Author Archives: Phil

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About Phil

With 40 years of experience in comic reading, collecting and reviewing, English Professor Phil Mateer has an encyclopedic mind for comics. Feel free to ask Phil about storylines, characters, artists or for that matter, any comic book trivia. He will post your questions and answers on the AABC blog. His knowledge is unparalleled! He is also our warehouse manager, so if you are looking for that hard to find comic book, ask Phil!

Phil’s Reviews Special: FCBD, Plus the Avengers Movie

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Phil
Avengers movie poster

Avengers Movie Review first:  go see it.  A small series of misadventures left us walking into the theater halfway into the previews (so I missed the Dark Knight trailer), and meant we had to sit in the second row — but it was a 3D movie, and it turns out that’s the perfect spot for me; I’m nearsighted in one eye, and farsighted in the other, so 3D effects don’t work well, but when it’s that close they work fine. Even better, Harkins is wise enough to invest in good theater seats with comfortable headrests that lean back easily, so … Continue reading →

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Phil’s Reviews: Stuff I Bought #222

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Phil
Earth 2 #1

Earth 2 #1 — Writer: James Robinson;  Pencils: Nicola Scott; Inks: Trevor Scott Worlds’ Finest #1 — Writer: Paul Levitz;  Pencils: George Perez;  Inks: Scott Koblish These books are inter-related, with Earth 2 best read first; as its name implies, it’s setting up the alternate DC Earth that contains a modern-day version of the Justice Society. The first issue, though, focuses on death instead of birth: it shows a world where the only super-heroes who exist are Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman — plus a Supergirl, and a Robin who’s Batman’s daughter. That turns out not to be enough to … Continue reading →

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Phil’s Reviews: Stuff I Bought #221

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Phil
popeye1

Popeye #1 (of 4) — Writer: Roger Langridge;  Art: Bruce Ozella Snarked #7 — Writer/Artist: Roger Langridge Back in the ’70s, when I was first discovering America’s long, rich history of newspaper comics, E. C. Segar’s Thimble Theater, the strip that birthed Popeye in 1928, was one of my first encounters, and it was a revelation: tough, funny, adventurous and told with a sureness of line and vision that puts it in the top ten of everybody’s best-of lists. This new comic doesn’t reach that peak, but it comes closer than anyone else has since Segar’s death in 1938: Ozella … Continue reading →

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It Came From the Back Room #47

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Phil
critters14

Standard recap: I’m slowly going through AABC’s one-million-plus back-issue room, restocking the boxes on the sales floor and pulling stuff to sell as discount/overstock/special items (these are featured at the discount racks at the west end of the store for a couple of weeks after each post, and then go to the discount racks on the east end of the store for a few weeks, and then disappear into our warehouses, so get them while you can). I’m going through the alphabet backwards (don’t ask), and at my speed (especially with the school semester in full gear), this amounts to … Continue reading →

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Phil’s Reviews: Stuff I Bought #220

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Phil
amgotpwrs1

America’s Got Powers #1 (of 6) — Writer: Jonathan Ross;  Art: Bryan Hitch Ross is the former British talk-show host who’s a big comics geek, and has dabbled in writing them before (Turf, about Prohibition-era vampires, came out a year or two ago). Here, he’s snagged Bryan Hitch as artist, which helps his cause considerably. The comic itself is nakedly commercial: it’s a mashup of J. Michael Straczynski’s  Rising Stars (radiation from a mysterious meteor causes a bunch of kids whose mothers are exposed to it to be born with super-powers), America’s Got Talent (there’s a reality show wherein the … Continue reading →

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