DJ's Comics Blog

When I decide to write a new story for a comic book, I will usually spend a small amount of time deciding what the main character is like, and the other characters will come much later. I tend to type out a few short pieces that detail the origin of this particular character, making sure that I get their history down before even attempting to place them in to a full on story. After I have decided on who they are as a person, that is when I begin to write up the main story. The usual word count of my stories is between 1500 and 2000 words, as I feel that this is long enough to tell a cohesive story that also has enough development of certain characters. After the story itself has been written, this is when I will begin to adapt it in to a script format. My approach to scripting my comics is to take it a few pages at a time, roughly 5 or 6 in a single session, and when the artist, in my case it is my sister, receives the scripted pages, this method makes the turnaround slightly faste...

The cover for the relaunched X-Men title. This week, for this third instalment of Classic Comics, I will be discussing Giant-Size X-Men from January 1975, written by Len Wein, with art by Dave Cockrum. A bit of background for this book. In 1963, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the X-Men, a team of teenaged mutants, led by the telepath Professor Charles Xavier. Although it was an initially successful publication, sales began to decline throughout the 1960s, before the title was cancelled, having been filled with backup stories and reprints for many years. The original X-Men team consisted of Scott Summers, known as Cyclops, Warren Worthington III, known as Angel, Bobby Drake, called Iceman, Henry 'Hank' McCoy, codenamed Beast, and finally Jean Grey, known as Marvel Girl, and the only female member of this original incarnation. The team was later joined by Alex Summers, who is Scott's brother and codenamed Havok, and also Lorna Dane, AKA Polaris. The issue begins in W...

Right, be warned that if you have not watched 'Lian Yu' yet, then do not read on, as there will be spoilers for the episode. So, last night was the Season 5 finale of the Arrow TV series, and lets just say that it was best season finale out of all the Arrowverse's 4 shows. Flash was alright, Supergirl was watchable, Legends was so long ago I can't remember (something about dinosaurs in the present day or something.) But Arrow was just incredible. After the lows of Season 4, and how disappointing that whole Damien Darhk stuff was, this season really stepped up its game. With a great villain in Prometheus/Adrian Chase, to bringing back Manu Bennett as Slade Wilson/Deathstroke, now completely free of Mirakuru, and sane. Oliver travels to Lian Yu in order to rescue his team, and enlists the aid of Deathstroke and Captain Boomerang to do so, and of course Boomerang betrays him straight away. Throughout the episode, we had hints that Slade would follow suit, but they we...

This week from DC Comics is looking to be a good one. First of all we have Detective Comics #957. After the events in the League of Shadows story arc, we have the return of Stephanie Brown, AKA Spoiler. She has not featured in this title for a while, after the perceived 'death' of her boyfriend Tim Drake a few months ago, and when she was attacked by various 'victims' of Batman, she left and has not been seen since. This week 'The Wrath of Spoiler' begins. The issue is available for around £2.30. We are also being treated to Batgirl #11, which will see the finale of 'Son of Penguin'. After the events of last issue which saw The Penguin make his appearance and attempting to help Batgirl, Ethan Cobblepot's plan is coming to a head. This book is available for just over £3, which indicates to me that it will be a slightly longer issue than we have been offered in the past. From Marvel this week, we are being offered the next chapter in Captain Amer...

In my lifetime of reading comics, I have been influenced by many different writers. The first of these being the current head writer for The Amazing Spider-Man, Dan Slott. He has crafted a narrative that is cohesive and easy to read. The cast of supporting characters that he has created to interact with Peter Parker in his everyday life is vast and complex. The next writer that I have been majorly influence by is the legendary Stan Lee. He has inspired me in a way that no other writer probably ever will. The sheer number of characters that he has created over the course of his career is enormous, and his style of writing is unique to him. Nick Spencer is a writer that I was only introduced to in the last couple of years, as he has been the main writer for both of the current Captain America books, starring Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers in the title roles, and of course he is also writing the Secret Empire event. I enjoy Spencer's writing as he is not afraid to get involved with...

Today, I felt like giving you all a small piece of information about how it is that I like to read my comic books. Back when I first began to read comics in 2010/2011, I would buy the comics published by Panini for Marvel from WHSmith, every two weeks. In that time, I really enjoyed doing that, as I could go home and sit in bed, reading multiple issues at a time, with arcs ending nice and quickly. After a while, I did not have the money to buy them anymore, so I stopped, and they were also about a year behind the main  single American issues. Nowadays, although I do have many singular, physical copies of titles in my collection, I prefer to read my comics digitally on services like Comixology, as they are more affordable, and I don't have to risk damaging them. Reading digitally means that I can read them wherever I am. The affordable prices mean that I can also purchase original comics from the Golden Age for about 69p or so. The Guided View on digital readers also helps me to...

Unlike with last Sunday, I have decided that I will be combining the DC and Marvel Weekly Rundowns, just for the reason that Marvel did not get much love this previous week, and DC did. DC - BATMAN #23 This weeks offering of Batman, written by Tom King, was most definitely a filler issue, to cleanse our pallets after the conclusion of the Button storyline from the last month or so. The story for this issue has a title that is an awful pun 'The Brave and the Mold', a spin on the classic 'Brave and the Bold' concept. It centres around the murder of the Swamp Thing's father. Batman and Swamp Thing go a search for the killer, which takes them to many different places, such as a Pawn Shop, where they find out the location of the killer. It turned out that Swamp Thing did not want to settle for just finding who killed his father, but also so that he could kill the person responsible, which Batman is not too pleased about.  Overall, I feel that this issue serves i...