Så er denne signatur atter kommet hjem fra Roskilde Festivalen i god behold. Som sædvanligt med følelsen af at være totalt mørbanket efter dage med musik og fest i overdådige mængder, og med farvelråbet ”vi ses til næste år!” I år var det 15. gang, at jeg gik gennem porten ind til den anden verden […]

I meant to write some words on the passing of the great Belgian cartoonist last week earlier, but then figured that since I was going to Paris over the weekend, I’d pick up a couple of his classic comics to reacquaint myself with some of those stories that meant so much to me as a […]

Tegneserie-, SF- og spilbutikken Fantask overgår til ny ledelse pr. 1. oktober. Det er netop blevet annonceret, at stifterne Rolf Bülow og Søren Pedersen fra den dato trækker sig som ledere og overdrager faklen til Marit Nim, der efterhånden har arbejdet i butikken i 14 år og har administreret spilafdelingen en væsentlig del af den […]

Isaac Hayes is gone. And not to Phoenix, this time. It’s a hard goodbye for this listener. Inspired by the great artists who sampled him — Public Enemy on “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”, Big Daddy Kane on “Smooth Operator”, The Jungle Brothers’ on “Behind the Bush”, Massive Attack on “One Love”, Compton’s […]

This 2006 essay, posted here to supplement the review of the Spring 2008 Titian show in Venice, is an attempt, firstly, to analyze the loose finish of Titian’s late pictures as a natural development in his art with roots as far back as the beginning of his career, and, secondly, to provide a contemporary theoretical […]

Gary Gygax, who just passed away, changed my life. Indirectly but still. He was one of the great imaginary enablers of our time. His creation, along with several others, not so much of Dungeons & Dragons itself, but of the role-playing game as an immersive storytelling form, has been central to the development of my […]

This essay was originally published in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition Comix — on the contemporary intersections between comics and the fine arts — at Brandts klædefabrik, Odense (Sep. 22 2007 — Jan 6 2008). Now that the exhibition is over, it is presented here in a slightly edited version. The catalogue is available in […]

This season’s commonly one for retrospection, and appropriately I’ve lately been reminded of one of my youthful follies, a road not taken. An old friend, Anders Bøgh, has unearthed one of the comics he, I and two of our classmates did back in fourth grade, from whatever bottom shelf of lost recollection he keeps (PDF […]

I’ve only just now been made aware that the great Renaissance scholar Konrad Oberhuber passed away on September 12, aged 72. I never had the pleasure of meeting the by all accounts charismatic and gregarious scholar, but have found great inspiration — and also at times frustration — in his work. It’s sad to see […]

By Morten Søndergård
[To mark what would have been Jack Kirby’s 90th birthday yesterday, we re-present this piece on the first Spider-Man stories, written for Rackham back in 2002 by Danish Marvel editor, translator, retailer and all-round specialist Morten Søndergård. Enjoy!]
Who drew the original Spider-Man? There is of course only one answer, right? Steve Ditko? He […]

To mark the recent release of David Kunzle’s long-awaited collection of Swiss comics pioneer Rodolphe Töpffer’s comics work, as well as his monograph on Töpffer the cartoonist (read our review here), the Metabunker hereby presents the following introduction to the comics of Töpffer. It should be noted that the text is a slightly edited version […]

Amongst the handful of significant cartoonists that worked for Warren Publishing during the 70s, Alex Toth stands out. He created some of his best comics for the publisher, despite often working from mediocre scripts. As a rule, the best of them are the ones he did in collaboration with Archie Goodwin, but there are other […]

Today brought incredibly sad news. Danish dancehall queen Natasja Saad has died in a car crash in Jamaica.
A fixture in Danish hip hop, reggae and dancehall since the late eighties, when she performed on stage for the first time, she had both an astonishing talent and true star quality. I first saw her on […]

The portrait of Lorenzo de’Medici, Duke of Urbino (1492-1519), coming up for sale at Christie’s on the 5th of July is an interesting case study in the perpetual problem in art history of reconciling visual and textual evidence. I have just visited Christie’s in London and examined the painting. It is obviously a severely damaged, […]

Danmarks ældste og bedste filmtidsskrift Kosmorama er ude NU, med et stort temanummer om animationsfilm. Bladet - eller retteligt: bogen - er spækket med spændende og indsigtsfulde artikler om det gamle og det nye, om det kendte og det obskøne, det fede og det, der bare er forgæves. Sidstnævnte tager denne skribent sig bramfrit af […]