Tag Archive: Titan Books


Look inside the second volume of The Mandalorian: The Art and Imagery

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Sci-Fi Café, TV — 1 Comment
April 17, 2021

Art Imagery vol 2 a

Star Wars’ first live-action TV series, The Mandalorian was created by fans for fans, and every frame tugs at the nostalgia the franchise’s fans hold for the original 1970s and 1980s trilogy.  With those films the most fans could hope for were magazines and books, often ordered via Scholastic book orders at their schools, each showing a few images from the films that could take us–in a snap–back to the movies.  It’s something fans of the franchise have gotten excited about now for nearly 44 years running.  From the first publication of Ralph McQuarrie’s earliest concept art, fans wanted more.  We’ve seen several books on The Mandalorian, including Abrams Books’ The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian (reviewed here).  The first of the behind the scenes books we reviewed in October here at borg was Titan Magazines’ The Mandalorian: The Art & Imagery, covering the first four episodes of the first season.  Now The Mandalorian: The Art & Imagery Volume 2 is available, and you can order it here at Amazon or find it at any brick and mortar bookstore.  Take a look inside…

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Firefly Artbook: A Visual Celebration preview–Artists pay homage to a modern sci-fi classic

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
February 23, 2021

It’s been more than 18 years since we first met Mal Reynolds and his (usually) loyal crew of the Firefly class ship Serenity.  Fans of the Firefly series and 2005 film Serenity, will never stop loving their travels around the ‘Verse, and are always looking for more adventures and tie-ins.  The next will be a celebration of artwork in the pages of Firefly Artbook: A Visual Celebration.  We’ve taken a look at multi-artist tribute concept books before at borg, including the excellent Alien: 40 Years/40 Artists, The Thing Artbook, Star Trek: 50 Artists/50 Years, and The Mike Wieringo Tellos Tribute.  Any time we showcase a major benchmark in comic book titles, like Detective Comics 1000th issue, Wonder Woman’s 750th issue, and The Amazing Spider-Man Issue #800, or charity projects like the Wonder Woman 100 showcase, we see a great new spin on favorite characters from a new vantage: a variety of artists interpreting an icon of popular culture.  In Firefly Artbook: A Visual Celebration, Browncoats everywhere will get to see the next artists’ interpretations.  The new tribute arrives in March, but you can pre-order a copy now here at Amazon, and check out a preview below:

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Weapon X–Novel omnibus adapts the comics of Wolverine’s origin story and more

Filed under: Comics & Books, Superheroes — Leave a comment
January 7, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

You may know about Logan aka Wolverine via his movies as played by Hugh Jackman or 47 years of stories in comic books.  But did you know the mutant with the claws and regeneration abilities was part of the same program that gave Steve Rogers his powers as Captain America?  Steve was part of the project as Weapon I and the tenth project–Weapon X–was conducted by scientists in Canada who further tried to make a superweapon by upgrading Wolverine with adamantium, and this melding of the organic and metallic turned him into a cyborg.  That Frankenstein-inspired update to Wolverine’s origin was first written in comics by Barry Windsor-Smith in 2004 as Marvel’s first novel adaptation of comics for adults in Weapon X.  Now that novel is part of a three-part omnibus available from Titan Books as Wolverine: Weapon X–A Marvel Omnibus, part of its rapidly building library of Marvel novels.

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The Art of Star Trek: Discovery goes where no one has gone before–behind the scenes of the first two seasons

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
December 28, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

After delivering a dozen Star Trek books, fiction and non-fiction, authors Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann are back in the franchise, this time covering the entire first two seasons of CBS All Access’s Star Trek: Discovery in their new book The Art of Star Trek: Discovery.  This is the latest concept art and film production book in a franchise of some of the best printed TV and film retrospectives.  Star Trek: Discovery, which led the newest chapter in the television Star Trek Universe (followed by Short Treks, Picard and Lower Decks), follows the exploits of Vulcan-raised science officer Michael Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery as they boldly go where no one has gone before.  This book covers every corner of the series in an attractive hardcover full of great photographs.

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borg’s Best of 2020–The Best Books

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Con Culture, Fantasy Realms, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, Superheroes, TV — Leave a comment
December 17, 2020

Our borg Best of 2020 list continues today with the Best Books of 2020.  If you missed them, check out our reviews of the Best Movies of 2020 here, the Kick-Ass Heroines of 2020 here, and the Best in TV 2020 here.  Our list continues tomorrow with the Best Comics and Games of 2020.  And we wrap-up the year with our additions to the borg Hall of Fame later this month.

We reviewed more than 100 books that we recommended to our readers this year, and some even made it onto our favorites shelf.  We don’t publish reviews of books that we read and don’t recommend, so this shortlist reflects only this year’s cream of the crop.

So let’s get going!

Best Sci-Fi, Best Thriller Novel – Hearts of Oak by Eddie Robson (Tor Books).  It’s a far-out science fiction novel with all the right notes of a good supernatural fantasy.  And it has an easy pace and an impending, looming darkness waiting ahead that will keep you planted firmly in your seat until you get to the last page.

Best Tie-In Novel – Bloodshot novelization by Gavin Smith (Titan Books).  A great update to the genre that began with Martin Caidin’s Cyborg, Smith creates an exciting, vivid novelization of the comic book character adapted to the big screen.  Honorable mention: Firefly: The Ghost Machine by James Lovegrove (Titan Books).

There are many more best book selections to go…

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Over the Moon–Leonard Maltin illuminates the journey behind Netflix’s ambitious animated film

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Fantasy Realms, Movies, TV — Leave a comment
December 13, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

Over the Moon is Netflix’s latest achievement in animation, a Chinese-American production with Pearl Studio about a young girl named Fei Fei (meaning “to fly”) who decides to build a rocket to the moon.  The animation style is a mix of 1990s Disney, elaborate and surreal Fantasia-inspired sequences of color and texture, with doses of Japanese anime and kawaii characters while immersed in Chinese culture–and it’s a musical.   In a word the film is ambitious… in a good way.  At its best, visually the 3D CGI visual effects may recall the groundbreaking imagery of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.  The sweet and innocent girl’s story is built on the idea that a kid can actually build a ship to go into outer space (just as in the 1980s film Explorers).  But as with many animated movies, like Bambi and Dumbo, its focus is on the serious issue of overcoming grief, and in this case it’s moving on after the death of a parent, so the audience for the film may be a bit narrow.  To take Netflix viewers on a deeper journey, film critic and historian Leonard Maltin has written a behind the scenes look at the making of the film and its stunning artwork.  Below we have a preview of his Over the Moon: Illuminating the Journey for borg readers.

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The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway–The Voyager captain tells her story “in her own words”

Filed under: Comics & Books, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
November 30, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

The latest of the in-universe Star Trek biography books takes fans of the franchise back to Star Trek Voyager in The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway.  The captain made famous by Kate Mulgrew takes readers through key life events that led to her role as one of Starfleet’s greatest leaders, and she provides her recollections on seven years in the Delta Quadrant.  For fans looking for a trip through memory lane and the key encounters of the crew on Star Trek Voyager, all in that calming and authoritative voice, they will find it here.

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Exclusive preview–The Philosophy of Spider-Man is swinging your way

Filed under: Comics & Books, Superheroes — Leave a comment
November 28, 2020

Titan Comics is running a 12 Days of Spider-Man event and for the ninth day today we’re revealing an exclusive look inside the new book The Philosophy of Spider-Man.  Similar in concept to The Wisdom of Picard (featured here earlier this week), The Philosophy of Spider-Man takes a look back at those Peter Parker phrases and ideas that define one of the biggest superheroes in comics today.

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Spider-Man Miles Morales–Prequel novel springboards the webslinger into the PlayStation game

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Movies, Superheroes — Leave a comment
November 25, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

Comic book readers knew him first when he was created in 2011 from the mind of Brian Michael Bendis in the pages of Marvel Comics, then in 2018 Miles Morales took the world by storm in the groundbreaking animated movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, one of the best animated films that year.  A new novel for teens fleshes out the young superhero as he moves to a new neighborhood and experiences a new generation’s take on the teen angst once exhibited in the comics pages of newspapers everywhere by his mentor, Peter Parker.  Spider-Man Miles Morales: Wings of Fury is a prequel novel (not a comic book) to the new PlayStation game Spider-Man: Miles Morales from Insomniac Games and Sony, but it’s a story that can appeal to anyone beaten up and battered around by life and circumstance.

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The Artistry of Dan Curry–A chronicle of a Star Trek artist’s work from The Next Generation to Enterprise

Filed under: Comics & Books, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
November 20, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

We previewed Dan Curry’s new look back at his work on Star Trek in September.  The nicely designed full color hardcover, Star Trek: The Artistry of Dan Curry is designed and reads like a true sequel to Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens landmark 1995 book The Art of Star Trek, once the only definitive look at the artwork behind the franchise (we’ve covered nearly all the Star Trek art books since then here at borg).  Like any professional in the art and design fields for a television or feature film crew, Dan Curry had a variety of projects he handled.  This book digs into Curry’s work from 1987 to 2005, basically Star Trek: The Next Generation through Enterprise, where he served as visual effects supervisor/producer, second-unit director, title designer, and concept designer, winning seven Emmys for his effort.

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