The March issue of Sequential Tart is now online at http://www.sequentialtart.com/. It is an issue that started to blow me away as soon as I saw the new content while helping to proof some articles a couple of days ago. I absolutely love the new series about metanarratives in comics, Messing with Metanarratives, by Suzette Chan. I was also tickled to see that Pam Bliss’s Hopelessly Lost But Making Good Time series delves into shapeshifters this month, since one of my main characters in The Myth of Merula is going to be a very strong specimen of the shapeshifter archetype, among other things. It was thrilling to me to be able to interview Gwen Rachel Stanley for this issue, especially since I’ve written briefly about her work a couple of times in this blog. I find her style fresh, unique and exciting. These are just a few of the highlights that hit me first, but there is so much more content to explore!

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This article originally appeared in the January 2007 issue of the Sequential Tart Webzine.

Like Isaac Mendez, the comic artist of NBC’s Heroes who can paint the future, some comics creators find that their work at least partially anticipates some aspects of the future. In his introduction to the original DC Comics run of V for Vendetta, Alan Moore wrote that he and artist David Lloyd had played something of a Cassandra role in anticipating the future, when they created V for Vendetta. In his and Deepak Chopra’s Comic-Con panel of July 20, 2006, Grant Morrison said of his work on The Invisibles, “We had things that went into the comic and would then manifest themselves in the real world and in my life.”
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This review originally appeared in the Sequential Tart Webzine on December 1, 2006.

Publisher
Brooke Spangler
http://agirlandherfed.com

Credits
Creators: Brooke Spangler

Grade: 7
A Girl and Her Fed follows the daily life of a young, single, female, liberal journalism intern who is under the surveillance of the fed. Her fed knows that she is not a terrorist, but ever since she has written an article defending civil liberties, he has just been doing his job by following orders to open her mail and watch her. This sounds like a deadly serious subject, but the topic is rendered hilarious by its treatment by Brooke Spangler. continue reading »

This review of Oz/Wonderland Chronicles #1 originally appeared in the Sequential Tart Webzine on December 1, 2006. If you’ve not yet read the comic, be aware that this review contains spoilers.

Publisher
BuyMeToys.com
http://www.buymetoys.com/

Credits
Writer: Ben Avery, Casey Heying
Penciler: Casey Heying
Colorist: Snocone Studios, Casey Heying
Letterer: Comicraft
Cover Artist: Joe Jusko, Boris Vallejo

Grade: 8

This second issue of The Oz/Wonderland Chronicles begins with Humpty Dumpty singing on a wall, when he is rudely interrupted by the Jabberwocky, a fearsome creature imagined in a poem and brought to life. As Humpty falls off the wall, Alice wakes from a nightmare in which she has seen these events unfold. She immediately sits up in bed, grabs her guitar and begins to compose a song out loud, singing Humpty’s lyrics. continue reading »

This morning, I have been reading the January issue of the Sequential Tart Webzine to help put me in the mood for 2007. In this issue, there are interviews with Mike and Louise Carey, Barb Lien-Cooper and Adrien van Viersen. In the featured articles, Shaenon Garrity lets us in on her secret origin of a fangirl, Pam Bliss writes #69 in her comics creation series “Hopelessly Lost, But Making Good Time”, Mary Borsellino writes about comics tie-ins in new media culture, Corrina Lawsonsays why she believes that the DC’s hardcover Absolute edition of The New Frontier was worth the price, and I take a look at how prophetic the V for Vendetta comic series was.

For comicon reports, Alice Doyle gives us the lowdown on Dublin City Comicon 2006.

In columns, Brian K. Vaughn is the subject of this month’s Tart Tastes, Young Avengers Volume One: Sidekicks gets a Fantastic Firsts article, Robert Lach writes about the mainstream audience in the redirected male column, the Tart to Heart column spotlights favorite covers and Lisa Lopacinski gives us an insider’s angle on the ups and downs of the comic book store business. continue reading »

“Webcomics suck,” is a lament often read, even issuing forth from former webcomic fans and champions. I hope to convince the reader with this list that lots of good webcomics exist. It’s far from exhaustive – just a sampling. Enjoy.

Alternative History

• Roswell, Texas

Drama

• The Architect
• Jazz Age
• Maroon

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I have not been writing much here lately. The reason I’ve been MIA is that I’ve been Martened, Tarted and Torqued. About six weeks ago, I brought home a tiny, new orange-striped kitten named Marten. This occurred at about the same time that I began to occasionally contribute to the ezine Sequential Tart. At the same time, I began to teach myself how to use and script the Torque Game Engine. It’s hard to write much in your blog when you’re Martened, Torqued and Tarted at the same time. My long-term vision for Squirrel Tao has not changed, but it’s going to be slow going for Squirrel Tao to evolve into the blog I want it to be. I work full-time, and it doesn’t take much to disrupt my free time in the evenings and on the week-ends. People would laugh at me if they knew the impact that one little kitten has had on my life recently.

Martened

I picked Marten up at the local pet shop, which sometimes adopts kittens out on Saturdays. There were two cages full of kittens. All of them were asleep except for Marten. He came up to the cage wall and rubbed the side of his face against my finger. Then he swiped at it. continue reading »

Mark Marino has just launched a hypermedia humor e-zine called Bunk Magazine. It looks like it has potential and is worth exploring. I haven’t yet thoroughly checked out the first issue, but I’ve found a few things that made me giggle and smirk, as well as a few things that didn’t. (You’ll have that.) One of the things that did get a giggle from me was the “Y2K Bug Issue”, found under Features. This link brought up a mock circa-1900 newspaper dated January 1, 1900. In this newspaper, you can read about such things as what our future shall bring. Number four on the list is this:

The entire world will be covered by a vast network of wires which will be referred to as the “World Wide Web.” This web will have been woven by gigantical prehistorical arachnids, who will become our leaders after emerging from caverns beneath the earth, where they will have been hiding for 3 millions years.

I think I just like humor that involves wild flights of imagination. continue reading »

Bob the Angry Flower is a funny and original web comic strip about a not-very-nice flower named Bob. Bob is into a little bit of everything. He tries to push Xaxor pills to an old man. Xaxor supposedly gives back missing zest and zing, as well as curing incontinence. The side effect of of excruciating bone pain almost never happens. Bob is also paranoid about security, complaining that his tactical high energy lasers and other high-tech security measures can’t protect him from magic, the literary assault or emotional vulnerabilities. continue reading »

Gwen Rachel Stanley has a new web comic out. It’s a very short piece called “A Month of Sundays“. It does sort of evoke a Sunday kind of mood. I like Stanley’s style a lot.

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