There has been a lot of online discussion in recent years about the idea of “strong female characters” - what makes a good one, a bad one, etc. All the accusations of sexism, either anti-woman or anti-man have gone along with these discussions, in the glorious, exaggerated way people argue online ...

So the other day I came across a whole twitter quarrel between a famous Spiderman artist and an anonymous (potentially teenaged) “art fixer”. Usually I tend to support or find some kind of explanation or excuse for the underdog- the non-famous, small account, low tier, unrecognized artist rather than the ...

There's nothing more entertaining than the angst of a monster that was once a human being. A monster that hates who he/she is, that strives to regain all the terrible loss he/she has sustained, to strive to become human again.



Or if it starts off a monster ...

The suspension of disbelief happens automatically in readers and audiences if a story does its job.

Audiences WANT to believe in a story when they start reading or watching it.

I mean, you can' t count on everyone. I remember going to see the Benjamin Button movie and my friend ...

There was an episode of the show ‘Supernatural’ a few years back where Dean met with the literal personification of Death. This Creature - one of the most powerful, if not THE most powerful, would take human form once in awhile (or when some ancient agreement demanded it). He would sometimes ...

LISTEN!

What defines evil in fiction?
I say the simplest one is bad guys are selfish, good guys are selfless.
That is massively over simplistic but it's a good easy template for basic hero's and villains. Basic ones
I was just doing a quick thought experiment to work ...

“Well, are they?”

Gary Numan (and Tubeway Army) posed that question in 1979. These days it has more relevance that ever before.

“It's cold outside, and the paint's peeling offa my walls.”

As winter approaches in the Southern Hemisphere (winter is coming) my thoughts naturally turn a little ...

Rather than write about something I'm good at I thought I write about something I'm struggling with, and my attempts to resolve it. Writing characters with distinct voices.

Comics are usually conversations between characters. Speech bubbles are the preferred way to tell comic stories, as opposed to large ...

Pop culture is being visited by its own past. There's no denying the excitement surrounding the reappearance of the original Star Wars and X-Files characters after an absence of years.

We all know our mainstream entertainment is stuffed with more and more sequels, remakes, reboots, soft reboots, reimaginings, reintegrated ...

As the end of 2014 comes to a close, it is a good time to remember the standout comics that got our attention, moved us, or just inspired its readers enough to get featured on the main page. Each week, one featured comics is selected by either ozoneocean and me ...