Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner

Entries Tagged as 'comics'

How They Saw Us, Cont’d

July 5th, 2012 · Comments Off on How They Saw Us, Cont’d

Quite some time ago, I posted about classic Soviet animation that hilariously stereotyped America as a Darwinian nightmare. As someone who grew up thinking that life in Moscow was accurately portrayed by that Wendy’s fashion show commercial, I was strangely pleased to learn that my Soviet peers were similarly duped into thinking that human happiness […]

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Tighten Up Tighter

June 11th, 2012 · Comments Off on Tighten Up Tighter

The Army knew better than to stick a talent like Will Eisner in a foxhole. The artist was allowed to serve his country from behind a drawing board, where he was the chief creative force behind a series of comic instructional manuals. The best-known of these was Preventive Maintenance Monthly, the highlight of which was […]

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More Than Just a Sandwich Eater

March 28th, 2012 · 1 Comment

For those of y’all who follow my microblog, you might have noticed a recent fascination with pop-culture relics of the early Atomic Age. That interest is a spin-off of a book-related strand about America’s early nuclear reactors, one of which plays a small-yet-pivotal role in the plot. As I iron out some kinks in that […]

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Considerable Exertion

March 8th, 2012 · Comments Off on Considerable Exertion

Stealing a day to seal myself up in the writing cave, with the goal of getting halfway through Chapter Fourteen. Occupy your spare moments by sifting through this impressively complete collection of vintage track-and-field trading cards. The comic-book covers are also worth your time; I had no idea about Scrooge McDuck’s pole-vaulting prowess.

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Exit the Tripods

February 8th, 2012 · Comments Off on Exit the Tripods

Saddened to hear of the passing of John Christopher, creator of one of my formative sci-fi experiences: the harrowing Tripods Trilogy. As I discussed nearly two years ago, Christopher’s tale of alien overlords was far more than crackling adventure yarn; it also centered on a powerful metaphor for parenthood that I admire to this day. […]

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Grunt’s Eye View

September 21st, 2011 · 1 Comment

I never did care much for war comics as a kid, and so always flipped past back issues The ‘Nam when searching for the latest Wolverine. But now that the latest book has got me looking for ways to bring the jungles of Long Khanh Province alive, I’ve found myself relying on some choice The […]

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Commerce Above All

August 30th, 2011 · 6 Comments

Those who’ve been keeping score might have noticed a recent Microkhan obsession with visual communication—particularly the way in which simple illustrated material can be used to convey complex messages. This is an interest that dates back to my first exposure to Chick tracts, and has now ramped up with all the energy I’ve been pouring […]

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Komrad Ivan

August 22nd, 2011 · Comments Off on Komrad Ivan

Greetings from a rather random corner of Southern California, where I find myself pursuing the heart-and-soul of my next book. While I’m busy interviewing an eyewitness to historic events that the bulk of Americans have long forgotten, please take a moment to delve into the University of Nebraska’s rich trove of government-issued comics. Given Microkhan’s […]

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Where in the World is The Human Fly?

June 23rd, 2011 · 8 Comments

Inspired by The New York Times‘ successful effort to crowdsource a solution to a Nazi mystery, I’ve decided to try something similar in these slightly less august digital pages. Instead of identifying a photographer who documented the brutality of war, my goal is to find out whatever became of Rick Rojatt, a Canadian stuntman who […]

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The Garry Trudeau of Papua New Guinea

March 9th, 2011 · 2 Comments

Sad news out of Port Moresby, as cartoonist Bob Browne has passed on well before his time: He was the creator of Mr Grass Roots, perhaps Papua New Guinea’s most loved comic character, which the magazine Islands Business once called “the social conscience of PNG”… Roots became the Papua New Guinean Everyman, the knock-about character […]

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Cancer Sticks in the Clink

January 4th, 2011 · 7 Comments

One of my favorite economics story of the millennium is the Wall Street Journal‘s 2008 A-head about the use of tinned mackerel as prison currency. It’s a fantastic testament to the primacy of money; even when removed from ordinary society, humans always find a way to regulate their commerce by creating tangible symbols of achievement. […]

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Super Croat

July 21st, 2010 · Comments Off on Super Croat

(Cross-posted from Ta-Nehisi Coates) I know y’all spend a lot of time talking about superheroes, given Ta-Nehisi’s lifelong predilection for Spider-Man, Batman, and various members of the Marvel mutant universe. As a former comic-book nerd myself, who hopes that his cherry copy of Uncanny X-Men #266 (first Gambit appearance!) will someday fund his son’s education, […]

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I Saw the Shadow of No Parting From You

April 2nd, 2010 · 1 Comment

The last week’s been mighty rough, as we suffered through an illness akin to that which Pip endured toward the end of Great Expectations. Yet just as Dickens’ hero pulled through the ordeal to hear the joyous news that Joe and Biddy got married, we have come through the other side with lifted hearts and […]

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The Absolute Nadir of Animation

January 15th, 2010 · 11 Comments

One of the greatest movie-review slams we’ve come across in recent months is Nathan Rabin’s brutal takedown of I Hate Valentine’s Day, the latest project from My Big, Fat Greek Wedding mastermind Nia Vardalos. The whole pan is full of choice insults, but the apex comes in the kicker: “If the comic strip character Cathy […]

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The Universality of Whaam!

October 29th, 2009 · 6 Comments

We’ll confess, we often scoff at university courses that focus exclusively on contemporary pop culture—as much as we would have liked to have taken “The Simpsons as Satirical Authors,” for example, we’re not entirely convinced those classroom hours couldn’t be better spent slogging through Ulysses. But we’d make an exception for a comparative literature course […]

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The Original Action Jackson (er, Jaxon)

February 27th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Original Action Jackson (er, Jaxon)

A big slab of my research for Now the Hell Will Start took place in the bowels of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. I spent way too many hours jacked into the library’s microfilm machine, flipping through wartime copies of the Chicago Defender. As you might expect, a lot of what caught […]

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