blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Al Milgrom
Dark Horse Presents 109 (May 1996)
I can’t believe I’m about to make this statement—I liked Milgrom’s story the best. It’s some charming little thing about a guy treating his roaches as pets (after all other attempts at pet owning in New York fail). Milgrom’s style is more comic strip than I’ve seen and it works. Even if the protagonist does […]
MorePeter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 95 (October 1984)
I guess this issue is better than the last one. Milgrom’s directly continuing it, which will probably wreck havoc in the monthly Spider-Man continuity over in Amazing, and he keeps his recap of the previous issue brief. The writing is still bad–in the case of Cloak and Dagger and the Black Cat, very, very bad–and […]
MorePeter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 94 (September 1984)
What would I do without Al Milgrom? I’d never have been able to understand this issue, like when Cloak and Dagger talk to each other about their origin. Or when Peter thinks all about the problems he’s been having with the Black Cat and then explains their last adventure together. But Milgrom is dealing with […]
MorePeter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 93 (August 1984)
Milgrom sure does like some naked Peter Parker. He’s got Petey traipsing around his apartment in a too short robe, even answering the door for his landlady in it, then tossing it at the fourth wall to get into his costume. The art this issue is rather bad, which is always a surprise. Spider-Man was […]
MorePeter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 92 (July 1984)
Milgrom spends the majority of the issue on Spidey and the Black Cat fighting a new villain, the Answer, who’s one of Kingpin’s henchmen. It all ties into the Black Cat getting her powers from Kingpin and… and… and I’m bored already. The first half of the issue isn’t terrible. I mean, the art’s weak. […]
MorePeter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 91 (June 1984)
It takes them a while–almost the entire issue–but Milgrom and Mooney eventually get a couple good panels in here. When I say good panels, I mean good close-ups. I wasn’t really paying attention to the art (it’s marvelously mediocre) as there’s so much else to get the reader’s attention. Like Peter Parker thinking crappy thoughts […]
MorePeter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 90 (May 1984)
People used to read this comic on purpose? Like, they’d go to the store and buy it and want to read it? Maybe this issue isn’t the norm, but something tells me Milgrom’s writing isn’t going to be much better when he’s writing Spider-Man than when he’s writing the Black Cat. I mean, the issue […]
MoreSpider-Man: Chapter One 12 (October 1999)
It’s so bad. It’s so bad I’m not even going to go on a super-rant about it because I think Byrne had to know it was terrible and it doesn’t seem sportsmanlike to kick him after such an absurdly bad comic book. It retells the Sandman story from Amazing, but sets it later in Spidey’s […]
MoreSpider-Man: Chapter One 11 (September 1999)
Oh, wow. This issue is actually the worst. The dialogue is so unbearably bad, it doesn’t even matter Milgrom’s inks are a little better than last time. Spider-Man gets in a fight with Giant-Man and the Wasp–who Byrne portrays as being entirely narcissistic and without any heroic qualities whatsoever, but still forces the reader to […]
MoreSpider-Man: Chapter One 10 (August 1999)
And there you have it… I say something nice and this issue’s my reward. This issue might be the worst. I mean, maybe not in terms of scenic writing, but certainly in terms of plotting and art. Milgrom’s inks here are atrocious. The only panel he doesn’t seem to ruin is a close-up of Johnny […]
MoreSpider-Man: Chapter One 9 (July 1999)
This issue might actually be the best one of the series (so far). I mean, the Daredevil appearance at the beginning is awful–actually, wait, the whole beginning is awful. Actually, everything’s awful except the fight in Central Park against Kraven and the Chameleon. And even it has bad art–Al Milgrom is a terrible inker for […]
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