healer hokum and scriptural explanations. The language of curses applied to hereditary conditions is still very much applied today.

We’re more enlightened as a society, now, I’d argue. But that does not mean hereditary disease is completely removed from the reading of a curse on one’s family. Sometimes these conditions are passed along from generation to generation, skipping a generation here and there, but they persist. is it any wonder they can be read as curses?

The Monkey, I feel, leans on that to a degree, exploring this tension with the metaphor of the chaotic and cruel drumming monkey toy.

The central plot device, a literal toy in The Monkey, is not a hereditary condition, necessarily. It doesn’t account for the incredible amount of death present in the film. But metaphorically it is worth considering the circumstances between Hal, Bill, and Lois. There is a certain madness present in the central family, and there is an anxiety of passing down something. it is what shattered the relationship between Hal and his son. The drumming monkey looms heavily over the mind of the twins. A cloud of something dark within their family, inherited from their father, perhaps killing their mom. Perhaps not. The film presents something interesting there.

Hal and Bill see the toy as a curse, and they are not wrong. But in the heightened world of the film, the monkey toy stands for a kind of inexorable randomness in life; sometimes a family ends up with a bum hand and the death persists through no fault of their own. Passing down heart disease, cancers, and aneurysms must feel like a curse. How could they they not? Something you’d want to shield the next generation from. But with these things, it can be a coin flip, a dice roll, or the beat of a drum.

At the climax of the film, Hal and Bill reunite among the murder-by-monkey-spree at Bill’s hand. During this moment, Hal reiterates a lesson from Lois, their mom. Everyone dies. It’s an inevitability, one can’t run from it and the universe will do as it does, in so many words. At this moment, we see again the death of Lois, but rather the grotesque display that is in style with most of the deaths in the film, it is peaceful. Lois meets death with a calm acceptance of the inevitable. Perhaps not just the inevitability of death, but maybe something in the brain?

Earlier in the film, following the death of Lois, Hal’s narration mentions some sort of “boomerang aneurism.” We see a boomerang among the possessions of their pilot father who is no longer with the family, which is interesting to note. And, well, what do you know aneurysms can run in families. Just as Bill perceived his mother dying from a shower of gore erupting from her head, and Hal dreamt of such, Bill dies in a head-centric shower of gore; his head smashed and bashed by Lois’ bowling ball.

Then of course, what to make of the Pale Man on the horse at the end? Hal and his son, Petey, named for his disappeared father who brought the monkey into their lives, carry this burden of walking with looming death. They are cursed to carry the potential for death – though a curse could also just be in how we address hereditary conditions that may weigh on us.

This isn’t a clean metaphor yet, mind you. This is all free association of images and themes I have seen from a movie within the last two hours, as I thought about it on the drive home from the theater. But I do think there may be something there. It’ll just take another viewing to parse.

But, what do you think? Did you pick up on any associations between the concept of curses and hereditary disease in The Monkey? Let me know in the comments. Let’s beat this drum together.

The Monkey is currently in theaters as of 2/21/2025.

The post Revenge of Graphic Content #13: The Monkey (2025) – Hereditary Illness, Curses, and Drumming Monkeys appeared first on hpkomics.com.

I’d also like to open up this week’s edition with a request for recs. I usually bank up a few issues of the regular titles I follow, so please suggest stuff for me to read in the coming week. Just do your recs in the comments. This includes webcomics, too!

Anyway, what did I read this week?

Youth Group

When I heard that Jordan Morris of Good Mythical Morning had written a graphic novel I was immediately intrigued. I did not know much about Youth Group, But, I knew that I liked Jordan Morris because of his appearances on YouTube. I threw it on my list of things to read down the line, only just now getting to it.

There is an element of the story that appears to be personal to Morris. it is recognizable in the way he treats the self-censorship and the dialogue of the kids in the youth group. I recognize a lot of the same things from my own limited time in the church and as I read the comic I remembered a lot of stuff I hadn’t in years. Granted, I never got to fight demons, but I remember the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s in various kid-centric ministries. I wasn’t a believer, but if I spent extended time with my grandmother it meant church on Wednesdays and Sundays.

I also recall one church, I do not recall the name now, but the vibe there reflected much of the youth group in the comic. There is a certain fondness for how goofy it was. I ended up smiling a lot and recognizing a lot of these little moments. Everything from “Fudge” instead of “fuck” and repurposing pop culture to reflect the church.

I ended up leaving that sort of world and putting my foot down with my grandmother when I was around 13. However, this comic did introduce a strange sort of nostalgia. The comic made me feel things, basically.

Remember feelings?

Oh right, Youth Group (the comic)…

The comic is hilarious and I am positive we’re due for a film adaptation within the next five years or so. All the elements of a complete film are there. I do think the comic does drop some elements and could use a look at the pacing in the middle, however. In an effort to tell the story in one book some things are dropped or left undeveloped. The finale works, but some of the threads could be strengthened leading up to it. Overall though, Morris’ writing is charming.

The art, by Bowen McCurdy, has a solid YA style that suits the material. It lies in the middle of a diagram of manga tropes and cartooning in the way you’d see in a lot of Webtoons. The comic definitely leans heavily on character art and expressions. The background and action work is a little rougher, but this is also a very conversation-heavy comic, so it works overall. I have no complaints.

Ultimate Wolverine #1

Youth Group was a nice, hefty read. But I also found time to catch the latest story in the Ultimate Marvel universe with Ultimate Wolverine #1. This book is written by Chris Condon and illustrated by Alessandro Cappuccio. Bryan Valenza is the colorist.

I think it is too early to tell how to assess it amongst the nearly year-long head start of the other titles in the imprint. Yet, it does have some interesting things going for it. The art is solid. The first issue also features some pretty brutal violence, as would be expected from a Wolverine book. I also like the Rasputins as villains quite a bit. It is a good look for them.

The tying together of the Weapon X and Winter Soldier programs is a rather efficient use of two very similar evil schemes. It is also interesting to see what the hell is going on with some of the more classic mutants in this setting. Most of the mutants we’ve seen have been in Japan. Now we’re getting the larger Eurasian continent. Having a maybe Logan hunting down allies is painful but makes sense for this book. As for the identity of this Wolverine, I have a sneaking suspicion we’re not looking at Logan at all. My guess? Some twist on Wade Wilson.

We’ll see. I am at least going to give it a few issues.

And with that, the reading log for this week is down. Let me know what you think about this format and share your thoughts if you’re reading these books, too. If you are after these comics, be sure to check out your local comic book shop.

Also, I am still down to write traditional reviews, so if you have key issues you want me to tackle, or create your own comics and want feedback, please contact me about it.

The post Panel By Panel: Jan. 19, 2025 – Time To Join a Youth Group appeared first on hpkomics.com.

There will be spoilers here.

Mostly, I want to weigh in on the divided response to the film, and where I have seen the discourse revolve. Many of the “criticisms,” which I use that turn loosely, are based on two central points. These points are 1) the film not being what they expected, and 2) the wolf man not having a “full,” furred transformation. I am generalizing here based on discussions I have followed on Reddit and social media regarding the movie, of course. This isn’t universal, but these issues come up enough that I felt like exploring them.

And that is not to say the movie can’t be criticized. I think it had issues – my old nemesis, pacing, was a mess. There were a few sequences where it felt we had a significant time jump that made the film feel smaller than it needed to be. I also think the overall siege element of the story was okay, but wasn’t explored as well as it could have been. Plus, what body horror was there was nice, but more could have helped sell the horror of the transformation.

But let’s focus on those audience criticisms that I think are more based on expectations not being met, rather than the actual issues with the film and its interpretation of werewolf themes and aesthetics.

Expectations Walking In

There are certain expectations and tropes that audiences expect regarding werewolf films. There are certain beats that films tend to stick to. What people expected from the film, I feel, was a brutal and bloody werewolf chase. Something a little more violent and intense than it was. Audiences were probably not expecting an exploration of generation trauma and parenthood.

Wolf Man had plenty of thrilling moments, but the audience was probably not prepared for how vulnerable and hurt Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott) was throughout the film. Blake’s third-act turn aside, for most of the film he is a vulnerable, loving father. He is also sensitive to his ailing marriage. Even his heroism is tempered by the practicality of dealing with injury and disease.

The horror of the film is not about him being a bloodthirsty killer. Instead, Blake’s chief goal in life, even as he struggles with the affliction, is not perpetuating a world of violence and rough masculinity he saw in his youth that rattled him and shaped him. He keeps himself in check, rejecting an antiquated notion of fatherhood his dad represents.

The Wolf Metaphor Tracks

With all that in mind: his realization of the body horror, his deteriorating mental state, and his developing violent aggression nearly unravel the identity he created for himself. He becomes the cliche of the alpha male, down to killing his own, infected father. He loses himself for a time in this moment and the support structure he built for himself collapses, and he becomes the thing he hated in his youth: raw and violent aggression.

All of this works and clicks for me, but I also tend to be a little bit more tapped into this kind of stuff than a general audience, or the gorehounds. However, I can also understand the disappointment. We’re been beating the generational trauma drum in horror films for close to two decades now. I get some people just want to see a Wolf Man be a Wolf Man.

But also carrying such expectations with you into the theater and then claiming the film is bad because it is not what you set it up to be in your mind is a drum I see audiences beat, far, far too often.

On that note, another expectation of the audience that backfired was how the titular Wolf Man appears.

Here There Be Wolf Men (kinda)

I am a big fan of werewolves across the media, and I even write my own fiction about the creatures. Of course, I also love seeing unique takes on monsters, as there is always meaning attached to such decisions that can be explored by creatives and audiences alike.

I also teach about horror and monsters as a way to bridge composition and analysis in a college environment. So I am a little more knowledgeable on werewolf lore and aesthetics than a general audience. But the chief criticism regarding the look of the Wolf Man isn’t from a general audience, but rather the hardcore fans of werewolves who are conditioned to very specific visions of what a wolf man is.

And frankly, that kind of sucks when this version of the Wolf Man features so many fascinating elements going on.

There is a trend among werewolf enthusiasts to idealize the aesthetic werewolf. Big, muscular, with definitive lupine features. It’s an attractive and appealing look for the monster, undoubtedly. I would know, as I designed Fang with that in mind. But also, lycanthropy and other such curses and conditions are often supposed to be portrayed as horrible. Being a seven-foot-tall hot werewolf guy does not sound all that horrible, does it?

Ugly Wolf Men

The thing is, werewolves have become a power fantasy element for people for a few decades now. Less scary, freakish, and horrific. Even Lon Chaney Jr.’s 1941 Wolf Man still has a little bit of an idealized look. Today his wolf man look is a little friendly, and maybe even a little cute for us freaks. But, consider when the look of the werewolf goes off the beaten path. I remember a lot of criticism of the look of Remus Lupin’s bestial form in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). He was emaciated and lacked fur, looking freakish. I recall many complaints about that.

Complaints like I hear now regarding the Wolf Man‘s approach. This isn’t the idealized werewolf. But I would argue it is an accurate one.

I think the portrayal of Blake and his father in their deteriorating state makes sense, especially given the context of the werewolf lore presented in the film.

As we got our detailed looks at the transformed wolf men of the film but the end of the second act, I was struck by two things. First, this was very much a modern interpretation of 1941’s werewolf form, with more body horror. Secondly, the depiction of Blake’s decomposing body and inhuman rot reflects folklore about such transformations.

It’s the second point I want to explore there.

Is Blake an “Actual” Werewolf?

Too often, we tend to think about werewolves, culturally, as literal hybrids of humans and wolves. Some fusion of an animal and man in an uneasy relationship. And in doing this, we’ve collectively moved on a spectrum toward that idealized werewolf form. However, from historical records and folklore, lycanthropy was more indicative of bestial behavior, things outside of the pack that was the village or community. Violent, predatory behavior that was so far out of the norm you could only compare these people to animals.

So many historical instances of werewolves and vampires (the two were often interchangeable) were a culture’s way of processing sins like murder, rape, and gluttony. Before we had the concept of psychopaths and serial killers, in the earliest days of society, we had werewolves. Like good ol’ Peter Stumpp.

Why am I so certain this is the interpretation of the Wolf Man as the basis for the take on the creature? Because the film goes as far as naming a Native American connection. Also, Blake and his father so closely resemble Wendigos and other beast-man lore. The minute I saw the chewed-off lips of Blake’s father, it was everything I needed to know about what Whannell and his team were doing.

The infection presented in the movie is not the idealized form of the lycanthropy, an uneasy fusion. it is the older, uneasier, and largely unknowable manifestation of the evil that emerges and can overtake someone in the tribe.

Expectations Have Been Dead and Buried (by the Wolf Man)

With such expectations in mind from the idealized werewolf, I can see why people can come out of this film disappointed. I enjoyed Wolf Man and even I have a few greasy bones to pick with it. But what I am seeing emerge in the general discussion is a lack of broader folkloric connections and an unwillingness of some audiences to come to the film on its terms. I place no blame on the audience for the former, but I am certainly critical of the latter.

Coming in with expectations of a film is fair and natural. But I feel lobbying criticism of a film and being unwilling to engage with it further because it did not do what you wanted of it is weak footing for a valid opinion.

Make your determination about Wolf Man when you see it. But please, keep in mind the broader historical context of lycanthropy and be willing to take an artist as they come, without preset notions.

Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man (2025) is currently playing in theaters as of Jan. 17, 2025.

The post Revenge of Graphic Content #12: Wolf Man (2025) – This Will Be Divisive appeared first on hpkomics.com.

As the intent was last time, don’t expect much in the way of a review on any of these. I’d suggest you check out my Creature Commandos posts for that. These are just free-floating thoughts and impressions about these books. I just want to read some comics and write about what I thought.

X-Men #8 and #9 and Uncanny X-Men #7 and #8

X-Men is Written by Jed MacKay, Illustrated by Federico Vincentini, Ryan Stegman, and JP Mayer, and Colored by Marte Gracia and Fer Sifuentes-Sujo. Uncanny X-Men is Written by Gail Simone, Illustrated by David Marquez, Edgar Salazar, and Victor Olazaba, and Colored by Matthew Wilson.

I am a Cyclops stan and I have greatly enjoyed this current run on X-Men precisely because it gives me my favorite mutant doing peak Cyclops stuff. I’d probably need to talk about the Uncanny X-Men, which has also been excellent. The two concurrent titles fully come together in this run of issues.

I find Scott (Cyclops) and his crew the most interesting. Juggernaut excluded, they’re not the heaviest hitters. Nor are they the most marketable. But tactically they are fascinating and it works well with Scott’s take on the team. Compare Scott’s team to the power trio of Rogue, Gambit, and Wolverine in Uncanny X-Men. You can see which team is the more marketable. But the fact that X-Men, arguably the X-book, is using such a disparate array of mutants is fascinating to me. I think X-Men fans have always had their thoughts about what their team would be. What I know for sure is Cyclops is forever on my roster, and this current X-Men run shows why.

The Other Half

That’s not to say that Rogue’s team isn’t solid, either. I appreciate the current arc of them shepherding in new post-Krakoa mutant youngsters. It’s also nice to just see a cozy family dynamic at play between Rogue and Gambit, and crazy Uncle Logan. Throw in Jubilee, a favorite mutant of mine, and Nightcrawler as well. It’s still a fun team, but it also feels much “safer” than what Scott has been doing in Alaska.

I have been known to complain, on occasion, about the big two companies putting out so many titles concurrently when you want to follow a character. The current crop of X-books is very much an example of that. My current strategy has been to just read these two titles. I’ll get to any other X-books sometime later as they inevitably converge into the larger story. It’s been working for me quite well so far.

Ultimate Universe: One Year In (One Shot)

Written by Deniz Camp, Illustrated by Jonas Scharf, and Colors by Mattia Iacono.

As someone following the current batch of Ultimate Marvel books very closely, I was very interested to get another view of the universe with this issue. I really enjoyed this one, even if it is basically place-setting and info-dumping, just because we get so many variations on characters and details about the setting. For example, a lot of classic mutants are shown in this issue, including Sunspot, Magick, Colossus, and Omega Red.

We also learn more about the apparatuses of control The Maker has installed in his absence, with a variation of S.H.I.E.L.D. called H.A.N.D., which unsurprisingly carries out assassinations. This is a grim setting, but when you have a fascistic Reed Richards at the helm, that is to be expected.

I rather enjoy Nick Fury here being a man-out-of-time, much like Steve Rogers; his memory of the world before The Maker’s influence, however fuzzy, is a great way to explore just how much this timeline has been altered. The big twist at the end is also a great spin on classic S.H.I.E.L.D. tech ridiculousness. This was a one-shot as informative and entertaining as it was cruel. Well done.

TVA #1

Written by Katheryn Blair, Illustrated by Pere Perez, and Colors by Guru-eFX.

I came into TVA #1 from Marvel curious about how it would play out and I found myself intrigued regarding how it seems to be sharing a continuity between the Marvel Studios film series and the mainline Marvel continuity. I enjoyed this first issue for multiversal shenanigans. It’s pretty in vogue to dunk on the multiverse concept, but I still enjoy it quite a bit.

I think the set-up for the series, focusing on some sort of nightmare virus of alternate realities makes a good introduction to what the post-Loki TVA is up to. I don’t think I’ll have too many hang-ups regarding the fusion of the film multiverse and the comics; it’s all ridiculous anyway.

Play Them Again

With that said, a lot of this feels like a “greatest hits” album of multiversal material. The TVA presented here appears to be the one from Loki, which is interesting. However, it also throws in the current multiversal icons Spider-Gwen, Captain Carter from What-If?, and a variant of Wolverine in the form of Jimmy Hudson from the old Ultimate Universe. I know a lot of this is based on marketing, especially when a variant on Gambit (or should it be “the Gambit”) appears to join the team.

It feels like a very market-driven title so far, but if it can continue to provide some weirdness and more of the TVA shenanigans I enjoyed from the show, I think I’ll keep reading.

And with that, the reading log for this week is down. Let me know what you think about this format and share your thoughts if you’re reading these books, too. If you are after these comics, be sure to check out your local comic book shop.

Also, I am still down to write traditional reviews, so if you have key issues you want me to tackle, or create your own comics and want feedback, please contact me about it.

The post Panel By Panel: Jan. 12, 2025 – Make Mine Marvel appeared first on hpkomics.com.