A New Magazine for Comic Fans
GRAPHIC-NOVEL COLUMN: A New Magazine for Comic Fans By Dan Brown COMICS! The Magazine is not a comic. It is a magazine that covers the comic industry and the people who make comics. It is put together by folks who clearly love comics, and want to give avid readers more reasons to love comics. It’s even the size of a comic book. I’ve read two issues so far (Issue No. 6 goes on sale August 5), and what I can tell you is, if you are a superhero fan, you will learn something from reading COMICS! The Magazine. Arguably the hottest mainstream offering in 2026 is DC’s Absolute Batman. So it made perfect sense for the magazine’s creative team to put the pin-headed vigilante on the cover of Issue No. 1. Inside, there was a Q-and-A with the folks who put Absolute Batman together. Now, Q-and-A’s are usually journalistically suspect, but this one was six pages long! In other words, it was the first and last word about the launch of Absolute Batman. I mean, they even interviewed the dude who letters the breakout hit from DC! That is what I would call exhaustive coverage. There’s also news, reviews, profiles, top picks, and power rankings. I would love to see the monthly do more reported articles, I hope that’s in store. COMICS! The Magazine’s editor-in-chief is writer/editor Joseph Keatinge. London’s own Brian Garside is the publication’s digital director. And if you are a young fan who is new to the idea of a print publication covering the comics industry, that first issue also includes a timeline of previous efforts, such as The Comics Journal, which published 276 issues from 1997 to 2013. Writer Jim Rugg calls Comics Journal “probably the only magazine worthy of the word ‘journalism’ on this list,” which stretches back to the 1960s. “The importance of fanzines in comic-book history cannot be overstated,” Rugg adds. In other words, news coverage gives comics as an art form legitimacy. That’s the void COMICS! is trying to fill. A serious industry deserves serious commentary. And Rob Salkowitz (Forbes) and Heidi MacDonald (The Beat), as amazing as their online work is, can’t do it all on their own. There’s no point in a magazine or blog being critical for the sake of being critical, but someone has to tell the truth. And then there are the serendipitous surprises. In the debut issue, the Mail Bag letters column contained a series of “ letters” from Canadian creator Chip Zdarsky. The exchange ends with Zdarsky writing his last message from jail. It was a mildly amusing joke. Then, four issues later, the Mail Bag was given over to an actual convict who sent in an actual letter in response to Zdarksy. Jaymz 13754295 detailed how reading comics works on the inside, so to speak. It was an eye-opening correspondence. Have you checked out COMICS! The Magazine? What is your go-to news source for information about your favourite publishers and characters? Let me know in the comments! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly Graphic-Novel Group book club.
More Jokes About Absolute Batman Would Help
By Dan Brown Mad About DC is a new one-shot comic that parodies DC Comics and characters in the style of a Mad Magazine issue. It’s the brainchild of ubiquitous comic writer and artist Chip Zdarsky (DC owns Mad, which makes the collaboration possible). When Zdarsky and his contributors aim quips at themselves, this comic is at its funniest. When they aim them at DC characters and long-standing comic traditions, they are funny, but not quite as much. When they make comic fans their target, they aren’t funny at all. But I guess it must feel edgy to bite the hand that feeds you. In his opening letter from the editor, the Canadian creator calls himself a “comic-book auteur,” a winking way to indicate he knows he’s not too cool for school. How disrespected are those in the comic industry? People are excited to meet Zdarsky since they assume he writes superhero movies for a living. They’re stunned to find out comic books employ actual writers, he tells the reader.. Only one publication is lower on the prestige ladder, and that’s Mad Magazine. Hence this special edition, which features parody stories about well-known DC characters like Superman, as well as such lesser lights as Matter-Eater Lad. Most of the chapters run a page long, the longest stretches to three. The one that made me laugh out loud was a parody of Wonder Woman penned by Joanne Starer with art by Joe Quinones. This creative team poses such eternal questions as, if Wonder Woman has bracelets that deflect flying bullets, why doesn’t she have an entire costume made of the same material? Is there really any reason for her bathing suit-style outfit? “We’re trying to sell comics here,” the Amazing Amazon explains. There’s also a nod to the fact the heroine doesn’t really attract compelling villains: “Great Hera, grant me the strength to find a more popular rogues gallery!” The same piece has the Dark Knight himself suggesting she stock up on sidekicks because “They expire quickly,” a reference to DC killing off one of Batman’s many Robins, Jason Todd, back in 1988. In one panel in an earlier story, Mad mascot Alfred E. Neuman wears a “New New 52” button, demonstrating the publisher isn’t afraid to laugh at its own habit of perpetually rebooting the DC universe. A Kelly Sue DeConnick contribution contains descriptions of the different kinds of comic enthusiasts, like the “Near-Mint Collector.” He’s the fan who is healing his “inner child with first printings and original art.” Or, the “Mint-Condition Fan” who lives to hear someone say, “Sure, Dad, I’ll read those with you.” My feeling is Zdarsky should have shed sections like this, and expanded the Skottie Young-drawn gag about Absolute Batman: “ABSOLUTE is ABSOLUTELY crushing the entire industry in the sales department and you know what they say, WHEN IN DOUBT, ABSOLUTE IT OUT!” The accompanying illustration shows Absolute Batman, only the Caped Crusader’s pinhead is replaced by Neuman’s face wedged into the cowl. But here’s an idea. Instead of DC poking fun at itself, why not do a crossover that involves their biggest competitor? That way, Marvel creators could make jokes about DC’s stable of characters, and the DC roster of talent could take a run at the likes of Wolverine, Spidey, and Deadpool. Readers would be the winners, since this switch would surely inspire some savage comedy. Who knows – someone might even be brave enough to make a joke about how Stan Lee didn’t contribute much to all those characters he worked on with artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Note: Mad About DC (comic-sized) is not to be confused with Mad Spoofs Superheroes (magazine-sized), a treasury edition of Mad parodies on store shelves now. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly Graphic-Novel Group book club.
GRAPHIC-NOVEL COLUMN: Absolute Batman is a Pinhead
By Dan Brown Absolute Batman is a new version of the Dark Knight who’s setting DC fandom and the sales charts on fire. Instead of coming from a rich family, this Bruce Wayne is a young man of modest means while his nemesis, the Joker, is Gotham’s resident billionaire in this continuity. You can also recognize this new superhero because, as drawn by Nick Dragotta, he has a massive body but a pinhead for a noggin. Scott Snyder handles writing duties. I’ve been reading a number of Batman collections lately, ranging from the awful (The Long Halloween) to the superior (The Court of Owls Saga). For this column I read The Zoo, which collects the first six issues of Absolute Batman. The title has been lauded for its visual storytelling, and is selling gangbusters – we’re talking manga numbers. “Absolute Batman is now consistently selling 300,000 issues a month, a monster number in the comic-book publishing field,” the Hollywood Reporter noted in an article on April 3 (I’m sure a part of that total is single copies with variant covers). What you’ll see in Absolute Batman: The Zoo is fresh takes on familiar names and institutions. Jim Gordon is Gotham City’s Mayor. His daughter is Barbara, a cop like the main-universe version, except she’s black. Instead of a Batmobile, Wayne steals a motorcycle. His father, a grade-school teacher, is killed in a school shooting, inspiring the young man to become a crime fighter. Alfred Pennyworth is an ex-special forces soldier-turned-mercenary, and possible partner for the Dark Knight. Selina Kyle is a childhood friend of Wayne’s. Not having the financial resources of the original Bruce Wayne, our hero must use whatever materials come to hand, like when he commandeers a gigantic dump truck in a chase scene. He also leans on a group of friends that includes the Absolute equivalents of Two-Face and the Riddler. No doubt some of the people buying this series are speculators, but there’s no denying this is a novel and energetic twist on the Batman we’ve all come to know in the past. I especially appreciated Absolute Batman No. 4 because it was drawn by frequent Jeff Lemire collaborator Gabriel Hernandez Walta, and delves into this particular Batman’s origin story. The strong demand for the series has led to multiple printings of the first few issues. Fans are genuinely excited to see where the creative team will take the title. I’ve always argued, when anyone says Batman is just a regular guy (unlike Superman), that his superpower is the Wayne family fortune, which allows him to be prepared for any threat to his hometown. So it’s interesting to see how this Batman’s anger is directed at the city’s One Per Centers, who he feels have an obligation to their community, but are instead pretending to literally be above it all, hiding from their responsibility in penthouse apartments. Are you reading Absolute Batman? What do you think? How do you suppose he got his shrunken head? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
