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: Stuff I Bought #217

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Usagi Yojimbo #144 — Creator: Stan Sakai I’ve sung the praises of Sakai’s long-eared samurai before, and this issue is a good example of why: it’s the conclusion of a two-part story involving rival soy-sauce breweries. Sound boring? Not so: Sakai wraps careful research into this ancient Japanese staple (there’s an improbably-fascinating essay about it in the back of the book) around a plot involving a noble businessman, a lazy cop, a loyal employee, murder and poetic retribution, all in his clear, suspenseful, action-packed style. As always: if you’re missing this, you’re passing up one of the best monthly comics … Continue reading

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It Came From the Back Room #43

defann1

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 #216

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Prophet #21 — Writer: Brandon Graham;  Art: Simon Roy This is a second printing of a book that came out a few weeks ago, a revival of one of Image Comics’s mainstays of the ’90s — but it sold out so quickly, and unexpectedly, that even I didn’t get a copy. It’s here now, though, and it’s worth a look: it’s about as far away from the Rob Liefeld original as possible, involving a haunting far-future-Earth story, as John Prophet awakes from a centuries-long sleep and must cross a very alien landscape to carry out a mysterious mission. Graham, the writer, … Continue reading

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It Came From the Back Room #42

det880

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 #215

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Dark Horse Presents #8 — Creators: Various Actually, the list of creators for this book pretty much is the review: for $8, you get ten eight-page stories, including a new Beasts of Burden with the usual lush, expressive art by Jill Thompson, and a script from Evan Dorkin that’s a perfect blend of gentle humor and, at the end, stark horror (who knew that sheep could provide both?). Other stories include a new B.P.R.D. dealing with the aftermath over the death of Hellboy, chapters of Neal Adams’ and Howard Chaykin’s ongoing serials, the first installment of The Massive, Brian Wood’s … Continue reading

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