No, comics did not suddenly decline in quality as I got older
(Another post rewritten from four years ago on my blog) When I read some recent, particularly crappy comic from the Big Two it’s easy to grumble about how Kids These …
Category: Fraser Sherman
Lin Carter and the Ballantines Changed My Life
Or at least changed my taste on books (this is another repost from my own blog, from 2013) Someone once described the late specfic author Lin Carter as fantasy methadone. …
From Project UFO to Project Blue Book (or) What the X-Files Hath Wrought
The difference between the 1979’s TV series Project UFO and 2019’s Project Blue Book says a lot about the way TV changed in the decades between. They’re both based on …
Remember the time Iron Man met the Angel? I wish I could forget
Despite coming from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Tales of Suspense #49 is a mess. Like a lot of the early Marvel I’ve been rereading, it makes me feel the …
“Say his name and even Superman shakes!”
For years, I’ve suffered the frustration of having Action #351 and #353 — the first and last parts of a continued story — without the middle section. Just last week, I rectified …
Jeffty Is Five … and I’m Sixty-Three
When I read Harlan Ellison’s Jeffty Is Five back in 1978 (in Terry Carr’s collection The Year’s Finest Fantasy), it blew me away. When I reread it a few years ago (this …
This used to be so damn cool
Groundbreaking stories or concepts often have a short shelf life. Frequently they’re upstaged by someone who does the same thing better. Sherlock Holmes wasn’t the first private detective nor Tarzan …