The recent release of Peter Panzerfaust #24 and Bitch Planet #9 has got me thinking about the one sure fire thing, guaranteed to make me drop a comic from my pull list: lateness. I never dropped Peter Panzerfaust. I really like the book; which is the story of Peter Pan with the setting changed to World War Two, but it did make me drop Kurtis J. Wiebe. Wiebe is the writer of Peter Panzerfaust, Rat Queens and Pisces from Image and Bounty from Dark Horse. I name these four comics specifically because they represent the timeline of my resentment to this writer. Panzerfaust come out in 2012 and I ordered... Read More

I don’t like dumping on the comic book industry every article. It would sometimes make this easier if I did, but the good things the industry does should be pointed out alongside the bad. That being said we as comic book fans need to look at the things we do for good and ill. There was news reported recently that Chelsea Cain, writer of the Mockingbird comic from Marvel, quit Twitter over harassment from Internet trolls. As an aside, it took me a minute to settle on Internet trolls to describe the people harassing Cain. I had some other choice descriptors, but I do try and keep these family friendly,... Read More

In a previous article I talked about NPR’s coverage of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau being on the cover of Civil War Two: Choosing Sides #5 and how it seemed more like a Marvel PR stunt then official international news. This led me to wonder why comic books are so terrible at selling themselves. I can remember the first time I saw a television commercial for a comic book. It was about five years ago while watching Doctor Who reruns on BBC America. There was a commercial promoting Fables, a DC/Vertigo comic about how the Grimm Fairy Tales characters are adjusting to life in the 21st Century.... Read More

Tim’s Corner began with an act of kindness, and 34 years later, the Rock Island comic book shop, at 2963 14th Ave., is still providing a fun, warm environment for comic book fans to hang out, chat and pick up their favorite comics. “My brother was in the hospital in Davenport with a minor stroke, and he had always been into comics, so I picked him up some comic books and every day I would get him books and go hang out with him,” said Tim Cederoth, owner and comics sensei at Tim’s. “I was between positions, I’d just been let go at IH, and I would go to this shop in Moline to get them.... Read More

NPR had an interesting piece I was listening to recently. Listening to NPR has been a recent change in my morning routine since most of the morning radio programming in the Q-C is either bad music or worse comedy. The piece they had was about the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, appearing in a Marvel comic. I found the article very frustrating because they referred to the comic several times, but they never once actually used the title of the book. I found the transcript of it on their webpage and the closest they come is referencing Civil War Two, the crossover event the comic they were... Read More

EDITOR’S NOTE: Local comic book fan Ryan Franks will be writing about comics and comics culture for QuadCities.com as our new columnist. We hope you enjoy his treks into the comics world! My earliest memory of comic books comes from when I was about three. My parents and I were at some kind of family gathering and a very boring one at that. I had with me Transformers Comic Magazine #4, a digest sized comic collecting Transformers #7 and 8 from the original 1984 run of Marvel comics. Given that I was three I wasn’t able to actually read the book as printed. What I would do is look at the drawings... Read More