S. Awan is an independent journalist, culture lover and student of history, navigating the depths of various aspects of culture, politics, music, film, the controversial and the weird.
Also a musician, and part-time freelance, involuntary human being. Also occasionally lives on the moon. Also is a ghost. And a cigarette butt that hasn't been put out properly; so, you know, there's still, like, smoke coming out of it and stuff...
“In my twenties, I had a lot of existential angst about who I was and who I wanted other people to see me as,” says the writer of one of the coolest new independent comic-books out there. “That conflict externalized in another character that eventually evolved to be Paradox Girl…”
Paradox Girl #1 from Hana Comics presents a very fresh and original comic book; an interesting, original premise, written with smart wit, brimming with energy, and seamlessly illustrated.
You may have heard of the Bio-Wars comic book already. If not, you can go check out the comics online (and for free) here; or read my previous review of the first issues here.
A diary kept by the late actor Heath Ledger while he was preparing to play The Joker in the classic 2008 Batman film, ‘The Dark Knight’, has excited a lot interest among fans recently.
Some websites have been reporting that the diary video is from a soon-to-be-released docu-film called ‘Heath Ledger: Too Young to Die’; it isn’t. It’s actually from an existing episode of a German documentary ‘Liebling der Götter’, from 2012.
As psychological subjects for a comic-book go, they don’t come much richer than the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader… or the Artist Formerly Known as Anakin Skywalker.
Though there are any number of characters from the rich Star Wars tapestry that I love, it’s hard to argue against Vader always having been the most fascinating.
I think one of my first experiences of the idea of romantic love might’ve been as a six-year-old, watching Princess Leia Organa cradling a blaster and fighting off Stormtroopers on the Cloud City of Bespin in the Empire Strikes Back. I sort of fell in love, and sort of vowed to my infant self that one day, somehow, I would have her.
Alas, it was not to be. I did, however, get a five-issue Princess Leia series from Marvel instead; which isn’t quite what I’d had in mind, but it’s something.
When I was a little kid, I remember I used to draw Darth Vader,Boba Fett and the Imperial Tie-Fighters compulsively.
Whenever I had a spare bit of paper or whenever my mind wandered, I would end up doodling variations of those images. I also drew (and coloured in) a few fanboy, speculative comic-book covers; one with Fett crawling out of the Sarlaac pit and another of the Ewok Wicket.
No, really – there is a war going on inside your body. ‘As a pre-med student at NYU, I took an endocrinology course and became fascinated by how cells within our bodies communicate with each other,’ says ‘Bio-Wars‘ creator, Gabriel Shaoolian. ‘I started to see the body as a bio-cosmos all unto itself. A micro-universe, in which incredible battles for existence and the struggle to survive constantly take place…’
‘Rather than going to medical school,’ he explains, ‘I decided to pursue Biowars ‘.
