Over two decades ago, Jim Balent had a comfortable gig with a big time publisher, bringing his own inimitable style to CATWOMAN for DC Comics.

Then, in 2000, he walked away from that to go independent with his own imprint, Broadsword Comics, and his own creation, TAROT, WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE. And he did this without the benefit of the existence of Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or any other crowdfunding assistance.

It was a huge leap of faith, and now, 19 years later with nary an issue missed of the 114-book run, Broadsword Comics is still going strong with Jim and Holly Golightly doing everything from writing, drawing, lettering, coloring -- the whole shebang.

We were privileged to get this livestream interview with The Busiest (and Most Fun) Couple in Comics, to talk about Tarot, comic books, and... STAR WARS? We hope you'll have as much fun watching this as we had doing it!

Much ado was made about the iconic British sci-fi show, DOCTOR WHO, when the Doctor regenerated once more, this time into female form and played by JODIE WHITTAKER. More than that, the former showrunner, STEVEN MOFFAT, was leaving as well, putting the new direction of the show up in the air. Some fans were prepared to love the series, no matter what; others seemed determined to hate the series, no matter what.

The true measure of this eleventh season fell somewhere in between--not as bad as the naysayers put it, but nowhere near as good as the positive numbers indicated.

Lego toys--everybody loves ‘em, unless you step on one. Tiny plastic bricks embedded in your foot will send you from serene to swearing instantly. Did you ever once think, “You know, these fun little bits of plastic and the yellow, stiff-limbed action figures that often come with them would make for an absurdly funny and at times touching film nearly everyone, regardless of age, would enjoy. Why, it would be so popular, in fact, that it would spawn a full-fledged Hollywood franchise, spin-off movies, a TV show, and theme park rides?”

Raven Hex has turned down the proposal of marriage from Gala-Pen-Lot, the Dragon Prince, and now she is having second thought, recriminations, and engages in some serious soul-searching about what she really wants versus what she has always struggled for. When she finally opens her heart and allows herself to express her true feelings, a burden is lifted from her. Delighted and enlightened, she prepares to change her life and go onto a new path -- just as tragedy is revealed to her.

Holly Golightly gives this issue a very muted color treatment this issue over Jim Balent's pencils, which adds to the whole reminescent mood of Raven Hex's ruminations. The book is the lead in to the 19th anniversary issue of TAROT, WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #115, appearing March 2019.

For a full review on this issue, check out our livestream video below.

The Earth is having a critical energy crisis. It's only hope lies with the experiments on an orbiting space station, where an international group of astronauts tries to fire up a super collider. If they are successful, they will provide a limitless source of free energy.

Of course, they may also rip a whole in space time, interact with parallel realities, and unleash demons on the world -- but those are just the ravings of Internet conspiracist Mark Stambler (GOTHAM's DONAL LOGUE), a theory he calls "The Paradox."

After some unsuccessful attempts, the collider works -- and then overloads. And the Earth is gone, and common knowledge has gone with it.

Among the many series that have been a setting for Scooby-Doo and the gang, there was the 1985 show, THE 13 GHOSTS OF SCOOBY-DOO, an adventure series starring Shaggy, Scooby, and Daphne, accompanied by Scrappy and a young con-artist named Flim-Flam. In this series, Shaggy had opened a chest of demons, releasing the 13 ghosts inside. Due to the wording of the curse, only the person who released the ghosts could put them back in -- so a globe-spanning series began, with their mystic mentor, Vincent Van Ghoul (voiced by VINCENT PRICE), leading them from one caper to the next.

This series was unlike previous incarnations of the show, because the ghosts were not people in rubber masks using hidden rope-and-pulley systems, but actual spirits. However, during the course of the show's run, they only captured twelve of the ghosts.

If Spring is when our thoughts and fancies are supposed to take a turn for the romantic, then why is Valentine's Day right smack dab in the middle of wintry February? Oh, who cares, when you have some gorgeous cosplay that's hot enough to melt the snow from your sidewalk?

So we're cutting out paper hearts, gluing on glitter and beads, writing rhymes in our fanciest cursive with red markers, and slipping this special Valentine into your decorated mailbox for all your little love notes and cards -- as we happily present to you, our readers, the...

Critical Blast Bombshell, February 2019

Batgirlio

Fiddler on the Roof is the sort of musical that everyone knows, or is at least aware of. My mother used to play “Sunrise, Sunset” on the family record player when I was a kid. Somehow, the rest of the music and the context for that famous song had eluded me until now. Fiddler on the Roof plays the fabulous Fox Theatre January 29 – February 10, 2019, bringing the Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick production that first bowed in 1964 back to St .Louis. For many of the show’s fans, it will be a joyous occasion. For me, it wasn’t bad, just not what I was expecting. I wasn’t even aware this was a Russian story. I’ve never watched the film version, or even perused the Wikipedia entry. I assumed it would be more along the lines of Zorba! My ignorance aside, Fiddler on the Roof is a sparsely staged but deeply moving production.

We've reached the exact midway point of Tom King and Clay Mann's murder mystery series, HEROES IN CRISIS, and things are adding up less and less.

We start with the cover, which shows the case file for the murder of Jason Todd. Except he's alive as the Red Hood. We've gone over that whole thing before when Batman gave his confession at Sanctuary about so many of his partners dying when they're all alive and kicking.

Add to this the polluting of past heroes during their Sanctuary confessions, some unbelievable confrontations, a major revelation that's actually more of a plot hole than anything else, and HEROES IN CRISIS begins to shape up into one beautiful mess.

Key points in this issue include:

• Batgirl lying to Batman (unconvincingly) and getting away with it.
• Booster Gold getting the drop on The Flash.
• Superman giving a longer speech than the one that got cut from SUPERMAN IV.

Here, take a look for yourselves:

The first time you see Avenue Q, a musical parody of Sesame Street written by Jeff Whitty with music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, you'll either be laughing uncontrollably or seething with indignation. The story of how a puppet character with a Bachelors of Arts in English interacts with the humans, puppets and monsters of Avenue Q in search of his "purpose" is one of the least politically correct musicals there is. If you're the type of person who gets easily offended by jokes about....anything, pretty much... go at your own risk. If you are the type of person who can put whatever personal crusades you believe in aside for a couple of hours and laugh at yourself, you're going to love it. 

With this episode, we finally delve deeper into the mystery of why Nora Allen (JESSICA PARKER KENNEDY) is visiting from the future -- and it's not just because she wants to capture Cicada (CHRIS KLEIN). She's taking direction from none other than Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash (TOM CAVANAGH), to change history.

Of course, stopping Cicada is part of that, and the hope is that they can appeal to him to stop his meta-killing crusade if they can resolve the core of his motivations: his comatose niece, Grace (ISLIE HIRVONEN). To awaken her, the team utilizes a memory machine from another Earth, brought over by Sherloque Wells (also CAVANAGH), that will allow them to enter Grace's memories. But when Nora learns that it will also allow her father to potentially see her own memories, she decides to go in early, and alone, becoming trapped in Grace's mind.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera is beloved by many, but there is a portion of the theatre-going public who believe it’s severely overrated. For those of you who fall into the latter category, there’s a wonderful production performing an all-too-short run at the Florissant Civic Center right now that might be the perfect alternative for the Phantom- weary audience. The Next Generation Theatre Company’s production of Jekyll and Hyde is a tremendously engaging show, but the final curtain for this run will fall on February 2, 2019, so you had better get your tickets as soon as possible.

No matter how fastidious you are in maintaining your comic shop pull list in your never-ending battle to make sure you don't miss anything good (or accidentally waste your money on something not so much), it never hurts to do a last minute check on what's coming out this week so you can make those fine-tuned adjustments.

Here are our looks at this week's upcoming comics, and our hot takes on whether they're a pick or a pan. Your mileage may vary.

With THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN, the DC Animated Universe gave us a story that was emotionally impacting, as it developed the budding romance between Superman (JERRY O'CONNELL) and Lois Lane (REBECCA ROMIJN), with the Man of Steel having recently revealed to her his secret identity of Clark Kent. And then, Doomsday came, the battle was joined, and Superman was dead.

Or was he? Because the cliffhanger ending left us with a stolen body and an empty tomb.

FULLER HOUSE continues to recapture the feelings of 1990s sitcoms -- or at least our sappy sentimental memories of them. Sometimes it seems like the show is a bit too huggy, a tad heavy on recalling tropes. For instance: the front door. Anyone can walk in, to the point that the response to the doorbell is someone calling, "It's always open!" How has this family never been robbed? Because it's FULLER HOUSE, where everything from broken legs to ruined weddings are all part of the puzzle to a happy ending every thirty minutes.

One's in the system trying to make a buck. The other is trying to buck the system.

Michael Tierney is the owner of two comic shops -- The Comic Book Store in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and Collector's Edition in Little Rock, Arkansas. With 37 years experience running the business and as a contributor to the Overstreet Price Guide, he has a keen insight into the state of the comics industry from the front lines.

Peter Simeti is the publisher of Alterna Comics, an independent producer of comics done on newsprint with a price point unheard of since 1985 -- and he's got some radical ideas for changing the accepted dynamics of the comic book distribution model.

We've been keen on getting both of these guys on a livestream, but then it hit us: What if we brought them together on the SAME livestream, to bounce ideas off each other and maybe, just maybe, come up with one or two good ones.

The results were better than we could have hoped.

As the 1980s were drawing to a close, DC Comics mature imprint, Vertigo, had a series called SWAMP THING. Rick Veitch was writing it, and his story arc had the plant elemental on a journey backward through time, having him wind up in historically important events to the DC timeline.

SWAMP THING #88 was intended to be "Morning of the Magician," which would have placed Swamp Thing at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. DC pulled the plug on the issue and Veitch walked away. While there was nothing seemingly blasphemous about Christ's appearance in the story, DC was shy of the controversy, since they had a SWAMP THING television series in development.

They've apparently gotten over their shyness, because now Vertigo is releasing what is intended to be a six-issue miniseries, SECOND COMING,

GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN is a film that's quite obviously going to be enjoyed more by kids than by grown-ups. The horror comedy is based not on any single book of R.L. Stine's, but rather on the series as a whole, presenting them as actualities that Stine chronicles or, in this case, inadvertently creates.

The adventure begins when two friends, Sonny (JEREMY RAY TAYLOR) and Sam (CALEEL HARRIS) are hired to clean the junk out of an old abandoned house, and find a locked book in a trunk, as well as a familiar-looking ventriloquist dummy. Yes, it's Slappy, and he's looking to bond with the boys and become a brother to them. But he shows his true colors when he gets overprotective of Sonny's older sister, Sarah (MADISON ISEMAN), sending her jerk boyfriend tumbling from a tall ladder.

I love backing new games on Kickstarter, especially ones from new designers, first time publishers, or with a favorite theme. When I saw the KS page for Churrascaria, I was very intrigued. It seemed like it would be a huge hit in my home. The quick game play, wonderful theme, colorful art, and cutthroat element were all very compelling to me. Of all the games I backed, this one had great potential to be a part of every board game night.

When it arrived, I could not wait to begin learning how to play. Unfortunately, I struggled through the copious rules, rich with examples rather than instructions. The wording was not consistent, the paragraphs were too long, and relevance of the examples were not made for someone with a cognitive need for simplification. Even the setup instructions were slightly puzzling. I did find the simple setup illustration to be of great use.

Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, was one of the set of Charlton characters used as the basis for DC Comics' WATCHMEN series. Doctor Manhattan was supposed to be Captain Atom. Nite Owl was supposed to be Blue Beetle. Rorschach was supposed to be The Question. Comedian was supposed to be Peacemaker. Silk Spectre, Nightshade. And Ozymandias, the smartest man in the world, was supposed to be Peter Cannon.

So going into the comic book, PETER CANNON: THUNDERBOLT #1, from Dynamite Comics (and Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard), there's a natural bias to thinking, "This character reminds me of Ozymandias."

In fact, there are three phases the reader will go through when reading this comic:

1. Gee, this is kind of derivative of WATCHMEN.

2. Oh for crying out loud, they're just ripping off WATCHMEN.

3. HOLY SHIT! CALL THE POLICE, THEY JUST TOTALLY ROBBED WATCHMEN AND IT WAS GLORIOUS!

What do we mean by that? Watch and see...