The Ottawa Comic Book Guy

Good day, and I hope summer is treating you well. Thursday was an exciting day for me as my Kickstarter finally arrived, a collection of strips from the webcomic Irregular Webcomic!. Created by noted physicist and avid gamer Dr. David Morgan-Mar of Sydney, Australia, the strip itself features Lego mini-figurines and gaming figs as protagonists for various subjects such as Fantasy theme (which was the subject for the first collection which I also purchased), Space theme, Mythbusters, Steve Irwin vs Cthulhu, Pirates, Star Wars, and the like. But the theme that this book was based on was from the Indiana Jones franchise,which he has named Cliffhangers . The title of the collection I have received is Prepare for the Wurst! . It is hilarious and I recommend people check out this strip at:   http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/ . It's worth it. Now on to our topic for the day, the Man of Steel serieses. (I don't know what the plural here is. Is it series, like the singular, series

Good day, today begins the story I have to tell about the differences and similarities of the two Man of Steel series, the famous one from 1986 (right after Crisis on Infinite Earths) by John Byrne and 2018's version written by Brian Michael Bendis. Both represent new starts for the character in new eras. They contrast in that the original one was a hard reboot, and the newest one a soft one. Before we get too far into it today, the first thing we need to discuss is: why reboot? Usually, the reboot of a character is tied to the possible financial gains of a character. A new story (like movie reboots and resets), means you basically get to start over a character, and, at least at first, you don't even to try that hard as you are basically retelling the origin of the character (see Batman reboots and Spider-Man reboots; all have them have cleared insane amounts of dough at the box office, and I am guilty of falling for it myself. A reboot is usually done with a character th

Good day, everyone. It's time for another "episode" of  Random Books, this time my son picked Adventures of Superman #637 (April 2005). When I asked him why, he gave this reaction: (This picture comes in so handy...) This book is from an era of Superman that my knowledge is lacking in, as I actually have some missing books from this period as the print runs were not as large. Not that it really matters here, of course, after all to qualify for this column, it has to be already in my collection. So before I completely chase you away, heeeeerrrrreeee's my review! Adventures of Superman #637 - "The Road to Ruin - Part Two) Writer: Greg Rucka, Pencillers: Renato Guedes and Matthew Clark, Inkers: Renato Guedes and Andy Lanning, Letterer: Rob Leigh, Colourists: Tanya and Richard Horie, Associate Editor: Tom Palmer, Jr.,  Editor: Eddie Berganza (This is a long list for one regular-sized book.) A flashback starts the book. In the Oval Office, President L

After a hectic few weeks away from the regular grind (as anyone with children can attest to), a few notes from the world of comics while I was away. The passing of Steve Ditko : Sometime on approximately 29 June 2018, Steve Ditko passed away. Co-creator with Stan Lee of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange at Marvel, creator of Captain Atom and the Question at Charlton, and the Creeper and Hawk and Dove at DC Comics, Ditko was known for the heart and soul he put into every character he worked on (usually by injecting qualities of himself into the astory.) Although he only did 38 issues of the Amazing Spider-Man , these issues defined the character. He created Doctor Octopus, the Lizard and the Green Goblin. He was also involved in the relaunch of the Hulk in Tales to Astonish after his own magazine died after 6 issues. After a fallout with Lee that no one (including Lee) understood what happened, Steve left Marvel and moved on to Charlton Comics where he revamped the Blue Beetle, a

Happy Hangover Day, Canada. Hope you didn't have to get up to go to work. Today I am going to do a review of a book by another local Ottawa artist, a man by the name of Steve Coffin. Steve was born in 1974 in Portsmouth, England, and after trying to make a go of a career in music, emigrated to Canada in 2000. After graduating from Wed design from my alma matter, Algonquin College, he has been working hard as a graphic artist ever since. I particularly love this cover as a big fan of the Guild, in fact this was what attracted me to his work in the first place. I had the pleasure of meeting Steve at a small Aylmer show where he was giving drawing lessons. I had my kids with me, so partaking in the session was impossible, but I did watch as he passed his knowledge on to an eager batch of what I would call, the next generation. Steve's website is www.stevecoffin.com , so give it a look and maybe you'll see what I do. You can get some of his comic work, including the book