Book Review: Great Supernatural Stories: 101 Horrifying Tales

Book Review: Great Supernatural Stories: 101 Horrifying Tales compiled by Stefan Dziemianowicz This hefty volume collects a variety of public domain stories concerning the supernatural. While the majority fall roughly into the category of horror, some are more what we’d call “dark fantasy” and a handful are just “well, that’s a weird thing that happened.”… Continue reading Book Review: Great Supernatural Stories: 101 Horrifying Tales

Movie Review: Project A

Don't try this at home, kids!

Movie Review: Project A (1983) directed by Jackie Chan In the fading years of the Nineteenth Century, the waters off Hong Kong are infested with pirates. It’s the duty of the Hong Kong Coast Guard to deal with said pirates, and they haven’t been doing a very good job. Sergeant Ma Yue “Dragon” Lung (Jackie Chan),… Continue reading Movie Review: Project A

Comic Strip Review: Al Jaffee Gets His Just Desserts

Comic Strip Review: Al Jaffee Gets His Just Desserts by Al Jaffee Al Jaffee was born in 1921 and is as of this writing still alive and working! He’s perhaps best known for his “Fold-Ins” and other features for MAD but also had enough of his independent work published to fill several volumes. In this… Continue reading Comic Strip Review: Al Jaffee Gets His Just Desserts

Magazine Review: Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine December 1978

Magazine Review: Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine December 1978 edited by Sam Merwin Jr. Private eye Michael “Mike” Shayne was created in 1939 by David Dresser, writing under the name “Brett Halliday”. The books were long-running and popular, and in 1956 Dresser licensed the character to a puiblishing company to be the headliner of a digest-sized… Continue reading Magazine Review: Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine December 1978

Manga Review: Case Closed Volume 33

Manga Review: Case Closed Volume 33 by Gosho Aoyama Quick recap: Teen genius detective Shinichi Kudo (Jimmy Kudo in the American version) witnesses a murder by mysterious men in black. They try to kill him with an experimental poison, but it instead shrinks Shinichi to look like a small child. To conceal the fact that… Continue reading Manga Review: Case Closed Volume 33

Book Review: The Rise of Io

Book Review: The Rise of Io by Wesley Chu Note: This review contains SPOILERS for the previous Tao trilogy, of which I have previously reviewed The Deaths of Tao. It has been a decade since the end of the Alien World War, when nations under the influence of either the Genjix or Prophus factions of… Continue reading Book Review: The Rise of Io

Magazine Review: High Adventure #160: Ten Detective Aces Special

Magazine Review: High Adventure #160: Ten Detective Aces Special edited by John P. Gunnison Ten Detective Aces started publication in 1928 under the title The Dragnet Magazine and primarily featured gangster stories. Public interest in gangsters as a separate subgenre was fading, so in 1930 the magazine started featuring more general crime and detective stories under the title Detective-Dragnet Magazine, and in 1933 switched to Ten… Continue reading Magazine Review: High Adventure #160: Ten Detective Aces Special

Book Review: Toughest in the Legion: The Complete Adventures of Thibault Corday and the Foreign Legion Volume 2

Book Review: Toughest in the Legion: The Complete Adventures of Thibault Corday and the Foreign Legion Volume 2 by Theodore Roscoe Thibault Corday is in his eighties now, and enjoying his retirement in Northern Africa, but his beard is still cinnamon-colored, and his memory is sharp. If you come to the cafe and he likes you, Monsieur Corday will spin you a tale of his days in the French Foreign Legion. This volume… Continue reading Book Review: Toughest in the Legion: The Complete Adventures of Thibault Corday and the Foreign Legion Volume 2

Comic Book Review: Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards

Comic Book Review: Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards by Jim Ottaviani & Big Time Attic It is the Gilded Age, a time of prosperity for some, and the advancement of knowledge.  Science is making great steps forward, but so is entrepreneurship, seeking any way to make a fast buck.  Professor O.C. Marsh, a paleontologist, and… Continue reading Comic Book Review: Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards

Magazine Review: High Adventure #73: Secret Agent “X”

Magazine Review: High Adventure #73: Secret Agent “X” Edited by John P. Gunnison Let’s take another look at this pulp reprint magazine, this time reprinting stories from Secret Agent “X” May 1934. “Ambassador of Doom” by Brent House: A secret meeting takes place in Washington, D.C.  The matter at hand–whether to preserve or destroy the prototype and… Continue reading Magazine Review: High Adventure #73: Secret Agent “X”