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Comic Book Reviews

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REVIEW: Action Comics #1064 Spotlights Superman's Most Personal Enemy

Retro review: deadly class was a flawed but sincere love letter to gen x & the ‘80s, review: fall of the house of x #3 is explosive, dynamic, & just too much, review: the amazing spider-man #45 follows the gang war with an anti-climax, review: dead x-men #3 is a twisted and unfocused trip through time, review: carnage: symbiosis necrosis part 2 #5 is a beautifully brutal crash course in venom history, review: ghost rider: final vengeance #1 is a montage of beautiful hellfire and madness, review: wolverine #45 is a chaotic and confusing romp with little wolverine, review: fetch, book two: the rescue travels to the underworld for a major twist, review: fetch, book one: the journey reinvents classic greek myths for today’s readers, review: idw's tmnt: the last ronin ii #1 is a cacophony of epic proportions, review: red hood: outlaws volume one brings the hit webcomic to print, review: storm king comics' long haul is a killer road trip, review: marvel’s scarlet witch & quicksilver #1 puts wanda & pietro to the test, review: marvel's ultimate black panther #1 brings war to t'challa, review: marvel's giant-size spider-man #1 is majorly underwhelming, review: webtoon unscrolled's age matters volume one brings beloved webtoon to print, review: dynamite's thundercats #1 roars with nostalgia, review: moon man #1 introduces a new kind of cosmic superhero, review: marvel's resurrection of magneto #1 puts storm front and center.

Akogun: Brutalizer of Gods #1 Review

Comics portal: spaaaaaace ghooooost, deadpool #1 review, wayne’s comics podcast #635: interviews with royce adkins and the ‘miracle kingdom’ creators, retro review: batman #226 (november 1970), the last mermaid #2 review, minor threats: the fastest way down #1 review, the sacrificers #7 review, latest news, geek history lesson – captain america mega episode (steve rogers, falcon & winter soldier).

We could do this all day! Listen to a MEGA EPISODE about Captain America, that…

In ancient times when Africa was known as Alkebulan, a warrior rises to slay monsters, men, and gods. Your Major Spoilers review of Akogun: Brutalizer of Gods #1, awaits!

Mushroom Kingdom returns

Mad Cave Studios announced the fantastic fungi feature returns with the November release of The Mushroom Kingdom Vol. 2.

Three new X-Men titles launch in July

Marvel Comics released a teaser late yesterday for three upcoming X-Men titles coming our way in July 2024.

Latest example of nostalgia selling? Dynamite Entertainment bringing back Space Ghost!

Titan Comics announces Anfield Road

Set in 1980’s Liverpool, Anfield Road is the latest offering from Titan Comics.

CMON announces DC Heroes United game

The entire Major Spoilers HQ family has been enjoying the heck out of playing the Marvel United game, as everyone gets to play their favorite Marvel characters as we attempt to take down the villain. Now CMON and Spin Master have announced the coming DC Heroes United game.

Mantic Games announces new Hellboy miniatures

Are you a fan of the Hellboy miniature game from Mantic Games? We certainly are, and we’ve been able to snag all of the expansions to date. Now we can not wait until the next miniature arrives – Professor Bruttenholm and Young Hellboy!

PREVIEW: X-Men ’97 #2

Preview: aliens: what if… #2, preview: wolverine #47, preview: weapon x-men #2, preview: ultimate x-men #2, preview: symbiote spider-man 2099 #2, preview: star wars: darth vader #45, preview: resurrection of magneto #4, preview: star wars: thrawn – alliances #4, preview: star wars: the high republic #6 (phase iii), preview: ms. marvel: mutant menace #2, preview: incredible hulk #11, more previews.

This week, Episode #635 is another excellent doubleheader, so Wayne talks with Royce Adkins from Outcasts on Zoop.gg and Michael David McCarthy and Alonso Molina Gonzales from Miracle Kingdom!

Major Spoilers Podcast #1070: Do A Powerbomb Podcast

Matthew and Rodrigo are stunned by Stpehen’s vast knowledge of wrestling, as we talk Do A Powerbomb this week! We also review Red Sonja: Empire of the Damned #1 from Dynamite Entertainment, Doctor Strange #14 from Marvel Comics, and Beyond Real #3 from Vault Comics!

Wayne’s Comics Podcast #634: Interviews with Caleb Palmquist and David Whalen

In Episode #634, It’s time for another great doubleheader, so Wayne talks with Caleb Palmquist…

Critical Hit #738: Ghosts and Other Oddities (PANS01E51)

In this installment of Critical Hit – A Major Spoilers Podcast: Poking around the old church, a discovery is made.

Meanwhile, something has happened to the FBI agents.

Top Five Movies of the 1950s

This week, we take a look back to the good ol’ days and share our favorite movies from the decade of the 50s.

Munchkin Land #697: Kickstarters Aplenty

There are a ton of new gaming Kickstarters launching and Dan Patriss shares all the info with you.

Major Spoilers Podcast #1069: The Black Glove Podcast

We take a look at Grant Morrison and J. H. Williams III Batman: Black Golve this week (or at least a portion of it). We also review Ghostbusters: Back in Town #1 from Dark Horse Comics, and 3 Body Problem now on Netflix.

Wayne’s Comics Podcast #633: Interviews with Chad Hardin and Shane Berryhill

This week in Episode #633, It’s yet another great doubleheader, so Wayne talks with Chad Hardin with The Art of Chad Hardin, Volume 4 on Zoop.gg and Shane Berryhill from Deathslinger from Cosmic Lion Productions!

Critical Hit #737: A Very Old Church (PANS01E50)

In this installment of Critical Hit: A Major Spoilers RPG Podcast – The team explores an old church, and meet a new friend.

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World Comic Book Review

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TOE & SO LONG (review) —“Many doors lead to the same place”

Creator: Jacob Michael Campbell Illustrator: Alexis Vivallo Crude Rose 2023 AN ADOLESCENT DREAM plays with images of doors scattered in the distance across a rolling meadow, and zooms in on two traveling partners on the move, a doughboy‑guy with sharp toes and fingers named Toe, and a curly cat named...

• Science fiction

Urlan, Cosmic Cat (review)

Writers: Valentina Kay , Daniele Bonfanti  Art: ChatGPT / Dalle Bee Lab Studios, February 2024 Urlan Cosmic Cat is a brand-new comic book “experiment,” published by Bee Lab Studios and written by Daniele Bonfanti and Valentina Key. The book is an ambitious venture that attempts to revolutionize the approach to storytelling by...

NEGATIVE BURN (revisited) —“You can jump into the fire”

Anthology Caliber Comics 1993 A CHANCE REFERENCE sent me to the 1990s to investigate NEGATIVE BURN, a phenomenal anthology of legendary and legerdemain artists in black and white, still smoldering in the back stacks at your local comic shop. It was new to me. Maybe to you, too. Early issues...

• Superheroes

The Secret Society of Supervillains (1976 – 1977) (revisited)

Writers: Gerry Conway, David A. Kraft, Bob Rozakis Artist: Pablo Marcos, Vince Colleta, Ernie Chua, Rich Buckler, Bob Layton, Dick Ayers, Jack Abel, Joe Orlando, Mike Vosburg, Bob Smith, Bob McLeod DC Comics, May/June 1976 – June/July 1977 The subversion of DC Comics’ title The Secret Society of Super-Villains, published...

VENUS RISES: PARALLELS (review)—“Corporate rule in space sucks”

Creator: J.G. Birdsall Art: Bora Orcal et al. Independent, 2019: collected edition 2024 THE MODERN PREMISE of segregation, where the rich escape the wretched crust of humanity into gated communities, resort hotels, tropical islands, jet streams above the clouds, and whole planets in the nearby galaxy, plays out in VENUS...

GRRL SCOUTS: MAGIC SOCKS (revisited)— “Rock your socks off”

Creator: Jim Mahfood Coloring: Justin Stewart Image Comics, 2017 THUMPING BEATS and screeching melodies push you through the swooshing tunnel of GRRL SCOUTS: MAGIC SOCKS by wired artist Jim Mahfood, till you end prostrate and exhausted, trembling on a blood‑soaked street. Your bruised mind looks warily around as shredded debris...

• Slice of Life

Brooklyn Tattoo (review) – “Live to print, print to live”

Creator: Adam Suerte with contributions by Mark Bodē, Sophie Crumb, Myke Maldonado, Jason Mitchell Urban Folk Art Studios 2022 BODY AS CANVAS goes along with walls as canvas, paper, t‑shirts, anything that takes ink. I was pleased to find artist creator Adam Suerte in BROOKLYN TATTOO, a 150-page bio-graphic of...

The Devil That Wears My Face #4 (Review)

Writer: David Pepose Artist: Alex Cormack Mad Cave, January 2024 We reviewed the first issue of publisher Mad Cave’s historical thriller comic The Devil That Wears My Face last October 2023 and found it engaging enough to recommend, especially to people who enjoy well-written horror stories tackling demonic possessions. See...

DOG EATERS (revisited) —“Growing up outback”

Creator, writer, producer: Malcolm Wong Artists: Guillermo A. Angel et al. Antarctic Press 2019 WAR MAKES YOU MOVE when you get caught in between. You scrape yourself out of the rubble, find your loved ones, and a few choice high-octane vehicles, and escape into the desert. This is where we...

Batman: Offworld #1-3 (review)

Writer: Jason Aaron Artist: Doug Mahnke DC Comics, November 2023-January 2024 We have admired comic book writer Jason Aaron’s work for a long time. Some of the very first reviews on this website were to do with Mr Aaron’s work on The Mighty Thor, in what we naively hoped would...

Kid Cudi Presents: Moon Man #1 (review)

Writers: Scott Mescudi and Kyle Higgins Artist: Marco Locati Image Comics, January 2024 Ramon Townsend is ready for a quiet life. Whatever went wrong on that failed moon mission, whatever happened in the missing minutes the cameras didn’t capture, all he really wants is to settle down back home. But...

• Comparative Review

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere v. Darkest Rout #1 (comparative review)

Darkest Rout Writer: Antwone Barnes Artist: Kip Henderson Independently published, 2023 Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere Writer: Mike Carey Artist: Glenn Fabry DC Comics / Vertigo, 2006 (collected work) This comparative review measures up a freshly-minted independent title, backed by Kickstarter, with a comic-book interpretation of a Neil Gaiman novel, published by...

Black Cloak Volume One (review)

Writer: Kelly Thompson Artist: Meredith McClaren Image Comics, September 2023 Kelly Thompson is a veteran writer of American superhero comic books, and who with artist Meredith McClaren has created a new series, Black Cloak, published by Image Comics. Reading Black Cloak, with its intermingled genres of fantasy, crime, science fiction,...

Technofreak #1-4 (review) – “Are you freakin’ kidding me?”

Co-creator, design, color: John Charles Co-creator, script: Barry May Artist: Tom Newell American Mythology 2021 COMIC ADVENTURES are back. We are all supposed to be kids here, or maybe a mangled adult wallowing in a beer over that chick that really has you by the balls, as Lenny Bruce once...

• Anniversaries and Birthdays

Happy 50th birthday, Wolverine

Creators: Roy Thomas, Len Wein, John Romita Sr., Herbe Trimpe Marvel Comics, October / November 1974 No doubt Marvel Comics has a great celebration planned for later in the year, but we thought we would get in first with our sincere congratulations to Wolverine, Canada’s most famous costumed comic book...

Stoneseeker: The Floating Isles #3 (review)

Creator: Scott Pritchett Independently published, 2023 The cover to this third chapter of Stoneseeker features a goofy image of a boy yelling, astride a sanguine giant goat, with a solemn woman in red clutching a rock in her right hand sitting on the goat’s hindquarters. With this cover image, creator...

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FAIRY TALE TEAM-UP: ROBYN HOOD & GRETEL – New Comic Review

Review: FAIRY TALE TEAM-UP: ROBYN HOOD & GRETEL, by @Zenescope on 4/10/24, sends the famous archer and witch hunter to upstate New York to investigate a rash of adopted children disappearances.

WHEN THE BLOOD HAS DRIED #1 – New Comic Review

Review: WHEN THE BLOOD HAS DRIED #1, by @MadCaveStudios on 4/10/24, begins a fantasy adventure about a Barkeep with a deadly past who finds the past coming back for a visit.

A LEGACY OF VIOLENCE #12 – New Comic Review

Review: A LEGACY OF VIOLENCE #12, by @MadCaveStudios on 4/10/24, ends the series when Nick learns his true place in the killer’s plan, forcing Nick to make a deadly choice.

DEAD KINGDOM (VOL. 2) #4 – New Comic Review

Review: DEAD KINGDOM (VOL. 2) #4, by @Red5Comics on 4/10/24, concludes the arc with an explosive plan to stop the undead army from overrunning the Citadel

5 Ways Manga Stories Beat Marvel & DC

Shonen Manga: Underdogs to Champions! 5 ways these stories challenge & inspire compared to modern Marvel & DC superhero comics.

GUMAA: THE BEGINNING OF HER #5 – New Comic Review

Review: GUMAA: THE BEGINNING OF HER #5, by @ComicsTitan on 4/3/24, brings Brenna closer to the truth about Khalida’s cult, but her relationship with Manuel could spell trouble.

ANTARCTICA #10 – New Comic Review

Review: ANTARCTICA #10, by @ImageComics on 4/3/24, ends the series with gunfights, last-minute saves, weird entities from unknown dimensions, and a race to save Hannah from an unknowable fate.

EDIE #4 – New Comic Review

Review: EDIE #4, by @BloodMoonComicsllc on 4/3/24, gives Edie a new mission in life when she learns she can see the memories and control the minds of everyone she absorbs.

MACHINE GIRL & THE SPACE HELL ENGELS #2 – New Comic Review

Review: MACHINE GIRL & THE SPACE HELL ENGELS #2, by @Alien_Books on 4/3/24, ends the two-part adventure when Meg finds out the god-tier horror contained in the egg, leading to a race to save the galaxy.

GUNSLINGER SPAWN #30 – New Comic Review

GUNSLINGER SPAWN #30, by @ImageComics on 4/3/24, takes Javi back to his roots when he asks Linda to get him to Gettysburg in the hope that he can find the man who killed his family.

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2022 In Review:

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2021 Year in Review: Best Publisher

By multiversity staff | december 17th, 2021 posted in columns | % comments.

Welcome to the Multiversity Year in Review for 2021! To call this a weird year is a Hulk-sized understatement, but one thing that was a pleasant surprise was the sheer number of interesting and excellent comics that came out this year. We’ve got over 25 categories to get through, so make sure you’re checking out all of the articles by using our 2021 Year in Review tag .

Best Publisher A lot of awards focus on individual creators or series. Sometimes though, it’s cool to zoom out and look at the big picture. You can tell a lot by the quality of books that come out of a particular publisher. And that quality is determined by a lot of decisions made by editors, publishers, and executives. A lot of care goes into those decisions, so every year we celebrate the companies who had the best, most exciting collection of comics overall. These are our top publishers for 2021.

5 (tie). Vault

For the last six years Vault Comics has felt like a publisher willing to throw every idea against the wall to see what sticks. And for the most part, the ideas and creators they unless upon us stick very well. They are the genre publisher to check out. Their goal is to give a place in the market for up and coming writers and artists to create the most imaginative and ground-breaking comics within horror, science fiction, and fantasy, Vault has done just that – and there is hardly a miss in the bunch.

Allowing these creatives to bring forth something new and interesting without the constraints of the corporate-owned big guys, has made for some of the best indie comics to hit shelves recently. With a big push in 2021 with titles like “I Walk With Monsters,” “Hollow Heart,” “Giga,” and more, there hasn’t been a consistently exciting and barrier stretching batch of new work from a smaller publisher since Dark Horse and Image were new on the scene.

Right now they’re putting out a slew of miniseries ranging from good to excellent, but a wider library, including on-going series and original graphic novels, could be the thing that puts Vault over the edge into a household name. Within the last decade there have been a handful of really great exciting indie publishers popping up, but Vault is leading the way. I only hope more comic readers realize the strength of what they’re producing and keep them going strong. – Christopher Egan

5 (tie). Viz

For the second year running, Viz comes in at the number 5 spot for “Best Publisher.” Also for the second year running, I’m doing the write-up! Last year I praised Viz for “variety of product, quality, and price point” and those points still stand. No other publisher can match the library Viz has curated, spanning decades, genres, and formats.

This year, Viz drastically increased the frequency at which new Shonen Jump titles were introduced to American audiences via the online Shonen Jump platform. Breakouts like “Blue Box,” “Elusive Samurai,” and “Witch Watch,” join the already robust library that I have frequently called “the best deal in comics.”

This year was a big one for “One Piece.” The title rang in its 1000th chapter, with Oda continuing to deliver some of his most exciting and engaging stories to date. “Food Wars: Shokugeki no Sanji” series made a surprising return, accompanied by an official One Piece cook-book of all things.

In the non-digital space, Viz had some stellar new releases. Naoki Urasawa’s latest series, “Asadora!,” saw its english debut. The seminal manga series “Fist of the North Star” received a new hardcover collection, similar to that of “Full Metal Alchemist” and “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.” “Demon Slayer,” arguably the biggest manga property of the year, saw its run in collected editions conclude. It even received an attractive box set, something that would make a great Christmas present for any shonen aficionado.

I may be a bit biased, but it’s a shame that Viz’s star didn’t rise year over year in this feature. Manga continues to be a dominating force in the medium of sequential art and no publisher is doing a better job than Viz at delivering exciting manga content, both old and new, to an english speaking audience. The next year is even more promising, with the conclusion of the Wano Arc looming in “One Piece,” the eventual continuation of “Chainsaw Man,” and the always present hope for the next big Shonen Jump hit. – Zachary Wilkerson

​​This has been a great year for Marvel Comics. Sure, they’ve got that Disney synergy backing them up, but even putting aside the movies and Disney+ series, they’ve been putting out some great content.

The “X-Men” comics have continued to build on the new Krakoan status quo, building up to the currently ongoing “Inferno,” and there are so many great titles to choose from there.

Series like “Thor,” “Miles Morales: Spider-Man,” and “Daredevil” have continued to put out quality issues month after month, from the triumphant return of Frog Thor to the comic romance of the century between Wilson Fisk and Typhoid Mary.

Not to mention how the “Star Wars” comics have been building on content between the movies and building more continuity between the trilogies. We have “The High Republic” taking us to the past, comics focusing on secondary and even tertiary characters to further flesh them out, and the recent “War of the Bounty Hunters” that brings back characters and plot elements from Solo to resolve them in canon. It’s a good time to be a fan of the franchise, because there’s no shortage of content to enjoy. (Again, making the most of all of Disney’s properties.)

And we’ve had no shortage of events, starting with “King in Black,” then bringing us a Squadron-centric “Heroes Reborn,” and the cosmic “Last Annihilation.” Yet they’re all spaced out enough and focused on their own parts of the Marvel universe that I didn’t once feel “event fatigue” trying to keep up with everything.

In short, what we’ve gotten from Marvel has been consistently entertaining, and covers all aspects of their own universe and the properties they can use under the Disney umbrella. It’s a good time to be a Marvel reader. – Robbie Pleasant

It’s hard to pinpoint what Image did so well in 2021. There wasn’t any one book or franchise that they pulled off perfectly. There wasn’t a superstar creator that they landed. Really, they just kept doing what they’ve done for years now: release new comics they think are interesting. I can’t speak for anyone else, but this year was the first one in a while where my interests aligned with theirs and I really felt like their target audience again.

The “Reckless” graphic novels from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have been wonderful, and I’m thrilled to see Image supporting alternatives to the 32-page monthly schedule. “The 6 Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton” was my pick for best miniseries this year, as the unexpected and off-the-wall comedy had me laughing out loud each issue. “Time Before Time,” which is still early in its run, has been a refreshingly consistent time travel book. The horror anthology “Silver Coin” is a worthy successor to “Eerie” and “Creepy.” Then there’s the comics that I’m tradewaiting but no less excited for: “Frontiersman” and “The Good Asian.” No other publisher came close to adding this many titles to my pull in 2021.

Not every book was good, of course, but I won’t name them in this ode to Image’s successes because even those rare missteps weren’t enough to dampen my enthusiasm to look through the monthly Previews catalog to see what’s coming next. – Drew Bradley

2. BOOM! Studios

At this point you can expect to have BOOM! Studios in our list each year. The Folks at BOOM! had one of their best years ever in 2021, with over 40 titles published between their imprints BOOMBox, Archaia and the main line.

Their success can only be attributed to their trust on their creators and their stories, representing every community, we got wonderful all-ages books like “Mamo,” “ORCS,” “Specter Inspectors,” “Save Yourself!” “The Last Witch” and “Wynd”. They are the masters of horror and horror-adjacent books with “Abbot 1973,” “Maw,” “Eat the Rich,” “Dark Blood,” and “Proctor Valley Road.”

When you sell licenced titles, planning is key to get successful, lasting books, and they are experts in that, like the new “Power Rangers” era, including “Mighty Morphin;” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly,” and “Dune.” Each of those books got spinoffs like mini-series, specials and OGN’s.

On the numbers side, we have Tynion’s Slaughterverse, the hottest books on the market, with “Something is Killing the Children” selling between sixty and fouty thousand copies per issue, and the new book “House of Slaughter” reaching over 460,000 copies of issue #1 sold. And of course, the record-breaking beast that is “BRZRKR” by Keanu Reeves, Matt Kindt & Ron Garney, which first issue sold over six hundred thousand copies.

But sales are not everything, and BOOM! titles were also critically acclaimed, like the action packed and thoughtful “Seven Secrets” by Tom Taylor and Daniele Di Nicuolo, or the exploration of Britain’s past and present in “Once and Future” by Kieron Gillen & Dan Mora; and Ram V & Filipe Andrade’s gorgeous exploration of death, “The Many Deaths of Layla Starr,” that might be the best regarded comic of all time, according to the aggregator Comic Book Round Up.

2022 is looking bright for the folks at BOOM! – Ramon Pina

Very rarely does the firing of a key personality act as a the bellwether for an extraordinarily successful year, but that’s exactly what Dan DiDio’s dismissal signaled for DC. But that’s only telling half the story, as many of the things that led to DC’s 2021 are a direct result of DiDio’s ‘5G’ initiative which, although not coming to fruition, led to the more interesting and risk-taking thinking books that currently make up DC’s best books.

While it is easy to point to the Bat-books as a reason to celebrate DC’s success, the Bat-books are like Coca Cola or Budweiser: they are the measuring stick by which other comics are judged, sales-wise, so they’re always at a certain level of success, regardless of quality. But the Bat-books have been really good! James Tynion IV wrapped up his “Batman” run a little quickly, but that book’s success empowered titles like “Nightwing,” “Harley Quinn,” and “Catwoman” to all do more interesting things than we’ve seen in those titles for some time.

Legacy has also been a key component in DC’s 2021, whether it is “The Flash” title being a Wally West book, Hal Jordan barely appearing in “Green Lantern,” or Jon Kent coming into his own as Superman. “Teen Titans Academy” is building the next generation of superheroes alongside heroes who used to hold that title.

But maybe the biggest different in 2021 vs 2020 is how DC is handling two of its most important, but oft ignored corners of its universe: Themyscira and Atlantis. “Wonder Girl” and “Nubian and the Amazons” are bringing together the wider Amazonian world, while “Wonder Woman” is attempting to re-focus Diana’s place in Man’s World. In “Aquaman: The Becoming,” Jackson Hyde is taking control of his powers and his destiny, while “Black Manta” sees the titular villain deal with an even more dangerous underwater threat.

This doesn’t even mention the best “Swamp Thing” series in 20 years, Cliff Chiang’s triumphant “Catwoman: Lonely City,” or the new status quo of Kal-El on Warworld. DC is brimming with new ideas, old favorites, and compelling stories that feel fresher and more vital than they have in years. Let’s hope that the slow incline that DC has been on for the past 5 or so years continues to push them higher. – Brian Salvatore

We are the Multiversity Staff, and we love you very much.

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Happy New Year! Our staff has some goals for our personal comics consumption in 2022, and we want to encourage y’all to do the same! So, each day this week, we’ll be sharing some of our thoughts and goals for the next 12 months. We’d love you to continue the conversation in the comments or […]

Cliff Chiang Talks About His Ascent to ‘Cartoonist’ in 2021

For the first time, this year our staff voted in a ‘Best Cartoonist‘ category for our Year in Review. We felt it was important to honor folks who are doing all different roles in comics in our Year in Review categories, and no one is doing more in any given book than someone who is […]

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Many exciting improvements to the comics aggregator

Let me put the most important thing right here in the first paragraph: you can keep using the comics aggregator the same way you always have, though you may need to recreate the bookmark you use to read comics (I’ve tried to preserve compatibility, but I’m not 100% sure I succeeded in all cases). Having said that, I’ve just added a ton of new functionality to the aggregator, and I think many users will probably want to take advantage of it, so please read on to find out what’s new and different.

Up-front beg: if you appreciate the comics aggregator in general and/or these changes in particular, please consider making a donation. See the “Donate” button to the right. Several users of the aggregator send me monthly donations. Just think about how good it would make you feel to do that! 😉

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The user guide has been updated to reflect all of the changes described here. I’ve also added a privacy policy there documenting exactly what data the aggregator stores and for how long.

Introducing… user accounts!

You can create an account on the aggregator and save your reading preferences into your account, such that whenever you visit the aggregator’s bare URL (i.e., https://comics.kamens.us/ ) while you’re logged in, it’ll automatically display your saved list of comics for today with your settings (e.g., width and height). No more ugly bookmarks to save!

To save your settings, you just create your account, select and display the comics you want, then click the “Save selections to account” button below the comics list. I hope to have built this in such a way that you can create your account and log in, then visit your old, saved bookmark to bring up the comics you read, then click the “Save selections” button, so you don’t have to manually reselect everything. If this doesn’t work, email me your old, saved bookmark and I’ll try to figure out what I got wrong and fix it.

This user account functionality has all the behavior you’ve come to expect from web sites with user accounts: sign-up and login links in the upper right corner, profile editing and logout links when you’re logged in, and a forgot-your-password link on the login page.

However, it also has some behavior you may not be used to, because I care about privacy and I don’t want to collect any more data about people than I need to provide the functionality people want. Specifically, although you are welcome to use your email address as your username, I am not saving your email address in any database and I couldn’t email you even if I wanted to. Instead, I am saving a one-way hash of whatever you choose as your username, and using that to look you up during login. Your username is stored in a cookie in your browser when you’re logged in, which is how I can display it, but it is not stored anywhere on my server.

As for why you would want to use your email address as your username, there are two reasons:

• If you don’t, then there’s no secure way to do a password reset if you forget your password. If your username isn’t a working email address and you forget your password, you’ll have to abandon your old account and create a new one.
• If you are one of the folks who reads Comics Kingdom comics through my aggregator, you need to have an aggregator account whose username matches the email address on your Comics Kingdom account.

IMPORTANT NOTE: User accounts which are not used for 30 days are deleted automatically. This is necessary for both private reasons (I don’t want to save even the minimal information I’m saving about users for longer than necessary) and because I can’t afford to have the aggregator take up ever-increasing storage space. However, if your account gets deleted the data are backed up for a year before they’re permanently purged, so you can email me if you’d like me to restore your account.

A bunch of other functional changes

While user account support is the big news, I’ve also made a bunch of other functional changes which I hope will make the aggregator more pleasant and useful for everyone.

Better header and footer links

(You may have already noticed this change since I rolled it out earlier than the others described here.)

The links at the top and bottom of the page are now more useful and clearer. In particular:

• The middle link no longer says “Today” (which may not be true!) and now includes the year.
• The middle link will now always accurately reproduce what’s currently displayed in the browser. I.e., since the link text is a date, the link underneath it will always display comics for that date, even if it’s loaded on a different date.
• There’s now a “fast-forward” link, “>>”, on the right, which is a dynamic link for the current date, so you can save that link and then visit it again at a later date to view the comics for that date, if you prefer to keep doing that rather than saving your list in an account.

Improvements to the list of available comics

(, but there’s an additional wrinkle I just rolled out, so keep reading.)

Previously, the list of all available comics was only displayed if no comics were displayed; once you were on a page with comics, the list went away, and if you wanted it back, you had to add “list=include” to your URL. Now, the list is always included on the page, though if there are any comics displayed the list is hidden and you have to click a button to reveal it. (This is another change you may have already noticed since I rolled it out earlier.)

Because the list of comics ia always available, the “include/omit” selectors next to the title for each displayed comic have been removed. You can just check and uncheck things in the list if you want to change which comics are displayed.

The list also now has a “Select All” checkbox above it that you can check to select all of the comics in the list, or uncheck to clear all the selections.

Sharing links are working again and are improved

At some point the functionality for getting a shortened link to the currently selected comics broke because The Bitly API version that the aggregator was using went away. I’m not sure when this happened, but I think it may have been as long ago as 2020, so I’m a bit surprised that nobody complained to me about it. Having said that, it’s working now, and the links that it generates are now more robust and shareable, so I’ve changed the button text from “get short link” to “get sharing link”.

The sharing link that is generated and displayed when you click this button exactly reproduces the comics visible on the screen on which the generated link is displayed. In other words, if you are viewing comics, and you select or deselect some of them in the list, and then you click the button, the resulting sharing link reflects your changed selections, not the comics that were displayed immediately before you clicked the button.

Better image scaling and layout

Image scaling, i.e., the “width” and “height” parameters you can set at the bottom of the page (and in your saved user settings!) are now smarter. Rather than absolute sizes they are maximum sizes, so you can specify both width and height and each image will be proportionally scaled so that it doesn’t exceed those dimensions.

Note that previously when you didn’t specify width or height the aggregator enforced a maximum height of 400 pixels on some images. This is no longer the case, so if you find some of the comics to be too large, you may want to specify width and/or height to limit them.

The aggregator now precalculates the dimensions of all images displayed on the page and tells the browser what size they are so the browser can lay out the page properly even before all the images have been downloaded. This means the layout no longer jumps around while images are loading.

Bookmarkable and sharing URLs are now shorter

Obviously although the reading URL is now really short if you set up a user account with your settings saved so you just need to visit https://comics.kamens.us/ , the bookmarks with comic display information in them are also shorter now.

Support for “montage comics”

When I went recently to add the strip This Modern World to the aggregator, I discovered that it was different in an important way from all of the previously supported strips: rather than all of its panels being contained in a single image, each panel is a separate image. Some changes to the aggregator were necessary to support strips like this.

Better privacy for Comics Kingdom readers

Before this round of changes, I was storing the actual email addresses of Comics Kingdom readers in my database. I’m no longer doing that; the Comics Kingdom code has been revamped to use a hash just like the user account code.

This is also a privacy improvement because now Comics Kingdom readers can share links to comics in the aggregator without exposing their email addresses in the links.

It’s entirely possible that I’m the only person who actually uses the aggregator’s API functionality (if you’re using it I’d love to hear from you!), but just in case, you can now generate an API key on your user profile page and include it as a query parameter in your URLs when calling the API. This has two benefits:

• It uses your saved settings, i.e., the list of comics you want, so you don’t have to specify them in the URL.
• If you’re a Comics Kingdom reader, it gives you access to Comics Kingdom strips through the API.

Fixing broken comics and cleaning up defunct ones

Dry Bones and Mister Boffo , both of which were broken, are now working again. (Just a reminder that if a comic you read stops working, you should email me and tell me so I can fix it!)

The script is now smarter about knowing which days a couple of comics are published on so there are fewer “false negatives,” i.e., fewer instances about the script complaining that it can’t find a comic for a particular day when there actually shouldn’t be one.

A number of comics which are no longer being published have been removed:

• Bloom County
• The Boobiehatch
• Flash Forward
• Not Invented Here
• That’s Life
• Watch Your Head

Backend changes

Believe it or not, I first started working on the aggregator 22 years ago. As a result of all the incremental, gradual fixes and enhancements I’ve made since then, the code became more and more convoluted and difficult to maintain, so much so, in fact, that it would have been inconceivable to add something as large as user account support without first paying down some of the “technical debt.” I have therefore spent many hours restructuring the code and rewriting significant portions of it; it’s now much, much better, though certainly it’s not perfect. There’s only so much I can do, after all, since it’s written in Perl (nerd joke). If only I’d learned Python earlier.

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2 thoughts on “ Many exciting improvements to the comics aggregator ”

Perls before swine? (one nerd joke deserves another)

You’re awesome, and your work is deeply appreciated! Ever thought of setting up a Patreon account?

Good idea. Done. Thanks again.

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