Max Reads Comics 22 Aug 2026

 Two comics I read today:

Charlton Bullseye #5 (1982)

This was kind of a "spotlight" or "try-out" series published during the dying days of Charlton, and here we have what is certainly the one and only appearance of "Warhund!" 

I'm not familiar with the work of Bradd Mielke, who wrote this story, but I was definitely aware of the artist, one "Chaz" Truog.  

I did find an interview with Chaz in which he mentions that he and Bradd worked on a science fiction comic strip for their college newspaper, but other than this issue of Bullseye and one "X-Men" parody, both of which he partnered with Chaz on, I could find no other trace of mister Mielke in the comics industry.

Bradd's work here doesn't necessarily justify that disappearance; it's not bad at all for a random one-shot produced at his surely young age back in the dawn of the 1980s. He likely just wandered off to better-paying horizons.

Bradd's writing is perhaps a bit rougher than Chaz's art here, but not massively so. It's a reasonably tight little tale of a barbarian prince who receives news of his father's imminent demise. Seeking to avenge what turns out to have been an assassination, Warhund discovers that his entire world is vastly different than he ever expected, and the story takes on a science-fictional flavor in what is a cool if somewhat clumsily delivered twist.

As I mentioned, young Truog's art is a little rough here, with much of the background detail being left to a sea of swirling colors or mists, but his style is still quite recognizable to those of us who discovered him less than a decade later in the pages of "Animal Man" alongside some guy called "Grant Morrison."

This was nothing I'd demand someone else take the time to read, but it was a fun little comic book with a couple of surprises between its funky-smelling covers.

The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor #4 (1973)

From my beloved Charlton to my also-beloved Gold Key; no surprises here, eh? 

Beneath the kick-ass cover painthing (likely by George Wildman), the also-kick-ass duo of writer Don Glut (whom I've met) and artist Jesse Santos (whom I've not) deliver two tales from the good Doc's files.

First up is the 16-Page "Seance at Spektor Manor," which involves Spektor and his "secretary" Lakota Rainflower directly, as young woman comes to the Doc's own home to have an emergency seance. 

Seems all the firstborn in her family seem to die grisly deaths on their 21st birthday, and she happens to be have just turned 21...today! 

She has somehow enlisted the aid and accompaniment of Elliot Kane, a psychic medium of some renown, and hopes that between Kane and the Doc that the her fatal family curse can finally be ended.

So, yes, they do that. I mean, imagine if they didn't. No, what I want to comment on here is that this story features some fine examples of Glut's early 70s well-intentioned attempts at being a bit progressive. 

Lakota Rainflower has already been mentioned, and yes, she is the Doc's "secretary," but she also accompanies him on most every adventure and is never portrayed as a shrinking violet or helpless damsel. She's also, as her rather-on-the-nose name might tip you off to, a young woman of Native American descent. This is all quite ahead of its time, especially since Lakota does not speak broken English, nor does she utter any stereotypical catch-phrases or wear out-of-place "traditional" clothing. The narration here does let down the side a bit with lines like: "Lakota, with the perception of an Indian Scout..." and "Her blood, a mix of Sioux and Apache, raced!"  But hey, it's the early 70s, and those words are all meant to be complimentary in context.

Also, Elliott Kane is an African-American gentleman, and his skills as a Medium are key to Spektor's success in this story. He also does not speak "jive turkey" or anything like that.

It's a great main story, and Jesse Santos' art is lush and amazing as always. 

The 9-page backup, "Death Between Floors" follows the format of some "Dr. Graves" stories, where Spektor is merely relating a tale from his files that he was not directly involved in. 

It's a fun little yarn that would fit nicely in Gold Key's "Boris Karloff" series, and can obliquely be summed up as "A thief, a hitman, and a werewolf walk into an elevator."

I haven't read an issue of this series that I've disliked yet!

And there you have it: I read some comics!  Weird, eh?

Update Aug 11 2026

 Stuff I finished lately:

"Confess" by Rob Halford. Listened to the audio version, read by the Metal God himself. A very genuine, vulnerable, and eye-opening story taking Rob from his childhood in the English factory town of Walsall to the COVID lockdowns, and a small update added afterward. This did not disappoint.

"The Unwritten," by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. This, however, did disappoint in the long run. I launched (back) into this DC/Vertigo series on the app recently, and finished it on a weekend trip to Cape Cod. I used to wonder why this series wasn't spoken more highly of, and now I know why. Not only is the ending dragged out far too long, but the final handful of issues are completely wasted in a needless crossover with Bill Willingham's "Fables." Then the series took a break, and expected readers to come back for a 12-issue mini-series in order to read the actual ending. I'm not sure I've ever seen a creator-owned series so badly fumbled that wasn't simply cancelled before its time.

New Indie Comics Discovery Featuring: Turtleman!

 Today, my YouTube algorithm suggested this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_auvwzHqRk

It's a 4.5 minute animated trailer for a quirky, humorous "real world superhero" concept that has a lot going for it:

• It uses no so-called "AI" whatsoever.
• The art style and voice acting are equally charming
• they managed to license a decent modern day pop-punk song for the "soundtrack"
• And: it was just plain fun to watch

Now, after inquiring about how to find the comics that the video was said to be based on, I found RD Murphy (the creator in question) had some free (with a membership) offerings on Globalcomix.com:

https://globalcomix.com/a/rd-murphy

Here you can find "Absolute Turtleman" which is the specific comic that Murphy has adapted into the "Animated Pilot" linked above, as well as several previous issues comprising "Turtleman Year One," and a sample of "Living a Fantasy," which is a preview (of sorts) of a much larger graphic novel work available at another site, Apollo City Comics:

https://apollocitycomics.bigcartel.com/products?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=rd+murphy

For all this and more about RD Murphy, check out his Linktree here:

https://linktr.ee/rdmurphyart?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=557448e2-ff95-4dda-8da9-16e578d6a6a5

I know I'll be looking for more of Murphy's work from here on out.

The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #1 (1967)

 The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #1 was published/cover-dated May 1967.

Here's the cover!

Normally, I'm a fan of word balloons and dialogue on a comic book cover, but even I gotta admit that this one goes a bit too far. The cover is, however, graced by a typically awesome Pat Boyette drawing, and a nice, if somewhat simple, listing of the main stories featured within, so overall, I'll let this one slide. I'm sure it's relieved.

 

Perhaps in order to make up for the workmanlike listing embedded in the cover, the next page we see when we open the book is this very cool illustrated "table of contents" spotlight: 

I could have sworn that the bottom panel featuring "The Witness" was drawn by the legendary Jim Aparo, but, you know, Charlton stalwart Rocke Mastroserio put his signature right there for all to see, eh?

Speaking of "The Witness," it turns out that as indicated on the cover, that will be the first story we dive into in this issue!  Check out the first page of that tale...now!

Ah, "Mr. Island," who simply does not want to get involved. I wonder if this tale will end with ol' Doc Graves commenting that "No Man is an Island?" Spoiler Alert: it does! I mean, I would have been pretty disappointed if it didn't!

It's a fun little tale, illustrated well, and narrated nicely by the "I'm a replacement for caption boxes, don't you know"-style host in the form of Graves commenting on his Case File as we go.

I don't think Graves was represented as a "Ghost Buster" who debunked the supernatural by the time I encountered his title in the late 70s, but the conceit works nicely here. Good opener!

Lest you dare assume that a formula has been established, the next story features Dr. M.T. Graves (get it??) as an active participant in the story, adventuring and condescending right along with the other protagonist in the not quite as racist as you might expect but still very racist "Drums of Darkness!"

Ah, yes, getting right on with the business of calling the white men "Bwana." Best not to waste any time letting the readers know when this book was published, eh, wot?

Unlike the first tale, the premise behind this one is poor, and the resolution is downright stupidly bad.

"White folks explain the natural phenomena of the jungle to the superstitious natives." Moving on!

Perhaps this next short, humorous little tale was meant to cleanse the palate after the previous well-drawn but other sour stinker of a story, hmm?

Judge for yourself when you gaze upon the first feline-fortified page of...."Mirror, Mirror on the Wall!"

There's no Dr. Graves to be found in this tale. Instead, we are treated to a single, silent appearance in the final panel of the story by a completely different Horror Host whom we will meet more formally in the very next story.

As for this tale, despite Rudi Palais' apparent distaste for Mrs. Crowley's cat-centric lifestyle, this is a fun, silly little piece about the Crowley's new mirror being haunted. The boys wreck that one, too, and are surprised to find her not upset with them at all this time.

I really like Rudi's art, here. He has a sketchy, almost abstract quality that reminds me of Frank Robbins, an all-time fave of mine.

 Next up, as I mentioned, we met "L. Dedd," host of another series entirely by the name of "Ghostly Tales from the Haunted House!"

 

The story has no title of its own, and its a quick two-pager where "Officer John" leads the rudely awakened citizen to the site of a car crash...where Officer John himself lies dead! GASP!!

Sure, it's predictable. But it's got great art, and it was a cool surprise to see a few pages in this book that served as a "sampler" for one of Charlton's other books.

Also, "L. Dedd" soon changed his moniker to "I.M. Dedd," which is a far better than hoping the reader guesses that the "L" stood for "Long" or something.

And now...the end approaches!  The end of the book, anyway. Check out the first page of the final story: "The Ghosts of the Stone Lovers"...below!

This time, Graves is both IN the story AND commenting on the Case File as a Narrator! Formulas be damned! This is Charlton! We do what we want!

Also, this story features the art of STEVE FRICKIN DITKO, so just be glad that we can still have nice things!

And, it helps that this story IS actually a nice thing, with the "let's see if this is all really supernatural, harrumpf, harrumpf" business being played out nicely, and some great Ancient Roman flashback scenes illustrated by Ditko along the way!

I gotta say, even with the cringe factor baked into "Drums of Darkness," the debut issue of Doc Graves' titular title is off to a really good start.

"Red Sonja: Consumed" by Gail Simone

 

This past Tuesday (June 16), I finished "Red Sonja: Consumed" by Gail Simone on my Kindle while I was sitting in the Jury Lounge in Providence, RI.  (I didn't get picked. Day off reading in a crappy room - not all bad)

If you want to follow me on Storygraph, you can find my brief review of the book here.

I will add here that I think Simone does perhaps the best job of fixing the weird old horny and misogynistic Best Her to Bed Her trope by just....not mentioning it at all. In fact, the Sonja in this book is just simply horny, and gets down with whoever she pleases whenever she sees fit. The character never needed the trope, and in fact, no character ever did. So, Simone just acts like it was never there to begin with, which I applaud.

A new nitpick of mine that hadn't fully formed until now is that I found the lore behind the admittedly cool bad guys to be a bit unclear.  Were they exiled from Hyrkania? Were they citizens of another nation, left for dead?  Either way, how exactly did they become what they are now? I really shouldn't be that unclear on these points, even allowing for my brain's tendency to wander when I should be focusing on something.

I still really enjoyed this book, and it's a hell of a prose debut from someone who has pretty much only written comics for the past few decades.  However, those two cringy sentence fragments are SUPER cringy, so much so that I'm hoping they don't become one of the main things I remember about this novel (see the Storygraph review linked above)

And now that I've finished the Red Sonja book, I have started on this collection of new and old short fiction celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the "Weird Tales" pulp magazine:

I've owned it for at least a couple of years, so it's about time I dove in, eh?

May 17 2026 Updates

 I recently finished the audiobook version of "Brigands and Breadknives," the third entry in the "cozy fantasy" series by Travis Baldree that began with "Legends and Lattes."

The much-deserved runaway success of "L&L" of course launched countless hopeful copycats, and from what I've heard, pretty much of all them have fallen far short of Baldree's books.  

This makes perfect sense, as it seems there was quite a rush to create a whole genre (the aforementioned "cozy fantasy") around what was at the time only one single published novel. Or so it certainly seemed.

Even though I greatly enjoyed "L&L," I was rather hesitant to move on to its follow-up, "Bookshops and Bonedust." After all it was advertised as a "prequel" to "L&L," which to me, kind of signalled that Baldree was already out of ideas as to how to move his main character's (Viv the Orc) story forward.

However, I did give it a chance, and ended up really enjoying that book, too.

So, when "Breadknives" came out, I decided to read that one, too. However, I was already in the middle of some other books (see previous posts), so I waited a bit before pulling the trigger on the audio version.

I'll say right now that I wish I'd listened to the previous two books this way, too. Baldree is a voice actor, so it's no surprise that his narration is entertaining and skillful. That being said, the one element that I found a little tiresome in this latest work of his did involve "speaking." Specifically, it involved magical blades that could speak aloud when unsheathed.

Talking Swords are not a new concept in fantasy fiction, but I've always been a bit averse to the trope. In this book especially, the idea wears a bit thin, especially once there are two such enchanted weapons travelling with the main group of characters, and after a while it feels like both of them are constantly chiming in.

I will say that until I looked it up after my drive home one day, I was dead certain that Travis Baldree was the voice actor behind "Daxter" from the PS2 "Jak and Daxter" video game series.  It turns out that he was not, which I guess tracks since that game series began quite a long time ago (sigh), but I am almost certain that Baldree used Daxter as the template for the titular "Breadknife's" voice.

While the overabundance of Enchanted Chattery did annoy me a bit, I was almost as entertained and charmed by this entry in the series as I was by the previous two, and that's more than enough to keep me interested in the next book, should Baldree decide to write one.

Of course, I'll go straight to the audio version next time.

As for my other reading "projects," I am about 80% finished with "Batman: Resurrection."

This book hasn't quite provided the relief from disappointment in the latest "Black Company" book ("Lies Weeping") that I was hoping for. 

I'm still determined to finish it, and it's not a terrible or even slightly bad piece of work, but it does kind of feel like someone's supremely competent homework assignment.

The goal seems to be to work Clayface and Hugo Strange into the world of the Tim Burton Bat-films, and it does so rather well, but after a while, I get the sense of a watching a check-list being completed rather than enjoying and exciting Batman adventure story.  

Ah, well. Better luck with the next (non-Batman tie-in) book, let's hope.

I also recently Ebay'd a complete run of the "Justice Machine" comics from Comico, including the 4-issue "Justice Machine featuring the Elementals" mini-series. I've read enough of the series before to know that what was done with the series ended up having several differences between what writer Tony Isabella (and others) decided to do with the story compared to what I've read through several times in my beloved "Heroes Unlimited" JM sourcebook, but that's fine. The sheer volume of pages of (mostly) Mike Gustovich's art will easily put a balm on those minor injuries to my head canon.

Also delivered to me via Ebay is the "DNAgents" sourcebook for the classic "Villains and Vigilantes" RPG. I never actually got to read more than an issue or two of that series back when it was coming out (or since), so this will be a fun way to "review" the material while also getting a kick out of seeing the characters' "write-ups" in good ol' V&V.

Okay, that's enough for now, I guess!

Reading Roundup: "Lies Weeping" by Glen Cook

 Yes, I finally finished ONE of the novels I mentioned reading back at the end of December.

That novel was "Lies Weeping" the 10th (? Feels like more than that have been written) novel in the "Black Company" series.

My short review: this is the weakest entry in the series to date. I still enjoyed reading it, but yeah: dead last place in the Chronicles for me.

Somewhat longer review comments:

• The dual Annalist chapters kept things breezy between the ponderous Shivetya info-dump chapters.
• If Cook didn't tell me which Voroshk girl was narrating, it would be hard to tell, though.
• Using "boob-monster" as the way to let us know that we were listening to Shukrat talk about Arkana is not the way to establish this. The constant mention of one character's breast size is cringe-inducing, creepy, and just reeks of "old man writes teen girl characters" all at once.  These are the Chronicles of the Black Company, not the Files of Epstein Island, right? RIGHT?
• This was at best half of a novel stretched out to fill 371 pages. I was having so much fun just being back "in" the world of the Black Company that I didn't mind...much.
• The ending itself is completely unforgivable, with the last sentence depicting one of our protagonists literally about to attack one of the main antagonists...but not even carrying out that attack. Cook expects his readers to wait a full year to essentially see how a punch that's just been thrown ends up landing. 
• I will say that since I did not read "Port of Shadows," which was apparently released previous to this book, and found myself not feeling very lost at all, that this book did a decent job of making this lapsed reader feel more or less at home.
• If this were somehow to be anyone's first exposure to the Black Company series, I strongly doubt that they'd bother reading any further.

Better luck next November, I guess!