ON THURSDAY, The Washington Post reported that President Trump, in discussing immigration and the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or DACA, decried protections for immigrants from what he called such “shithole” countries such as Haiti, El Salvador and African nations. By Friday, freelance artist Anthony Russo had turned around, in creative response, the […]

BATMAN’S FAILURE a decade ago just might vault his DC teammate Wonder Woman to success today. As the 2018 Oscars nomination balloting concludes Friday, it bears noting that no true superhero film — including 2008’s acclaimed “The Dark Knight” — has ever been nominated for the best-picture prize. Yes, despite all the attention paid to […]

THE WILD week in Washington actually began with cameras trained on Hollywood, as some anti-Trumpers watched the Golden Globes and joined the chorus of those calling for an Oprah Winfrey run for president in 2020. Could a former TV reality-show host best be ousted by a former TV talk-show host? Meanwhile, the flames of debate […]

I REMEMBER it vividly, the first time I heard Bil Keane, the creator of “Family Circus,” that epitome of the midcentury suburban gag comic, crack an insult joke that snapped with honest bite. The event was a National Cartoonists Society awards dinner, and the stately Keane’s relatively acidic wit while emcee made me reevaluate what […]

IT IS a cover as striking as a matchhead. For the newest cover of Time magazine, the sometime-viral artist Edel Rodriguez has rendered President Trump as the literal “fire and fury” that spawned Michael Wolff’s best-selling book of life inside the Trump White House. Rodriguez’s latest graphic take on Trump calls back to his October […]

The various worlds of DC Comics, from television to comics to animation, are coming to Washington for a first-of-its-kind event titled “DC in D.C.” — but it’s not just because the two names are the same. The gathering will feature a who’s who of DC bigwigs participating in various panels, including television producer Greg Berlanti, DC […]

AS “COCO” begins to rack up onstage wins this awards season, its filmmakers will surely have to continue to answer sexual harassment questions related to Hollywood’s Time’s Up initiative. The Disney/Pixar film won the Golden Globe for animated feature, as expected, during the Sunday evening broadcast from Beverly Hills. And because the ceremony’s central theme was […]

FOR THE New Yorker magazine’s latest cover to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, artist Mark Ulriksen decided to draft modern-day activists to create a striking political image. “What would King be doing if he were around today?” Ulriksen told the New Yorker of the question that led to his new work. In the cover […]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Toward the end of last year, Comic Riffs offered our list of 10 especially eye-catching graphic narratives from 2017. But what typically gets less attention are annual anthologies. Here is one of the “best” from 2017. THE ENTIRE impossible enterprise of picking the “best” of comics across a short period at all is to elevate […]

Life is Strange: Before the Storm Developed by: Deck Nine Published by: Square Enix Available on: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox one I’ve long believed that over time the emotional reach of video games would increase, just as it did from the inception of film to Expressionism, Neorealism, and beyond. When I think of games that […]

FOUR YEARS ago, it looked as though we might never get another Hayao Miyazaki film. The Studio Ghibli mastermind had announced his retirement and this time it seemed that the animation legend might indeed mean it. Sure, Miyazaki might still storyboard for fun, but the Oscar-winning “Spirited Away” filmmaker had apparently shared his last full-fledged […]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Toward the end of last year, Comic Riffs offered our list of 10 especially eye-catching graphic narratives from 2017. But what typically gets less attention are books about the business of making comics and related entertainment fare. This week, we look at some of the best such prose from 2017. STAN LEE, who […]

AND SO, ahead of the Olympics in South Korea, a new round of nuclear games begins with North Korea. The newest event: Who has the bigger nuclear button? Just last November, The Washington Post’s editorial board wrote: “Impulsive, bombastic and prone to grudges, President Trump has stirred serious questions in the minds of many Americans about […]

Gotham City’s newest bat-signal operates in the daytime. “Batman and the Signal,” a new three-issue miniseries starring Duke Thomas, a popular teenage character in Batman comics who flirted with the mantle of Robin the Boy Wonder before being given the vigilante suit of the Signal, debuts Wednesday in print and digitally from DC Comics. Scott […]

WHEN HONORING animated films, the Golden Globes align with the Oscars far more often than not — particularly when Pixar has a strong contender. Given the critical acclaim and commercial success of Disney/Pixar’s “Coco,” it bears watching whether any of the four other animation contenders has a true shot at toppling the Day of the […]

SOMETIMES, HUMOR cuts not with a knife, but with a scythe. Especially as Father Time welcomes a baby new year onto the world stage. Jef Mallett’s strip “Frazz,” for instance, waxes philosophical for 2018, while cartoons nodding to global leaders render visions more political. From the sly and wryly amusing to the cartoon harbingers of […]

AND JUST like that, despite its polarized reception, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” became the biggest film of 2017. The third Star Wars film under the Disney banner has hit $517 million domestically just 17 days into its release, according to studio estimates Sunday. That vaults “Last Jedi” past another Disney movie, “Beauty and the Beast” ($504 […]

FROM MUSIC to movies, we mourned pioneers and performance icons in 2017. We lost everyone from Batman (Adam West) to Bond (Roger Moore) to Rocket J. Squirrel (June Foray). We lost comedy legends who had worked close to Rat Pack icons (Jerry Lewis and Don Rickles). We lost guitarists who gave us everything from “Johnny […]

Marvel Comics’ transition to new editor in chief C.B. Cebulski has been marked by controversy and silence. Cebulski was introduced as Marvel’s new editor in chief in November, shortly after the high-profile exits of previous editor in chief Axel Alonso, who had been in the position since 2011, and writer Brian Michael Bendis, easily one […]

AS FILM EXHIBITORS begin to draw a curtain on 2017, they can look ahead to an uncannily similar slate of blockbusters in 2018. With only two weekends left in 2017, the North American box office is holding form with this stat: Eight of the year’s top nine films are superhero movies, animated fare, live-action adaptation of […]

It’s the enduring mystery of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”: Do viewers actually hate it, or are its terrible online audience ratings — 54 percent and falling on Rotten Tomatoes — the work of hidden (sorry) forces? There will be no more Jedi puns in this article. But there will be spoilers, and a journey to a tiny Facebook page whose leader rose to fame by claiming, somewhat incredibly, that […]

Walt Disney World’s “robot President Trump” was officially unveiled this week, and the Internet’s mocking response could be summed up in one word: “Sad!” The Orlando, Fla., park added Trump to its famed Hall of Presidents, the 700-seat theater featuring “audio-animatronic” depictions of White House residents from Washington forward. Some, like Abraham Lincoln, offer a credible likeness, while others, like […]

Dan Jurgens’s pencils have finally caught up to his writing. If only for a few issues, Jurgens has returned to drawing Superman for DC Comics, handling the illustrating duties on the cover and interior pages of last week’s “Action Comics” No. 993 and next week’s issue No. 994. Jurgens, known to a generation of DC […]

Major spoilers abound. IF THE moment does not move you, you’ve got a heart as cold as planet Hoth. Whether you love or hate “The Last Jedi,” it’s near impossible not to experience a jolt when reality crashes into fantasy as we witness the near-death of Leia Organa, as portrayed through the most affecting Star […]

STAR WARS is celebrating its 40th birthday this year by proving one truth: It still reigns as an inexhaustible commercial force. Five years ago, Disney acquired Lucasfilm for $4 billion. Now, judging by the massive opening of “The Last Jedi,” Disney will soon pass that total just from the three Star Wars films that have […]

NOT MANY actors get the privilege of reprising a role after a three-decade hiatus. In the case of Mark Hamill, though, who returns in full as Luke Skywalker this weekend in “The Last Jedi,” the true privilege belongs to the filmgoer. It can sound strange, given his 40-year association with the farmboy-turned-Jedi role, but in […]

BRAD MELTZER was becoming deeply concerned about the tone of our national discourse. It was a toxic form of crosstalk that he believed needed visual antidote. “The election was Bruce Wayne’s bat smashing through my window,” says Meltzer, the political-thriller novelist and TV host, referencing Batman’s alter ego when describing his “aha” moment. The Eisner […]

Now that the Disney/Fox deal is a reality it is time to start asking some tough questions. First, and perhaps the most important: What exactly should be done with the “X-Men” movie franchise? Just last week we were given a reminder that this universe continues to exist outside the creative genius of Marvel Studios when […]

THE YEAR that began with one Resistance is being capped by another. Eleven months after January’s Women’s March on Washington — in which protesters proclaimed their opposition to President Trump under the rubric “the Resistance” — the new Star Wars film is featuring more top-line women leaders than ever in the franchise’s four-decade history. In a year that […]

YES, “THE SIMPSONS” even predicted its own future parentage. As part of the historic $54.2 billion Fox-Disney deal announced Thursday, such Fox animated series as “Family Guy” and “Bob’s Burgers” will soon be donning corporate Mouse Ears. But only the granddaddy of these Fox shows, “The Simpsons,” depicted the day that it would be owned […]

Q. WHAT’S BLUE and yellow and red all over? A. The cartoon geek’s new view of Disney, now that the Mouse House has brought such titles as “Avatar,” “The Simpsons” and “Deadpool” beneath its roof of colorful characters. The $52.4 billion deal announced Thursday morning, under which Disney gains a massive swath of Fox entertainment and […]

GEORGE LUCAS knew that amid all the human actors and state-of-the-art effects, even a small critter, if ill-conceived, could throw the entire Star Wars world out of whack. “If that puppet had not worked,” the filmmaker once said of Yoda’s introduction in “The Empire Strikes Back,” “the whole film would have been down the tubes.” Yoda […]

FROM “STAR WARS” to “Superman,” so much of what dominates the multiplex this holiday season was born of the late-1970s boom of the modern blockbuster. And on Wednesday, the Library of Congress recognized part of that achievement and influence. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has announced the 25 latest films to join the National Film […]

IF THERE were any concerns that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy had prematurely handed control of a future Star Wars trilogy over to director Rian Johnson, as announced last month, those worries have just been vanquished. “The Last Jedi” (opening Friday), as directed by Johnson, is being mostly praised in the first wave of reviews that landed […]

“The Last Jedi” is a bolder and darker take on the Star Wars episodic cinematic universe that isn’t scared to take some chances. Whereas J.J. Abrams’s “The Force Awakens” may have played it safe (minus Kylo Ren killing his father, Han Solo), following a previous template of how a “Star Wars” movie should feel, “The […]