Without Fear

For a long time, I’ve wanted to put together a digital comics magazine. Something to download, to squirrel away on the iPad for a rainy train trip, to savour and enjoy in its levels/layers of interrogation and design. I’ve wanted this thing but I lack the time to write it, even the time to edit it, and certainly the design fu to put all the pixels in the right place. But that want only grew and grew.

Then, enter Leo Johnston, comic commentary enthusiast/wizard, who has created and curated STUCK IN THE GUTTERS, a digital magazine about comics and also featuring comics. An initiative that brings together an array of creative/analytical minds to pull apart comics and put them back together again.

You can back the Patreon to support the issues [LINK]

Or you can go to Gumroad and get the first issue right now for PWYW [pay what you want], so that could be zero dollars, or maybe a little more to share around the bullpen kitty [LINK]

Cover by Alberto Muriel

So, what are you buying? Well:

THOR & WONDER WOMAN: MODERN MYTHOLOGICAL HEROES – a great article by Rudy Trevizo about the two titans from the Big Two and their recent runs.

STRANGE LOVE – a column by Jeremy Holt about breaking into comics.

LICENSED COMICS DON’T HAVE TO BE BAD – an argument by Jess Camacho that some licensed comics can be very good.

CAST OUT: PART I – a slice of a comic by Kelly Williams that’s absolutely gorgeous.

THE CIRCLE GAME – an article by Alex Mansfield that discusses the rotating wheel of nostalgia and comics.

USING COMIC INFLUENCES IN YOUR WORK – is a great article about, well, it’s in the title, and Tyler Hallstrom lays it all out against Jack Kirby, Todd McFarlane, and Mike Mignola. It’s a great exploration.

And FURY MAX JAM SESSION – wherein Dan Hill and I just loosely chat about the FURY MAX run from Goran Parlov and Garth Ennis. There’s no structure, just a chat, and it was loads of fun. You can expect:

Dan Hill: But in the ‘real world’ of the MAX universe (which for all intents and purposes is *our* world), what would this entail?

Ryan K Lindsay: Whoa, whoa, whoa! The MAX universe is really just our world, whoa, shit, [grawlix] you’ve just blown my pea-sized mind. That’s so goddamn true. Oh, man, I’m not recovering from that at all.

So if all that seems like it’ll be up your alley – and why gd wouldn’t it be – then get on over and pick up a copy. Because the world needs more comics analysis and stuff, get some.