Book Review: “The Night Gwen Stacy Died” by Sarah Bruni

A girl from a nowhere town in Iowa, desperate to get out, meets a man who goes by the comic book alias of Peter Parker. Crafting herself as Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man’s first love, the two run away together, and try to discover who they are under the masks.

As a huge comic fan, lover of Spider-Man and someone who was devastated by the loss of Gwen Stacy, this book instantly grabbed me. And I was in for a pleasant surprise, because this book contains a tonne of steady comic book references, especially and unsurprisingly to the issue where Gwen Stacy met her unfortunate end.

Fret not if you’re not interested in comics or don’t know much regarding Spider-Man or Gwen Stacy – the book itself provides plenty of background context, as Shiela herself is new to the comic work aswell. However, before starting, I would google what Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker look like in the comics.

The artwork and layout of the book is fantastic and imaginative. There’s symbols at the beginning of each chapter to indicate who’s perspective it’ll be told from, which are very cute and relevant, that’re drawn in sketch-like ways. There’s also the fact that the opening pages of the book scrawl the title across a 2-page spread, in Comic Sans – not looking dissimilar to the opening pages of a comic book.

Their story itself something right out of a comic, both the narrative and characters are acutely aware of it the entire time. As long as you can somewhat suspend your knowledge of reality, it makes for an exciting read!

If you’re also a comic fan with knowledge of the actual Spider-Man issue The Night Gwen Stacy Died, you’ll love how this book explores that story from an outside perspective, and how it handles and manages that particular character arc. The narrative of this book displays how deeply unfair and devastating it was that Spider-Man had everything which should have kept Gwen alive, but she still died anyway. The book did an amazing job of portraying the fans pain, and I think even non-comic fans will be touched and shocked at this particular arc.

The romance aspect of this book is scary at times – Gwen is 17 from some small town who goes along with this mysterious stranger who is nearly 30 and uses a comic book alias – she knows literally nothing about him. The control always seems to switch but realistically, the minor cannot be in control at any stage of this relationship. There’s a heavy feeling that they do love each other – but could it be because they’re falling for the story they’re chasing?

Sheila hasn’t had love before or adventure before, but craves it. “Peter Parker” however seems to know she’ll go along with it, and then he becomes bound to her because she’s following his narrative down to the tiniest details, and he’s now clinging to her. Its actually incredibly creepy and tense at times to watch these two together, because you get lost in their narrative that it’s Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker – but then the book reminds you that it’s a seventeen year old girl and a fully grown adult man with some serious issues together – a very dangerous combination.

The Night Gwen Stacy Died is not a frilly summer read, but it’s not the darkest book in the world either. It’s a fantastic one sitting book perfect for fans of both YA and comic books, and is a twisted take on Spider-Man’s most controversial and heartbreaking story in history

The Night Gwen Stacy Died by Sarah Bruni is an intelligent, cinematic and deeply self aware Young Adult novel with unpredictable turns under the title of comic book histories most recognisable stories.

 

We Review Monty The Dinosaur #1

Variant Cover By Eryk Donovan

 

What would it be like if you were the last talking dinosaur on earth? Would you enjoy the solitude or would you try to fit in with humans desperately? Monty The Dinosaur tackles these questions and more in it’s first all ages issue.

Monty has been in a cave and lonely for a long time. Wanting to make friends, Monty has his doubts about humans not running away at the sight of him. He eventually decides he’s determined to make friends despite his appearance and sets out to do so the best a dinosaur can do to be accepted.

Writer Bob Frantz created a funny 4th wall breaking story that is a joy to read. Many comic book readers now have children of their own (myself included), So even if your child isn’t quite old enough to read or understand a story yet it’s worth picking up for the future. It is rare to find good all ages books these days, and It’s great to see a comic that doesn’t treat kids like they’re dumb.

The Art of Jean Franco is great. To me, It’s like a cross between newspaper comic strip and children’s book style art. Great panel flow and the colours are on point, happy to see it’s not blindingly bright like some all age stories. I showed my one-year-old a page and he smiled and wanted to take it from my computer screen so I can vouch for the arts appeal to children.

 

If you or your child is a hardcore dinosaur fan, this is a must purchase. Regardless of your age or degree of liking dinosaurs, this is a fun comic, and in a world where comics can be too serious at times this is a nice breather. I look forward to the rest of this series.

10/10

 

---

---

Wether you’re a long time reader of Action Lab Entertainment Comics or new to them they have recently changed their rating system for their comics.

NEW RATING SYSTEM:
E: Appropriate for everyone
A: Appropriate for ages 9 and up
T: For readers ages 12 and up
T+: For older teen readers and adults
M: Mature readers 18+

As always you can purchase Monty The Dinosaur at your local comic shop (provided your store ordered the title. This is why pre-orders are necessary for comics!)

You can also purchase a digital copy from Comixology

For more information check out www.actionlabcomics.com

Follow on Twitter: @ActionLab

 

 

Book Review: ‘Rat Queens: Volume Three – Demons” by Kurtis J. Wiebe

“Rat Queens” is the fantasy graphic novel focusing on four misfit friends as they travel on various quests to help – and often end up hurting. Usually themselves.

This volume covers issues #11 – #15, and primarily focus on Hannah’s past, and the dark secrets she’s been hiding from her friends.

Rat Queens is a damn near faultless series. Filled with hilarious comedy, brutal honesty when it comes to the things women really worry about (sex and beard growth) and yet always deeply passionate and touching. The driving loyalty and love between the four female protagonists, and the comics ability to switch seamlessly from gore, to humour, to emotional turmoil and back again make this series so incredible special.

While the past two volumes have been full of epic battles, and the Queens finding their path, this volume feels like it’s picking up the pace and has thrown the Rat Queens through a loop. This volume also primarily focuses on issues of trust – the girls have always seemed like a family, always determined to protect each other to the best if their abilities. However, what families don’t keep secrets from time to time?

The volume also introduces us to a brief side character who I absolutely have to mention – Daniel, the polite, candy-collecting ice dragon. He was such a lovely surprise, and I’m desperate for him to make a comeback. For some reason, I vividly imagined him being voiced by Idris Elba.

The artwork in these volumes has always been visually wonderful. The colours, alongside the sharp, bold lines, make for a beautiful read. Tess Fowler and Tamra Bonvillain make an incredible team, bringing the Rat Queens and their adventures to the pages of the graphic novel.

Overall, this is my favourite volume of Rat Queens so far. Visually epic, side splittingly funny and then bone achingly emotional, it pushes the story along and throws the women into an entirely new chapter of their story.

SPOILER FREE REVIEW || The Remnant Chronicles Booktube Tour

As many of you lovely people saw, I did a lookbook for The Remnant Chronicles! I also wanted to share my thoughts on the series with all of you!

I kept it spoiler free so everyone can watch!

Happy Reading,

ALY

Book Review: ‘The Accident Season’ By Moïra Fowley-Doyle

At the same time every year, for as long as Cara can remember, there has been the accident season. A month of constant injuries and tragedies grips her family and no one knows why.

Until Cara starts seeing a mysterious girl in the backdrop of all her photographs – and then she starts to look deeper into the accident season.

The Accident Season is the ideal read for anyone who’s looking for a gritty read with strange visuals, a dark tale and a hint of the supernatural. It’s also a fairly quick read, so ideal if you’ve got a long rainy day off. (I would recommend a rainy day as the book is set in Ireland in October)

The setting for the book is completely ideal for this type of story. Set in Ireland, which is rife with tales of folklore and fairies, in the dark grim weather of October where Halloween is just around the corner, it’s absolutely ideal for the supernatural occurrences happening in the book.

The visuals in this book are also very nicely done – it’s very vivid, descriptive and makes use of colour a lot, mostly reds and greys. Everything about the book is consistently eerie, and everything feels off and uncomfortable all the time, including the characters.

The ghostly-supernatural element is genuinely quiet scary in this book as well. The constant knowledge of s figure that’s in every single one of Cara’s photographs, even ones from her childhood, is enough to freak anyone out – combined with the progression of the story and the constant oppression the accident season causes, this book leaves you on edge at all times, wondering what is going to happen next.

One thing I will say it that the narrative can get a bit muddled and confusing, and I found myself re-reading lines to make a bit more sense of them or try and unravel the metaphors. While this was fine for me, others may find this daunting or not to their taste.

The Accident Season is a tragic supernatural novel. With creepy, goosebumps inducing visuals, the families sense of anxiety and hopelessness, combined with the shocking reveal of what the accident season is, it’s a book that will give you chills and sit with you for some time on your rainy evening reading.

Book Review: “Monstress: Volume One – Awakening” by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda

Combining Eastern and Western styles of art and storytelling, Monstress: Volume One – Awakening is the introductory volume of the Monstress series, a tale of humans vs. hybrids in an epic and twisted war, and how a young woman named Maika has ended up as a demon-possessed war criminal. As the tale carries on though, it is brought into question whether the demon possesses Maika, or if she possesses the demon. And with war all around them, it’s impossible to know who to trust or who might be waiting to strike you down.

Monstress is an absolute work of art in every way possible, from the writing to the exceptional artwork. Artwork like the work displayed in this graphic novel is something I have never seen before – the closest I’ve seen are manga and manga covers. It’s so unique to Western comic book artwork, and Takeda’s illustrations lend themselves so beautifully to the story that it’s impossible not to love.

With just the stunning art and colour alone, also comes a plethora of imaginative and wonderful creatures. The giant demons that are created out of the soils of the dead, the unicorns that the soldiers ride into battle, and the Arcana that Maika meet on her journey are so wonderfully unique and awe-inspiring.

The story itself is also completely amazing. There are so many twists, and there’s s lot of information to process in one volume, but Liu lays out the text and pacing so perfectly that whilst everything moved fast, you are able to keep up. Witnessing Maika interact with the demon inside of her, the horrors and propaganda of the war, and even the intermissions from Tam-Tam are all so wonderfully woven together to craft one of the most explicit and imaginative stories that graphic novel readers will ever get the chance to pick up.

Monstress: Volume One – Awakening is one of the most ingeniously crafted, unique and gorgeous graphic novels on the market right now. With a brutally honest storyline and the incredible visuals to go alongside it, Monstress makes for a story you’ll never regret picking up, and nothing like you’ve ever seen before.

Weekly Bookette #9 Bestsellers of August 2016

It is time again to look back on last month and check up on the books that sold the most during the last four weeks. So here goes:

Stan Lee VS Jack (King) Kirby

Stan Lee is the most recognisable name in comic books. His name and Marvel go hand in hand in everyday conversations among comic fans and MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) movie watchers. Stan is perceived as the happy old man who makes iconic cameos in movies based on “his” creation, but did Stan create the likes of the Fantastic Four, The Incredible  Hulk, Iron Man, The Avengers, The X-Men and, the most famous of all Spider-Man?

This is not the first time this question has been brought up, in fact in the past few years it has come up more frequently. While the average person or Stan Lee fanboy might think this is a ridiculous notion, there is quite a lot of evidence to support the challenge of Stan’s Legacy.

When you get into reading comic books regardless of age, you are told that back in the 1960’s Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Created what we know today as the Marvel Universe. With Stan getting the majority of the credit, and for the most part the only name mentioned regarding who created what. Stan’s story is that he would come up with an idea or plot then give it to Jack, and he would return the art to him with a few suggestions. Stan would then write in dialogue to fit the art.

The other side of the coin is that it was Jack Kirby who did the majority or the creating. It is said that Jack would not only do the art but write the majority of each issue, key concepts and plot lines. Stan would have no idea about the story or even the idea till very late in the publication process. What Stan did do was make Kirby’s writing a little more appealing to read.

According to this interview, Jack and his wife Roz Kirby did with The Comics Journal in 1990, four years before his death, Stan had virtually nothing to do with creating the Marvel Universe.

GROTH; When did you meet Stan Lee for the first time?

KIRBY: I met Stan Lee when I first went to work for Marvel. He was a little boy. When Joe and I were doing Captain America. He was about 13 years old. He’s about five years younger than me.

GROTH: Did you keep in touch with him at all?

KIRBY: No, I thought Stan Lee was a bother.

GROTH: [Laughter.]

KIRBY: I did!

GROTH: What do you mean by “bother”?

KIRBY: You know he was the kind of kid that liked to fool around — open and close doors on you. Yeah. In fact, once I told Joe to throw him out of the room.

GROTH; Because he was a pest?

KIRBY: Yes, he was a pest. Stan Lee was a pest. He liked to irk people and it was one thing I couldn’t take.

GROTH: Hasn’t changed a bit, huh?

KIRBY: He hasn’t changed a bit. I couldn’t do anything about Stan Lee because he was the publisher’s cousin. He ran back and forth around New York doing things that he was told to do. He would slam doors and come up to you and look over your shoulder and annoy you in a lot of ways. Joe would probably elaborate on it.

GROTH: When you went to Marvel in ’58 and ’59, Stan was obviously there.

KIRBY: Yes, and he was the same way.

 GROTH:And you two collaborated on all the monster stories?

KIRBY: Stan Lee and I never collaborated on anything! I’ve never seen Stan Lee write anything. I used to write the stories just like I always did.

GROTH:On all the monster stories it says “Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.” What did he do to warrant his name being on them?

KIRBY: Nothing! OK?

GROTH:Did he dialogue them?

KIRBY: No, I dialogued them. If Stan Lee ever got a thing dialogued, he would get it from someone working in the office. I would write out the whole story on the back of every page. I would write the dialogue on the back or a description of what was going on. Then Stan Lee would hand them to some guy and he would write in the dialogue. In this way Stan Lee made more pay than he did as an editor. This is the way Stan Lee became the writer. Besides collecting the editor’s pay, he collected writer’s pay. I’m not saying Stan Lee had a bad business head on. I think he took advantage of whoever was working for him.

GROTH:But he was essentially serving in a capacity as an editorial liaison between you and the publisher?

KIRBY: Yes, he wasn’t exactly an editor, or anything like that. Even as a young boy, he’d be hopping around — I think he had a flute, and he was playing on his flute.

GROTH:The Pied Piper.

KIRBY: Yeah. He’d come up and annoy me, and I told Joe to throw him out.

GROTH:Stan wrote, “Jack and I were having a ball turning out monster stories.’’ Were you having a ball. Jack?

KIRBY: Stan Lee was having the ball.

GROTH:You turned out monster stories for two or three years I think. Then the first comic that rejuvenated superheroes that you did was The Fantastic four. Can you explain how that came about?

KIRBY: I had to do something different. The monster stories have their limitations — you can just do so many of them. And then it becomes a monster book month after month, so there had to be a switch because the times weren’t exactly conducive to good sales. So I felt the idea was to come up with new stuff all the time — in other words there had to be a blitz. And I came up with this blitz. I came up withThe Fantastic Four, I came up with Thor (I knew the Thor legends very well), and the Hulk, the X-Men, and The Avengers. I revived what I could and came up with what I could. I tried to blitz the stands with new stuff. The new stuff seemed to gain momentum.

GROTH:Let me ask you something that I think is an important point: Stan wrote the way you guys worked — and I think he’s referring to the monster stories specifically here — he wrote, “I had only to give Jack an outline of the story and he would draw the entire strip breaking down the outline into exactly the right number of panels. Then it remained for me to take Jack’s artwork and add the captions and dialogue which would hopefully add a dimension of reality to sharply delineated characterization.” So he’s saying that he gave you a plot, and you would draw it, and he would add the captions and dialogue.

ROZ KIRBY: I remember Jack would call him up and say it’s going to be this kind of story or that kind of story and just send him the story. And he’d write in everything on the side.

KIRBY: Remember this: Stan Lee was an editor. He worked from nine to five doing business for Martin Goodman. In other words he didn’t do any writing in the office. He did Martin Goodman’s business. That was his function. There were people coming up to the office to talk all the time. They weren’t always artists, they were business people. Stan Lee was the first man they would see and Stan Lee would see if he could get them in to see Martin Goodman. That was Stan Lee’s function.

When asked about the creation of the Fantastic Four Jack continues with blunt honesty.

GROTH:Can you tell me give me your version of how The Fantastic Four came about? Did Stan go to you…?

KIRBY: No, Stan didn’t know what a mutation was. I was studying that kind of stuff all the time. I would spot it in the newspapers and science magazines. I still buy magazines that are fanciful. I don’t read as much science fiction as I did at that time. 1 was a student of science fiction and I began to make up my own story patterns, my own type of people. Stan Lee doesn’t think the way I do. Stan Lee doesn’t think of people when he thinks of [characters]. I think of [characters] as real people. If I drew a war story it would be two guys caught in the war. The Fantastic Four to me are people who were in a jam — suddenly you find yourself invisible, suddenly you find yourself flexible.

ROZ KIRBY: Gary wants to know how you created The Fantastic Four.

GROTH: Did you approach Marvel or —

KIRBY: It came about very simply. I came in [to the Marvel offices] and they were moving out the furniture, they were taking desks out — and I needed the work! I had a family and a house and all of a sudden Marvel is coming apart. Stan Lee is sitting on a chair crying. He didn’t know what to do, he’s sitting in a chair crying —he was just still out of his adolescence. I told him to stop crying. I says. “Go in to Martin and tell him to stop moving the furniture out, and I’ll see that the books make money.” And I came up with a raft of new books and all these books began to make money. Somehow they had faith in me. I knew 1 could do it, but I had to come up with fresh characters that nobody had seen before. I came up with The Fantastic Four. I came up with Thor. Whatever it took to sell a book I came up with. Stan Lee has never been editorial minded. It wasn’t possible for a man like Stan Lee to come up with new things — or old things for that matter. Stan Lee wasn’t a guy that read or that told stories. Stan Lee was a guy that knew where the papers were or who was coming to visit that day. Stan Lee is essentially an office worker, OK? I’m essentially something else: I’m a storyteller. My job is to sell my stories. When I saw this happening at Marvel I stopped the whole damned bunch. I stopped them from moving the furniture! Stan Lee was sitting on some kind of a stool, and he was crying.

GROTH: Stan says he conceptualized virtually everything in The Fantastic Four — that he came up with all the characters. And then he said that he wrote a detailed synopsis for Jack to follow.

ROZ KIRBY: I’ve never seen anything.

KIRBY: I’ve never seen it, and of course I would say that’s an outright lie.

GROTH:Stan pretty much takes credit in an introduction to one of his books for creating all the characters in The Fantastic Four. He also said he created the name.

KIRBY: No, he didn’t.

GROTH: The next character, if I remember correctly, was The Hulk. If I remember correctly you drew a six-issue run of that, then it was cancelled for a little while, then Steve Ditko started it in an anthology book called Tales to Astonish. Can you talk a little bit about how you were involved in creating The Hulk?

KIRBY: The Hulk I created when I saw a woman lift a car. Her baby was caught under the running board of this car. The little child was playing in the gutter and he was crawling from the gutter onto the sidewalk under the running board of this car — he was playing in the gutter. His mother was horrified. She looked from the rear window of the car, and this woman in desperation lifted the rear end of the car. It suddenly came to me that in desperation we can all do that — we can knock down walls, we can go berserk, which we do. You know what happens when we’re in a rage — you can tear a house down. I created a character who did all that and called him the Hulk. I inserted him in a lot of the stories I was doing. Whatever the Hulk was at the beginning I got from that incident. A character to me can’t be contrived. I don’t like to contrive characters. They have to have an element of truth. This woman proved to me that the ordinary person in desperate circumstances can transcend himself and do things that he wouldn’t ordinarily do. I’ve done it myself. I’ve bent steel.

GROTH:Well, this is probably going to shock you, but Stan takes full credit for creating the Hulk. He’s written, “Actually, ideas have always been the easiest part of my various chores.” And then he went on to say that in creating The Hulk, “It would be my job to take a clichéd concept and make it seem new and fresh and exciting and relevant. Once again, I decided that Jack Kirby would be the artist to breathe life into our latest creation. So the next time we met, I outlined the concept I’d been toying with for weeks.”

KIRBY: Yes, he was always toying with concepts. On the contrary, it was I who brought the ideas to Stan. I brought the ideas to DC as well, and that’s how business was done from the beginning.

GROTH:Stan also claimed he created the name. “the Hulk.”

KIRBY: No, he didn’t.

ROZ KIRBY: It’s just his word against Stan’s.

GROTH:There was a period between ’61 and ’63 when you were just drawing a tremendous number of books.

ROZ KIRBY: May I make one point? In all these years, when Jack was still creating things, Stan Lee hasn’t been creating things. When Jack left Stan, there wasn’t anything new created by Stan.

KIRBY: Yeah. Stan never created anything new after that. If he says he created things all that easily, what did he create after I left? That’s the point. Have they done anything new? He’ll probably tell you, “I didn’t have to.”

GROTH:Can I ask what your involvement in Spider-Man was?

KIRBY: I created Spider-Man. We decided to give it to Steve Ditko. I drew the first Spider-Man cover. I created the character. I created the costume. I created all those books, but I couldn’t do them all. We decided to give the book to Steve Ditko who was the right man for the job. He did a wonderful job on that.

So you have two people telling two completely different stories, surprise right? Sadly there is practically no one alive from that time that was involved with Marvel at the time except Steve Ditko who still continues to produce independent comics and has remained silent and out of the public eye for years.

Many Creators have supported the fact that Kirby did the majority if not sole creating of Marvels most famous heroes. Even controversial and designated grumpy old man of comics Alan Moore believes Jack to be workhorse behind the creations. Check out a short video of him answering a fan question about Stan Lee here

Needless to say, I’m inclined to believe the Kirby camp. I have always thought if Stan was this creative machine how come he has not created anything significant since Jack left Marvel? Jack and Roz even pointed that out in The Comics Journal interview. Let’s be honest any of Stan’s new comic properties suck or are certainly not anywhere close to the quality of his claimed previous “creations.”

Many people believe Marvel put Stan in cameos in the Marvel movies cause well he’s Stan Lee. No. He sued Marvel for not making any money from the original Spider-Man movie. Not only did he win the suit (He is also the only one to sue Marvel successfully) Stan won the right to be in every Marvel property and receives a reported million dollar a year salary from Marvel.

We are talking about a man who used to have “Stan Lee Presents” on every Marvel comic book. Not “Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Present”. He even said one time publicly that he created Captian America. He didn’t create Captian America that was Joe Simion and Jack Kirby. While Stan has talked highly of Kirby and his other “collaborators”, he will kind of backpedal on questions of contribution and creation for a legal reason as well as moral I suppose.

Stan Lee is one of the best self-promoters and even managed a couple of catchy (if not sometimes annoying) catch phrases Excelsior! And True Believer. Is he evil? No. Shaddy? I’d say yes. He is not the first person to profit off of someone else’s work, and he won’t be the last.  

The reason credit is such an important issue in the comic book industry is because of the amount of work creators put into creating fantastic entertainment. It’s a genuinely collaborative medium, and back in the early days of comics artists were fighting for recognition and fair pay. Even today pencilers, letterers, inkers and colourists are struggling for recognition, while writers are given most of the credit.

It’s important to point out (and this is of course widely debated among fans and pros alike) that you can create a comic without a writer. If the artist is a talented storyteller, you don’t need words to tell a story. A writer without an artist is essentially a short story or script writer. Without pictures with the words, there is no comic book, but so long as there are pictures you have a comic. Jack was proof of this.

At this point you might be thinking this is a pretty one-sided article favouring  Jack Kirby, well it is. If you want to hear Stan’s side, there is no shortage of him talking about how he created the Marvel Universe. Just google search and take you pick of written and video interviews. What I found hard to find when I googled Jack Kirby was his side of the story, and the fact not too many people know about it. People are going to make their own choice on who to believe (at least I hope so).

Many Stan Lee supports say that without Stan there would be no Jack Kirby. They could not be more wrong. Jack had already made a name for himself when he co-created Captain America in 1940 a good 20 years before the start of the Marvel Universe, so it’s not like Jack wasn’t known before being associated with Stan. If anything without Jack Kirby there would be no Stan Lee.

To be fair Stan has been the face of Marvel for a long time, even during bad times when Marvel was on the verge of bankruptcy, his tireless promotion kept marvel in the public eye, and it was also a great benefit for him to so. It seems Stan does nothing that will not help him personally.

Stan has said that the 2016 convention season will be his last, and at the age of 93 I don’t blame him. For anyone wanting to get there Stan Lee comic signed this will be your last chance, but before you rush to your long box or hit up your local comic shop to find some vintage comics of “his” make sure you got enough cash to get each one signed. Yes, the man who “created” much also profits much. Stan is charging  $100 Canadian per signature at Fanexpo Canada (our dollar sucks so I get why it has to be higher) so about $70-80 American. The line usually spans the majority of the convention floor, so we’re talking hours of wait time. The general notion with fans is that his signature will be worth a lot when he eventually passes away, and others just want it for sentimental value and there belief that he created whatever comic there getting signed. To contrast that most creators even legends in the industry charge nothing or a more reasonable fee like 10 or 15 dollars a signature (It’s only reasonable compared to Stan’s fee, I’m not a fan of signature fee’s, in general, i do however understand charging for retailer exclusive variant comics)

The reality is there is no shortage of his signature’s, and unless you get the comic, graded and got the signature verified by a CGC (Certified Guaranty Company) employee in person it’s worth next to nothing. Signatures do not always increase the value of the comic in fact it can hurt the value, what does make a comic valuable is the rarity, and or cultural significance of it. I think once people start to realise Stan had little to do with Jacks creations the less his signature will be worth in the collectors market.

So is Stan Lee the Creator or co- creator of the Marvel Universe? The evidence suggests that he is not either. Jack Kirby and his family never reaped the benefits of his hard work, thankfully after a lengthy battle in the courts recently the family got a settlement out of court and Jack Kirby is starting to get the recognition he deserves even if it is too late. It was Marvel and not the Kirby family who sued. Marvel was suing over the Kirbys termination of copyright assignment they had filed.

I bring this all up just a  before what would have Jack’s 99th birthday (August 28th). It is also nice to see Marvel Acknowledge Kirby by having a week long celebration of his work, although this was probably worked out over the settlement out of court with the Kirby family. Marvel would barely mention him before the lawsuit.

These days I rather hear more about Jack Kirby than Stan Lee, and while I know I didn’t cover all the different variables and topics, it is a very in-depth issue, and I can only hold people’s attention for so long. So perhaps I will do another article on the topic later on down the line.

Happy Birthday to Jack King Kirby The King of Comics.

Book Review: “We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart

Have you ever been so messed up by a book that you’ve had to close it and stare off into the distance and breathe for a second?

If you haven’t, E. Lockharts We Were Liars will tick that one off the bucket list.

We Were Liars is the story of a young privileged girl from a wealthy family trying to put together the pieces of what occurred one summer where an accident has caused her amnesia.

This book has had plenty of hype around it for some time – and it’s honestly no wonder. Everything about this book has been so wonderfully crafted, from characters to the style of the text.

Every character is unique and shining, from the sick and tired protagonist to her rich, white family that seem to make her even more sick and tired. It very accurately portrays what life would be like in communities and families of that kind of stature and wealth, with parents using their children to manipulate the heirs to the fortune. It’s also shockingly sad to see how the family cope with the tragedy and the main characters mental illness as a result, with her mother focusing on how her daughter looks and whether it keeps the status of their family name upstanding rather than letting her daughter break down in front of anyone.

However, whilst you recognise these people are spoiled, privileged and seemingly blind, they also manage to be incredibly sad and sympathetic – they’re so incredibly sad and tragic in their own world, and their narrative carries that of a burden that only people from a family of that level of wealth and stature could know.

The narrative of the story is incredibly well laid out – Lockhart’s narrative is unbearably smart, absolutely thrilling and a constant edge-of-your-seat read, right until the very end. It’s sharp, surprising and at times absolutely hilarious. Then the reveal is so stark, so unbelievably shocking, that the intelligent narrative both aides it, and then in turn is aided by this reveal. It’s such an incredible and thoughtful build up to something so earth-shattering, and I genuinely cannot fault it.

E. Lockhart’s “We Were Liars” is unique, shocking and spine-tingling, with quick narrative, sympathetic and believable characters and a heart-wrenching story. It’s well worthy of all the positive criticism it has received, and fully deserves a spot on every young adults bookshelf.

Uglies Readalong Liveshow Announcement!

If you guys watched my video from last month you know I’m hosting a readalong currently for Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.

This is my all time favorite book & I had a total blast rereading it! I’ll be hosting a liveshow on my channel on September 3rd at 8pm CST! I’ll be joined by some amazing booktubers & we’ll be doing an in depth fun discussion about the book.

THERE WILL ALSO BE A GIVEAWAY!

Watch the video below to find out more about the readalong & live show 🙂

Hope you can join us!

Happy Reading,

ALY