Cobra-La. An underwater snake-themed kingdom weakened from lack of resources. Except its chief scientist has uncovered a powerful new energy source to restore it to its former glory: Energon. That scientist’s name? Cobra Commander. His mission? Find and bring back a buttload of Energon so that Cobra-La can rule the world moo-ha-ha!
An office worker adopts a stray kitten on a whim - not realising how disruptive her cute new friend will be to her secret gamer double-life! But maybe a little chaos in her highly regimented routine is what’s needed…?
All-American model soldier Duke saw his buddy get squished like a bug by a plane… that transformed into a robot!? Told by his superiors to keep quiet about it, Duke decides to go rogue and seek answers - and revenge - by his lonesome. But shadowy organisations a-plenty have their eyes on Duke and he’s gonna have to shoot his way to the truth!
In June 2020 Sebastian Junger nearly died from a massive haemorrhage in his abdomen - and also saw his dead father floating in the void next to him, urging him onto the next plane of existence! But that was just a hallucination brought about by massive blood loss - right?
As blown away as I was with his novel, The Easter Parade, I was disappointed with Richard Yates’ short story collection, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, which is a themed collection about characters who are isolated in different ways. I didn’t love any of the stories but I appreciated and enjoyed some aspects of five of them.
George Sand was the pen name of 19th century French novelist/playwright Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, or simply “Aurore” to her nearest and dearest. George Sand: True Genius, True Woman is Severine Vidal and Kim Consigny’s comics biography of the artist and not an especially good one at that - although that might be in part to Sand not being that compelling a subject too.
If you grew up reading 2000AD like me, Rogue Trooper is one of those iconic characters you’ll never forget with his blue skin, blank eyes and cool gear - except that’s all I think of when I think of the character. Unlike Dredd or Slaine, there’s no Dark Judges or Horned God Saga storyline to point to as a high point in that character’s history. And I think that’s why Rebellion brought in Garth Ennis: to finally give Rogue one of those memorable storylines.
Satanic panic gripped America in the 1980s, like a modern-day Salem witch hunt, and suddenly the Devil was everywhere - especially in Natalie Burns’ town where she and a few other kids, later dubbed the “Satanic Six”, accused teachers of heinous acts, claiming Satan was involved, leading to horrible consequences for all concerned.
Marvel’s Ultimate universe got blowed up a few years ago with the only survivors making it to the 616-verse being Miles Morales and The Maker (aka evil Reed Richards). We’ll deffo never see the likes of that place agin. Never ever. But waaaaait: The Maker wants to go home - home to the perpetually low-selling universe he originated from? Wope - an entirely “new” one of course that’s conveniently like the Ultimate universe to allow Marvel to do another line of Ultimates-esque, potentially high-selling books in - so Marvel does get to have its cake and eat it too! Ultimate Invasion is the beginning of the totally-not-but-basically-is new Ultimate universe.
Old man Saunders likes soaking in gross ponds during inclement weather - and wrote a book about his demented hobby?! Or, y’know, it’s about literary criticism on some Ruskie short story writers or summat.
