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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 14h

Look, I'm no Hollywood casting director, but I have a hard time seeing 60-year-old Kevin James and 45-year-old Christina Ricci as a couple...

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 19h

He could have just said “zombie dinosaurs.” I think that’s enough to sell me on a comic book.

Tom Taylor @tomtaylormade.bsky.social · 19h

Announcing NECRETACEOUS!
I’m teaming up with the great @darickr.bsky.social for a series about extinction and survival, loss and love, betrayal and friendship, and… zombie dinosaurs!
Vertigo returns to @dc.com with an undead roar.
@whattheshea.bsky.social @conroyforreal.bsky.social

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 23h

Today on the blog, I examine Jason Aaron and company's UNCLE SCROOGE AND THE INFINITY DIME, a weird hybrid between a Marvel-style comic and a Disney-style one. I read the "Gallery Edition," which included lots of backmatter, like all those variants from unlikely duck artists like Frank Miller.

Review: <i>Uncle Scrooge and the Infinity Dime: Gallery Edition</i>

After his The Other Side and Scalped became successes for DC's Vertigo imprint in the 2000s, writer Jason Aaron began a career at Marvel,...

www.everydayislikewednesday.com

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 1d

(By the way, "Additional Story" is kind of a weird way to credit those guys and refer to their writing of particular issues or arcs, isn't it...?)

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 1d

The credits page on that SPAWN book is just plain nuts. There's, like, four of the best writers of super-comics from the last 40 years AND Dave Sim, a very...distinct talent whose presence makes perfect sense considering the subject matter of the issue he wrote.

An image of the credits page for "Spawn Compendium 1", which, under the heading "additional story", includes Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Grant Morison and Dave Sim.

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 1d

The comics I brought home from the library tonight. I think this particular batch demonstrates the spectrum of comics I read. (Two of them I plan to read to see if I should write about them, two of them I got just to read for pleasure. Can you guess which books belong to which category...?)

A picture of the books "Brume Vol. 1: The Dragon Awakens", "Spawn Compendium 1" and "Haikyu" Vols. 32 and 33.

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 2d

If I am on Bluesky, do I need to be on threads too? I just looked into actually having a presence on Instagram, and saw about a half-dozen folks I follow seem to be on Threads but not Bluesky. But I think it would be easier for them to come here than for me to start ANOTHER new micro-blogging app…🤔

J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 2d

(I think one of the things that has always made the Legion seem somehow more impenetrable to me than, like, Hawkman or Donna Troy or whoever is that, beyond the reboots and retcons, there are just so dang many characters. Like, Power Girl continuity may be a mess, but there's only one of her.)

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 2d

As someone who has always been intimidated by Legion comics (I've only read a handful in some 30 years of reading DC Comics), I appreciated this post of Mike's briefly breaking down their publishing history. It actually seems no more complicated than other DC characters/concepts with notorious reps.

A legion of comics.

www.progressiveruin.com

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 4d

If 1994's Frank Miller-written SPAWN/BATMAN #1 was set in the continuity of Miller's DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, but featured Batman when he was much younger than he was in DKR, does that make it technically the first appearance of the All-Star Batman from ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER...?

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 4d

September turned out to be an exceedingly light month for me, in terms of reading new-ish comics, but here's my monthly column on everything I DID read. In terms of word count, it's mostly just about Chip Kidd and Michael Cho's THE AVENGERS IN THE VERACITY TRAP.

A Month of Wednesdays: September 2025

BORROWED: The Avengers in The Veracity Trap! (Abrams ComicArts) I'm afraid this book just doesn't really work the way in which it was int...

www.everydayislikewednesday.com

J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 6d

Yesterday I turned in the biggest writing project I've ever completed, a project I can't wait to tell you all about in the coming months.

Today I decided to unwind after all that writing by, um, writing a few thousand words about 1994's BATMAN/SPAWN: WAR DEVIL.

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 6d

Re-reading parts of WAR DEVIL while writing about it, I noticed this line from Spawn this time around. Apparently they weren't just making incidental allusions to Joy Division, there's also one pointing to a Paul Simon song.

Man, this Batman/Spawn crossover sure has a weird soundtrack...

J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 6d

In 1956, the movie SPACEMEN APPEAR IN TOKYO was released in Japan. It was released as WARNING FROM SPACE in the UK in 1957 and finally made it to the US in 1963. Meanwhile, Starro debuted in a 1960 issue of THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD. Coincidence, or is there a chance his creators had seen the film?

The movie poster for the 1956 Japanese film that would later be released to English audiences as Warning From Space. It prominently features giant starfish with one eye in the middle of their bodies.

The cover of 1960's THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #28, featuring the Justice League of America fighting Starro The Conqueror.

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 6d

Today on Good Comics for Kids, I have a review of HULK TEACH, the first in a new graphic novel series by Jeffrey Brown. It's about Bruce Banner (and thus sometimes The Hulk) being forced to teach middle school, and it is, perhaps no surprise, quite good.

Hulk Teach | Review

When the amount of property damage the Hulk causes while saving the day gets Dr. Banner in legal trouble, he's forced to do community service...as a middle school teacher.

goodcomicsforkids.slj.com

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 8d

It’s really gorgeous work.

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 8d

This comic is so good, I didn’t want to end.

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Reposted by J. Caleb Mozzocco

Neil - Plastic Man Talk @plasticmantalk.bsky.social · 9d

Plastic Man (1988) 1

Art by Kevin Nowlan (Reality Spots), Hilary Barta & Doug Rice

Phil Foglio and Hilary Barta deliver on an amazing comic, my god. It makes everything about it WORK, including the elements I’d normally dislike in a Plas origin. It’s just that damn good. Highly recommend.

Kevin Nowlan recreates the first few panels from Police Comics 1 here, and does it in an amazing fashion. In this panel, the one where Eel gets shot and is doused with acid as his crew ditches him, is so incredibly moody with heavy inks and muted colors, and lighting that leads the eye exactly where it needs to. A visual treat

Eel, after waking up in the streets of New York, has wandered around, dazed and unaware of his new elastic powers. Barta flexes his stuff in each panel, like this one where Eel’s being chased down an alleyways by a cop car. He literally breaks out of panel fighting for his life, while also trying hard to fit into it. It’s incredibly effective and hilarious.

Woozy explains his backstory, and why he’s a bum fishing above a river: he doesn’t have much memory of who he is, except that he was once a low-security Arkham Asylum patient until he was forced out due to Ronald Reagan’s administration (this WAS 1988 after all), and he decided to move to New York to get his fortunes… so he could buy his old room back.

For the first time, like, ever, we actually have an origin story for Plastic Man’s costume! It’s a circus suit (with goggles) that he dips in the same acid he was doused with, allow it to have the same stretching properties. It’s a brilliant origin in how simple and direct it is, while also just making a ton of sense.

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 9d

"No more beardos"...? I'm sorry, is he suggesting that these two AREN'T Real American Heroes...?

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 9d

Oh, and that paragraph is from David K. Randall’s 2022 THE MONSTER’S BONES, which I am currently enjoying.

J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 9d

First, I didn’t know there were “haters” in 19th century England.

Second, “arch-hater” is a hell of a term.

(If you want context, “Owen” is Sir Richard Owen, “Mantell” is Dr. Gideon Mantell, and their conflict was over dinosaur bones.)

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 10d

Thanks, that means a lot!

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 10d

…and his pet bee can’t help him underwater…!

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 10d

I actually like ‘em both, but damn that Red Bee one is one of my favorite comic covers of all time…

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J. Caleb Mozzocco @jcaleb.bsky.social · 10d

Okay, I THINK my blog is widely reachable again. If any of you have trouble accessing it and get any weird error messages though, please DM or email me and I'll see what I can do.

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