Army Of Crime

Few people cast as unlikely a literary shadow over pop culture as H.P. Lovecraft, the New England resident and author of weird fiction who has since inspired video games, plushies, key chains and innumerable books, short stories and comic books. Providence is acclaimed comics author Alan Moore's entry into the ever-expanding cosmos of Lovecraft stories and Moore endeavors to leave no stone unturned. This is not only a sort of pastiche of Lovecraftian stories, but a story about Lovecraft himself as well as a running commentary on weird fiction as a genre and the time/place that created it. Strap yourself in for a scenic tour of haunted and macabre New England!    Music is by Free Rap Beats.   Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topic for this episode is Providence by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows.

The oldest relationships in the world might just be the relationship between animals and humans. Cattle, sheep dogs, horses, our animal buddies have always been there for us. But what would the animals say about it? Duncan the Wonder Dog asks the deceptively simple question: What if animals were people? What would they say to us? How would society be warped and transformed by this simple but all encompassing twist? Duncan the Wonder Dog, an award winning graphic novel published in 2010, tries to answer these questions in a story of FBI agents, animal terrorists, and messiah figures using an impressive mixed media black and white art style.   Music is by Free Rap Beats.   Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topic for this episode is Duncan the Wonder Dog by Adam Hines.

Peplum, noun: a genre of Greco-Roman era costume adventure films, mostly made in Italy. See also: Peplum, a phantasmagorical fool's journey taking place in a fantasy version of Imperial Rome written and drawn by Blutch. It's Roman! It's dreamlike and ambiguous! It has beautiful black and white art!   Music is by Free Rap Beats.   Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topic for this episode is Peplum by Blutch.

Few names stand out in European comics illustration like Moebius, known for his highly imaginative and highly detailed sci-fi and fantasy art. Edena is a story that only Moebius could tell, about old classic cars, the human subconscious, nose diseases, insanity, and love.   Music is by Free Rap Beats.   Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topic for this episode is Edena and World of Edena.

There are few places more inaccessible in the world than North Korea, and while most of us will never visit the Hermit Kingdom, a handful of foreigners have gone there and back. One such account is is the travelogue Pyongyang, written and drawn by cartoonist Guy Delisle. Pyongyang details his time working for a french animation studio that had a production office in the titular capital and the absurdities and oddities of living as a foreigner there.    Music is by Free Rap Beats.   Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topic for this episode is Pyongyang.

Fear is the mind-killer! For fans of the science fiction novel Dune, there was no greater fear than another failed attempt at adapting Frank Herbert's un-filmable novel. Did Denis Villeneuve pull of the impossible? How does it stack up against the previous adaptations? Is the third time the charm for Dune movies?   Music is by Free Rap Beats.   Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topics for this episode are Dune (2021), Dune (1984), Frank Herbert's Dune (2000), as well as the novel Dune by Frank Herbert. 

Somewhere between a psychedelic dream and an epic fantasy tale is Yragael and its companion story Urm the Mad. Beautiful visuals by French artist Philippe Druillet finds a pairing with a story that freely mixes myth, legend, and dream-logic. It's not every day you read a comic like this!    Music is by Free Rap Beats.   Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topics for this episode include Yragaël by Philippe Druillet and Michel Demuth and Urm The Mad by Philippe Druillet.

As the world spirals into political and economic chaos, many of us are faced with increasingly existential questions. How can we be happy in a violent and atomized society? Should anyone ever go on Reddit? How scared should we be of Facebook drones? These are the types of questions that The Hard Tomorrow, written and drawn by Eleanor Davis, grapples with in a near-future, slice of life setting.   Music is by Free Rap Beats.   Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topic for this episode is The Hard Tomorrow.

What is Judge Dredd? Is it a cyberpunk dystopia action/adventure? A sci-fi satire? A cop story? The correct answer is "All of the Above". Join us in examining Judge Dredd: America, an acclaimed Dredd storyline from series co-creator John Wagner that tells a dystopian story about struggling for freedom in a totalitarian world that also doubles as a body horror sci-fi thriller.   Music is by Free Rap Beats.   Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topics for this episode are Judge Dredd and Judge Dredd: America.

Batman has a comically huge cultural footprint, from SNES games, to animated cartoons, Hollywood blockbusters and children's underwear. Did you know that there was even Batmanga? Written and drawn by Jiro Kuwata, the three volumes of Batmanga tell sci-fi themed stories with original villains that have more in common with the Adam West TV show than Frank Miller. Should a curious Bat-fan check them out? I mean, do whatever you want, we're not the boss of you. We can help you make an informed decision though!   Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topics for this episode are Batmanga volume 1-3 written and drawn by Jiro Kuwata.

  The X-Men were a sort of Lee/Kirby also-ran for many years, sitting awkwardly between the sci-fi family styling of the Fantastic Four and the superhero dynamics of the Avengers. Now the X-Men are a longstanding staple at Marvel, with innumerable spin-offs and series. What are they all about though? In God Loves, Man Kills, Chris Claremont attempts to tell the quintessential X-Men story as a stand alone graphic novel. God Loves, Man Kills tells a story of prejudice, extremism, and organized religion that served as the basis for at least one blockbuster movie. Does it hold up? Is it good? Should you go read (or reread) it?    Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topics for this episode are the X-Men franchise and God Loves, Man Kills.      

Epic gods once strode the Earth in times of yore. I am, of course, referring to comics creator Jack Kirby. I could also be referencing the crimson hued tyrannosaur from Devil Dinosaur, a lesser discussed Kirby series from the late Bronze Age of comics.  After his return to Marvel, with the Fourth World in the rear view mirror, Kirby returned to some of his familiar concepts like human deep history, the interplay between myth and supernatural figures as well as a love of big splash pages, ancient aliens, and lost civilizations. This found it's most well known form in The Eternals, but Devil Dinosaur hit on many of the same themes right as The Eternals was wrapping up. How much juice did Kirby still have left? Does Devil Dinosaur deserve a place alongside Kirby's other creations, or is it just a weird oddity? Or maybe both?   Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topic for this episode is Devil Dinosaur, written and drawn by

When you think of samurai drama, what type of talking animal comes to mind? If the question sounds absurd, you may not be familiar with the long running Usagi Yojimbo series written and drawn by Stan Sakai. Combining funny animal characters with deep dives into Tokugawa era Japanese culture and samurai movies, Usagi Yojimbo is a masterfully crafted work of sharp swords and floppy ears, now going into it's third decade.   Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topics for this episode are Usagi Yojimbo and Usagi Yojimbo: Circles.    

  As the world slides further into the 21st century the themes of political isolation, revolution and the absurdity of authoritarian violence look to stay as relevant as ever. Perramus is a comic about South America in the Cold War that takes it's reader to movie sets, circuses, quests for missing teeth, and is applicable in it's larger themes to many other times and places, including ours. There is also a tremendous amount of bird crap.   Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topic for this episode is Perramus: The City and Oblivion by Alberto Breccia and Juan Sasturain.    

H.P. Lovecraft casts a long shadow over pop culture, in ways the author himself would never have been able to envision. A perfect example of this is At the Mountains of Madness, an adaptation of the titular Lovecraft novella by manga artist Gou Tanabe. Combining a fairly straightforward telling of the story with detailed black and white manga art, At the Mountains of Madness belongs to the unending tradition of re-inventing and refreshing works from the Lovecraft bibliography.   Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com   Topics for this episode are At the Mountains of Madness and HP Lovecraft.

Frank Miller's story Dark Knight Returns has long been considered a masterwork in contemporary superhero comics, and has put a stamp on the character of Batman that is still felt to this day. Almost twenty years later, Miller returned to the same well with Dark Knight Strikes Again. DKSA is a wildly different take on the character and garnered a wide range of opinions, dividing readers instantly. Is DKSA a late career misfire for Miller, or something wholly dissonant from DKR that must be reckoned with on it's own terms?    Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com Topics for this episode are Dark Knight Strikes Again and Frank Miller.

The coming of age story is a ubiquitous staple of film and television decade after decade. Sunny, however, is a story about coming of age in a very specific time and place, namely Tokyo in the 1970s at a group home with an old beat up car in the backyard. Despite it's particular location and setting, Sunny hits at something universal to the human condition. It is, at times, funny, heartwarming, and tragic.    Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com Topics for this episode are Sunny by Taiyo Matsumoto, The Methods of Freedom by Errico Malatesta and Charley's War by Pat Mills and Joe Calquhon.

The Man Without Fear started out as a second string Marvel hero, but over the years Daredevil has collected an impressive string of credited creators, including Frank Miller, Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack, Mark Waid, Bill Everett, Wally Wood, David Mazzucchelli, and a variety of others. Following after Frank Miller was a run of issues written by Ann Nocenti with primary art duties by John Romita Jr. that was only ever sporadically collected in volumes that quickly fell out of print. Nocenti was a relative newcomer to comics writing and brought a very different sensibility to the character, bringing in new characters as well as various social and political issues. Are these issues by Nocenti and Romita Jr. offbeat oddities or lost diamonds?    Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com Topic for this episode is Daredevil issues 236, 238-245, 247-257 and 259-291.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away the Rebel Alliance battled the Galactic Empire in Star Wars. The Tales of the Jedi comic series asks the question "What happened a long time before that?" Written by Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson, these comics attempted to depict galaxy-wide battles between the Jedi Knights and the Sith, in a mix of sci-fi and fantasy, set thousands of years before the Star Wars films. Did they succeed? In an age bursting at the seams with Star Wars content, is Tales of the Jedi a lost classic or a rightly forgotten oddity?   Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com Topic for this episode is the Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi comic series.

What is Akira? Not only is this a question that characters in the eponymous story must decipher, it is a slippery question for a reader to answer. Is Akira a precursor to the cyberpunk genre, a landmark sci-fi manga, the basis for a much loved anime, or should we think of it more as Mad Max meets 2001: A Space Odyssey? Maybe all of these, and more besides. Our freewheeling tour of the Modern Age of Comics continues with Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira.   Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com Topic for this episode is Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo.