Reviews of the Bosch

So, I guess Comics Kingdom sucks now. The website run by King Features Syndicate hosting a bunch of their licensed comic strips from classics like Beetle Bailey , Blondie , and Dennis the Menace  to great new strips like Retail , The Pajama Diaries , and Edison Lee  (as well as Sherman’s Lagoon , Zits , On the Fastrack , etc.) underwent a major relaunch early last week that is in just about every way a massive downgrade. The problems are numerous. The layout is distracting and cheap, far more space is allocated for ads so the strips themselves are displayed too small, the banner from which you could formerly browse for other strips is gone (meaning you have to go to the homepage to find other comics you like or discover new ones), the comments section is a joke –not refreshing itself daily so that every comment made on an individual strip remains attached to ALL strips, there’s no more blog or special features on individual comics pages which effectively barricades the ...

You don’t have to read much of Wallace the Brave  to know it has the makings of one of the great comic strips. Even at just over three years, it’s shown an immense quality of artistry, humour, character, and tone, the likes of which its obvious predecessors had in spades. I opened this series talking about  Cul de Sac , “The Last Great Newspaper Strip” and it seems only fitting to conclude with the strip I think proves that may not be the case. Because following in the footsteps of Cul de Sac , Calvin & Hobbes , and Peanuts , Will Henry’s own delightful take on childhood has a lot of that same magic, as well as its own unique character. It’s about the adventures and day-to-day activities of a boy named Wallace McClellan in the small Eastern American coastal town of Snug Harbor. An imaginative, rambunctious kid, he often hangs out with his friends, the eccentric though simple-minded Spud and over-enthusiastic tomboy Amelia. His dad, a fisherman, has som...

It’s not uncommon to see comic strips done in the format of The Pajama Diaries . Hell, since For Better or For Worse  perfected the style, there have been a number of family life strips told from the point of view of the matriarch, that age in real time and are loosely based on the cartoonists’ own biography. But Terri Libenson’s jaunts into the day to day habits and oddities of the Kaplans stands out more than the rest. And I don’t entirely know why. I can certainly point to what I like about this family strip that’s been running since 2006, and even won a Reuben Award in 2015, that isn’t quite as strong in similar cartoons. Firstly, the artwork, which foregoes the usual relatively realistic, statically drawn look slice-of-life strips like Sally Forth  and Between Friends  tend to go for. As detailed and organic as For Better or For Worse  looked in its later years, some forget it was extremely cartoony early on. And The Pajama Diaries  is similarly fl...

               One of several strips to import the workplace comedy sitcom into daily panel form, Retail was born out of the experiences, tedium, and torment of one former retail worker Norm Feuti. Debuting with the New Year in 2006, right from the start it set itself up as a comic of catharsis, not only for Feuti, but for anyone who’s ever worked in customer service. The strip’s been around for twelve years though, and it couldn’t have lasted if it was just mocking and bemoaning terrible shoppers this whole time. What’s kept it continuously investing is a real devoted interest in its characters and storylines, as well as the same level of heart and humour that characterizes the very best sitcoms.        The strip follows several people employed at a Sears-like department store called Grumbel’s (a not-so-subtle play on Gimbel’s) located in a mall somewhere in the American North-East. Primarily it’s focussed on Ma...

This is primarily a movie blog. It didn’t start out that way, as though I intended to talk a lot about movies from the start, I also wanted to use it as a forum for my satirical interests and commentary. Hence catalogues like ‘Pop Culture Shock’ and the abandoned ‘Political Incorrectness’, a heading name I increasingly regret. But as I watched more and more movies and grew as a critic I streamlined towards a more exclusively film-based focus. I say all this, because for the month of September, which I’ve annually made a theme month, I’m going to be breaking from that focus to talk about another form of art I have an incredible enthusiasm for: comic strips.  My love of comic strips pre-dates my love of film. Maybe it’s the creativity, the humour, the design, or the fact that all three can be integrated seamlessly in a short series of panels; but I’ve always had a fascination with them ever since I fell in love with the imaginative adventures of a mischievous six year...