DoomRocket

by Matthew Amuso. This is RETROGRADING, where fair is fair. THE FILM: The Legend of Billie Jean THE YEAR: 1985. The Eighties were a golden age of teen adventure movies, the decade of E.T., The Goonies, Karate Kid, and more. While some were canonized, others disappeared from pop culture with nary a trace.

Required Reading is DoomRocket’s love chest, opened once a month to champion a book that we adore and you should read. The latest: Kit Anderson’s Safer Places, from Avery Hill Publishing. by Arpad Okay. Kit Anderson invites you to walk with the wizard. The journey is a chapter-book of dreams, eerie tales of magical realism and technological enchantment. Memories from after the apocalypse. Rebirth, like the farm torn down and nature reclaimed, like the flowered hillside rising up and walking away.

THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER-FREE. by Matthew Amuso. Hitting the scene five years ago with The Freak, Matt Lesniewski’s style has only continued to evolve. Faceless and the Family is a new high point. While his early work seemed influenced by artists like Mobius and Geoff Darrow, Faceless has an aesthetic reminiscent of a black-and-white Yellow Submarine filtered through manga, westerns, sci-fi, and Eighties cartoons. Geometric shapes and patterns dominate.

by Matthew Amuso. This is RETROGRADING, where we’re in between the panels. THE FILM: Super THE YEAR: 2010. Three years after Iron Man and a year before The Avengers, the superhero movie craze was shifting into second gear. Beore he became DCU co-head, James Gunn, director of next year’s Superman, was a minor Hollywood player. General audiences had yet to hear of Thanos or Harley Quinn and were possibly happier for it.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS. by Matthew Amuso. HATE is back! After chronicling the perpetually aggravated Buddy Bradley’s life for over three decades, Peter Bagge’s hilarious and uncomfortably relatable alternative comics opus wrapped up its run in 2011. For HATE newcomers, some background: Buddy first hit the scene in the ’80s as a New Jersey teenager in the anthology Neat Stuff, and when Bagge launched HATE in 1990, Buddy was now living the low life as a twentysomething in Seattle.

Required Reading is DoomRocket’s love chest, opened once a month to champion a book that we adore and you should read. The latest: Hobtown Mystery Stories Vol. 1: The Case of the Missing Men, from Oni Press. by Arpad Okay. Hobtown is a strange, everyday small town. Uncanny, disturbing, and plain, a home to curses and secrets. Set on fire, buried in the woods, losing-your-fingernails secrets. The little wooden goblin on the side of the road is more than just a kitschy statue.

by Matthew Amuso. This is RETROGRADING, where we share an interesting literary motif and a history of taunting. THE COMICS: Batman/Grendel: Devil’s Riddle & Grendel/Batman: Devil’s Masque THE YEAR: 1993. Batman is the world’s most famous and profitable comic book character. Meanwhile, one of independent comics’ heaviest hitters is ready to dip his toes in the corporate waters.

THIS REVIEW OF NIGHT PEOPLE #1 & #2 IS SPOILER-FREE. by Matthew Amuso. Night People is an anthology series adapted from a collection of four stories penned by author Barry Gifford. If you don’t know who that is, that’s okay; not many people do. But Gifford wrote the novel on which David Lynch’s film Wild at Heart is based, and if you’ve never seen that film, please, please do.

THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER-FREE. by Kate Kowalski. It’s been a while since I’ve encountered a good, old-fashioned monster on the page. Throughout schooling, I was intrigued and revulsed by the likes of Dracula, Mr. Hyde, Dorian Gray, and Frankenstein. All borne from Gothic literature into the collective cultural consciousness. All emerging from a dark and stormy night at an isolated castle, a looming manor, or a gaslit London street.

Required Reading is DoomRocket’s love chest, opened once a month to champion a book that we adore and you should read. The latest: The Crow, by James O’Barr. by Arpad Okay. The Crow strikes an erotic Iggy Pop pose, though the raked terrain of his muscled body is riddled with bullet holes. What bleak corners of the city that aren’t on fire will soon burn at his hands. He’s paying back his debt to the world that killed him. Eric is dead, Shelly is worse, and soon, the men responsible will be, too.