Annotations for all other comics

I’ve broken the annotations into 3 parts because the listing was long enough to make the page load slowly on slower connections:

Annotations for Alan Moore comic books (all publishers)
Annotations for DC comic books (including Vertigo, Elseworlds, etc.)
Annotations for all other comic books (including Marvel and Independents)

 

Annotations for all other comic books (including Marvel and Independents)

Travis Hedge Coke has written annotations for Warren Ellis’ & John Cassaday’s Planetary.  As Travis puts it:  “the annotations are panel by panel and the analysis veers away from summarizing the stories and focuses more on the thematic and technical elements of the comic.”

Eamonn Clarke has written a set of annotations to the three Scarlet Traces graphic novels by Ian Edginton and Matt Brooker aka D’Israeli.  The first volume is a fairly faithful adaptation ofThe War of the Worlds itself. The second book in the series (although it was published first), Scarlet Traces, is set ten years later in a dramatically altered England and features a murder investigation and some unpleasant events.  The third book is Scarlet Traces: The Great Game which takes the action forward another thirty years to a time when hostilities between the two worlds have resumed.

Eamonn Clarke has also written a set of annotations to Leviathan by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli.

While not annotations per se, there’s an interesting analysis written by Jon Haddock called “A Subjective History of Super Heroes – (for people who don’t read comics).  Worth a look.

James Enelow has begun to annotate Planetary, by Warren Ellis.

Julian Darius of The Continuity Pages has done an extensive annotation of Michael Bendis’ “Underboss” storyline in Daredevil (volume 2) #26-#31!!  It includes an “ordered” timeline (check it out to see what I mean), cover shots, and lots of interesting info.  It’s recently been updated (at the end of August, 2003), so check it out!

Travis Howard and Elliot Kane have done a literary analysis, including symbolism, themes, psychological profiles, and histories, of all the Crossgen (CGE) titles.  It’s pretty amazing, actually (said as a fan of what Crossgen has done).  You can find their site here.

Hooper_X has updated his annotations for Simon Furman & Don Figueroa’s Transformers: The War Within — it now includes the entire series, issues #1-6.

Hooper_X is on a roll, and has finished version 1 of his Chasing Dogma annotations, one in the series of View Askew comics written by Kevin Smith.

Shannon Patrick Sullivan has written annotations for Kurt Busiek’s Astro City.  The annotations cover all 6 issues of Volume 1, and the first 14 issues (plus issue 1/2) of Volume 2.

1602

1602 is a quite popular annotation topic, as one would guess given it’s written by Neil Gaiman (along with Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove).

Jess Nevins has begun an annotation — he now has them for issues #1-3.  As always, Jess’ annotations are mirrored on this site and you can get them here.

Julian Darius of the Continuity Pages has also started one independently, the latest version (which includes #1-#4) you can get here

Finally, Jason Pomerantz has written a piece called “Mysteries and Conundrums in Neil Gaiman’s 1602”.  This article focuses on trying to decipher the puzzles and guess the plot points in the story.  It can be found at the Comic World News forum.  Issue 1 is here.  Issue 2 is here.  Issue 3 is here.  Issue 4 is here.  Issue 5 is here.  Issue 6 is here.  Issue 7 is here.  Issue 8 is here.  He also did an interesting interview with Neil Gaiman, which covers (in part) 1602.  You can find it here.

Alexx Kay has created the annotated Cerebus, which he has permitted me to mirror.  It’s broken into 3 parts:  The Cerebus Timeline, The Annotated Cerebus, and The Cerebus Concordance.  Warning:  though text only, they’re long and will take ~1 minute to load on a 28.8 modem.

Ron Dipols has created the annotated Asterix (English and American translations).

Mario Di Giacomo has written annotations and a FAQ for Marvel Boy, the Marvel Knights six-issue miniseries written by Grant Morrison and penciled by JG Jones.  He has kindly given me permission to host both of them.

Gareth Jelley has done a commentary/annotation for the first issue of Bryan Talbot’s The Adventures of Luther Arkwright.  He’s planning to do more, so please contact him if you’d like to help.

“Quick pass” annotations for Marvels were created by Lance Visser.  While not extensive, if you’re looking for some specific facts they may be able to help.

For Simpson’s fans, there are annotations for Bongo Comic’s Radioactive Man series put together by Marc Singer.  They cover #1-6 (#’s 1, 88, 216, 412, 679, 1000), and the 80 Page Colossal.   Radioactive man is a real comic published off and on in the 1990s. It is based on the fictional comic Radioactive Man from the TV show “The Simpsons”.  On “The Simpsons”, it has supposedly been printed continuously since the 1950s. The real series is maintaining that facade, by printing the issues as if they were written over a forty-year span.

The prodigious Eroom Nala has annotated Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #9, featuring “From Hell and Back” written, pencilled, inked and lettered by Gary Spencer Millidge with colouring by Nathan Kane.  You can also find it here.

The Comix-fan website has annotations for the DC/Marvel cross-over event JLA/Avengers #1, with notes to all the hidden (and not so hidden) references.

While not annotations per se, Ben Szumskyj has done a very cool bibliography of sorts for Hellboy.  He’s written a compilation of research materials read or used by Mike Mignola (the author of Hellboy), and it’s worth checking out. [Note: this site is down.  If you have any information on it, or how to contact Ben, please e-mail me.]

Scott Martin annotated the graphic novel edition of The Crow, by James O’Barr.

David Salley has annotated all of Girl Genius by Studio Foglio.

Alphonso Mason did some very funny pseudo-parody annotations of Lethargic Lad #3, which in itself was a parody issue of the Kingdom Come series.

Space Knights has been annotated as well, at least issues #1-3 of the 5 issue series.  Written by Lee Seitz, they’re hosted here on the site:  click for Issue #1, Issue #2, or Issue #3 or all 3 on one page.

Partial annotations for Sovereign Seven Plus, “designed to help new readers understand what’s going on” can be foundhere.

Rich Lai annotated Jean-Marc Lofficier’s Alone in the Dark comic.  For those interested in occult terminology, both Non-Mythos and Mythos, it’s nicely done.

Between them, Dave Van Deomelen and Ron Dippols annotated 3 of the 4 issues of The Amazing Slapstick mini-series from 1992.  Here are the annotations to The Amazing Slapstick #2, The Amazing Slapstick #3 and The Amazing Slapstick #4.

In 1993, Dave Van Domelen also annotated Cherry’s Jubilee #3, a comic book that I’ve never heard of.  If you’re interested, you can find the annotation here.

I don’t know if it’s fair to call these annotations or not, but the Classic Comic Books home page is worth linking to for its information and critical analysis on such classics as The Superman Family of Comic Books 1958 – 1966, Science Fiction comic books like Tommy Tomorrow, and Golden Age heroes like the Shining Knight.

Again, this isn’t exactly an annotation, but it’s worth checking out.  Adam Frey has created an unofficial timeline for Marvel’s Earth X trilogy.