Garry Leach

Okay, here's where I commit myself to stop picking up these Zuiker Press books about heavy teen topics. They are nothing but horribly written treacly melodramas orchestrated by co-writer Anthony E. Zuiker, creator and producer of various CSI spinoffs.

This one has Sophia Recca getting all spiritual and reversing child/parent roles as she makes her divorced parents into some ideal fractured but whole family. It's like a weird take on Parent Trap with an added angel obsession.

The most useful part of the book was a page of divorce advice from a lawyer named Denis Scinta. If only the rest of the book were as reasonable.… (mer)

In November 1982, just as I was rediscovering comics, I picked up a copy of issue #7 of the British black & white anthology title Warrior and was blown away by an installment of a strip called Marvelman that reworked a cheesy 1950s superhero concept with a modern adult sensibility. Written by Alan Moore before he became “Alan Moore,” with atmospheric and hard hitting page design by Gary Leach this collection of the first story arc (retitled Miracleman due to US copyright issue) is both a nostalgia trip for me and an example of the Renaissance of the superhero genre that eventually gave us classics such as Watchmen and more.… (mer)