Columnists
Recent Content
In the action-packed fantasy novel The Arimathean, the three wise men and Joseph of Arimathea are ninja wizards, part of a secret society of warriors of the supernatural, who are entrusted to protect …
In the action-packed…
In the action-packed fantasy novel The Arimathean, the three wise men and Joseph of Arimathea are ninja wizards, part of a secret society of warriors of the supernatural, who are entrusted to protect Joseph and Mary on the road to Bethlehem as King Herod and a cadre of demons led by Satan attempt to kill them before Jesus can be born! It's a wild, fun, roller coaster ride of a novel that tells a totally different and fantastic version of the Christmas story! The novel is available at The Book Rack, 4764 Elmore Ave., Davenport, and online here. You can also get a signed copy for $16 posta…
Ryan Franks
December 25, 2024
Around seven or eight years ago, I went to my LCS on Wednesday. When I got there, a beautiful woman was there sitting in a chair and the owner was nowhere to be seen. She was in the Quad Cities from M…
Around seven or eigh…
Around seven or eight years ago, I went to my LCS on Wednesday. When I got there, a beautiful woman was there sitting in a chair and the owner was nowhere to be seen. She was in the Quad Cities from Michigan or Minnesota, someplace starting with M, selling coupon books door to door. She had stopped into Mellow Blue to sell whoever was inside a coupon book and because she’d developed a hole in her shoe and Tim had gone to try and fix it. I looked through my pull that week while we talked when she asked “Why do you read comic books?” To really answer that question I have to talk about A…
Ryan Franks
November 20, 2023
Sorry this is coming to everyone so late. I've got my normal job, all the side activities I'm involved in and then holiday stuff to divide my time up so small I'm surprised I find any time to sleep at…
Sorry this is coming…
Sorry this is coming to everyone so late. I've got my normal job, all the side activities I'm involved in and then holiday stuff to divide my time up so small I'm surprised I find any time to sleep at all. This is of course compounded with the comic news cycle being slower then frozen molasses this time of year. Even what few stories I'm seeing aren't really things I want to discuss at any length (https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/12/20/dc-comics-eric-m-esquivel-nightwing-previews/). A writer at DC is being accused of being an abusive creep, which other then saying screw him, I don't want t…
Ryan Franks
March 28, 2020
While I was working on my list of comics to order from Previews last month I noticed a surprising change to two Marvel series I was ordering. I was looking over the Marvel catalog section of Previe…
While I was working …
While I was working on my list of comics to order from Previews last month I noticed a surprising change to two Marvel series I was ordering. I was looking over the Marvel catalog section of Previews when I noticed that two of the series I was ordering from Marvel had made a change to the pricing of their War of the Realms mini series and the Avengers tie in issue to the same event. The average comic book is thirty two pages long and averages four dollars per page. For some reason Marvel listed War of the Realms issues three and four where listed in Previews for thirty two pages for five do…
Ryan Franks
April 1, 2019
On February 18th, 2019 Netflix announced the cancellation of shows The Punisher and Jessica Jones (https://deadline.com/2019/02/the-punisher-jessica-jones-canceled-netflix-marvel-krysten-ritter-jon-be…
On February 18th, 20…
On February 18th, 2019 Netflix announced the cancellation of shows The Punisher and Jessica Jones (https://deadline.com/2019/02/the-punisher-jessica-jones-canceled-netflix-marvel-krysten-ritter-jon-bernthal-1202535835/). With these cancellations that marks the end of the Marvel/Netflix Defenders universe of shows. So, I haven't talked about The Defenders shows in awhile, mainly because shortly after I posted my article about season two of Iron Fist, they canceled Iron Fist and the only thing I could add is that I was looking forward to a season three of Iron Fist and now we weren't getting …
Ryan Franks
March 24, 2019
On Saturday October 20th, Saint Ambrose University Library hosted a “Comics Gaming Entertainment” event (https://libguides.sau.edu/c.php?g=838240&p=5987350). I had friends setting up at the…
On Saturday October …
On Saturday October 20th, Saint Ambrose University Library hosted a “Comics Gaming Entertainment” event (https://libguides.sau.edu/c.php?g=838240&p=5987350). I had friends setting up at the event, so I decided I'd pop over and see what was on offer. I've never been to Saint Ambrose before, even though a friend of mine spent his college years there. So after finding the library, mostly through luck. I walked into the Saint Ambrose library to see what was on offer that morning. After walking through the front doors the first thing I noticed was five tables set up in the main hallwa…
Ryan Franks
November 19, 2018
In the last two weeks DC Comics has released two comics that have garnered a lot of attention. Just to be safe let's establish both spoiler and mature content warnings. Two weeks ago was the releas…
In the last two week…
In the last two weeks DC Comics has released two comics that have garnered a lot of attention. Just to be safe let's establish both spoiler and mature content warnings. Two weeks ago was the release of Batman: Damned #1. Which included the first appearance of Batman's penis, affectionately dubbed The Batawang (not in the comic itself, obviously). This sparked some controversy, which should have been expected, but is so tiresome. Some retailers got angry that a book, heralded as DC's first comic in their Black Label line of mature readers comics, but unlike Vertigo these comics would featu…
Ryan Franks
October 26, 2018
So... let's talk about season two of Iron Fist. And I don't want you to think that's a condemnation of season two. I would go so far as to say that season two of Iron Fist is the best show of all t…
So... let's talk abo…
So... let's talk about season two of Iron Fist. And I don't want you to think that's a condemnation of season two. I would go so far as to say that season two of Iron Fist is the best show of all the second seasons of Marvel's Netflix series. Which came as a big surprise to me, as I'm sure it did to most people. Not that I hated the first season, it just wasn't the show I expected given the source material. I was definitely expecting more out of season two, mostly because the show runner for season one, Scott Buck, was placed in charge of Inhumans after he finished Iron Fist. That went abou…
Ryan Franks
September 28, 2018
On Saturday and Sunday this Labor Day weekend was another Mighty Con. This time no one had to worry about the air conditioning going kaput, because it was held at the QCCA Expo Center which doesn't ha…
On Saturday and Sund…
On Saturday and Sunday this Labor Day weekend was another Mighty Con. This time no one had to worry about the air conditioning going kaput, because it was held at the QCCA Expo Center which doesn't have air conditioning. Which is definitely a creative way to address complaints. All kidding aside it was a decent weekend both for the convention itself and on a personal level. I arrived at the con early on Saturday, partly because I was with other people, partly because I had other things going on that day and needed time to get them all done and partly because we were aware that Saturday was …
Ryan Franks
September 6, 2018
I read an article on Bleeding Cool this week, Image Comics to Publish Censored – And Non-Censored – Variant Covers for CBLDF (https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/08/09/image-comics-censored-variant-…
I read an article on…
I read an article on Bleeding Cool this week, Image Comics to Publish Censored – And Non-Censored – Variant Covers for CBLDF (https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/08/09/image-comics-censored-variant-covers-cbldf/), which on September 5th, 2018 Image Comics will be releasing a dozen covers of various titles with special covers that will have that cover art both covered with censored boxes and Comics Code Authority boxes and covers without those boxes to raise money for the CBLDF: the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. The CBLDF is non-profit that focuses on legal battles surrounding c…
Ryan Franks
August 28, 2018
