So firstly, I know that there’s been some pushback against the notion of celebrating one’s HRTversary, and I get it, but I don’t agree. I like having a date to reflect on a year’s progress that isn’t tied up in all that attendant baggage of one’s birthday, and online I’d
Continue readingAuthor: Charlotte Finn
And I Fall For It, Every Time
there’s a pattern to old comic books, is all I’m saying
Continue readingzombie virus
this is a story called “zombie virus,” and it is not a zombie story.
Continue readingALIENS: Working Stiffs

Ing and I took a quick break from BRAND ECHO to create an eight page ALIENS fan comic!
Continue readingA Year in the Big City #36: “The Other Side of the Story”

You could do worse, as law enforcement in a superhero universe, than putting everyone on a watchlist who’s ever publicly proclaimed “I’ll show ’em! I’ll show ’em all!” This half of the Jack-in-the-Box concerns the 1960s supervillain Mister Drama, whose origin is that he was rejected from a Shakespeare play
Continue readingA Year in the Big City #35: “What I Did On My Vacation…”

Jack-In-The-Box! Jack-In-The-Box!! Everyone, I love Jack-In-The-Box. Always have. When you look at Jack-In-The-Box, you immediately think Spider-Man – urban acrobatic crimefighter who immobilizes people with string he shoots out of his hands? Obviously. But the character is so much more than an ersatz Spider-Man, or even an ersatz Steve Ditko
Continue readingA Year in the Big City #34: “The End of the Whole Mess”

Now that’s a cover. Issue #34 concludes this three-part reunion with Steeljack by having him confronting the villain, in an underground lair that is directly underneath his restaurant (this is a superhero comic, after all. Our villain is a fan – that kind of fan – and what interests me
Continue reading“On My Planet…”
A fanfiction about how events become iconography, just in time for Superman Day.
Continue readingA Year in the Big City #33: “Permanent Records”

We live in the age of the pop culture revival, and the arrival of the eternal film and movie franchises, all born or borrowing from the model of superhero comics storytelling. Astro City, one of the most storied and beloved superhero comics of all time, went through a revival of its own in 2013, and that it came back as strong as ever was a miracle in and of itself. Over the course of a year, Charlotte Finn will be examining this miracle – all 52 issues – as she spends A Year in the Big City.
Continue readingA Year in the Big City #32: “Things Past”

“Why don’t they just get a job?” It’s one of the oldest questions that get asked of supervillains; if they have technology or powers that can do that, why rob banks? Why not change the world with it? The real answer is “because then you don’t get two fights and
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