'The Little Master': Part 1

In the cold winter nights of December in the year 2003, when the chill in the air lulled everyone to sleep, I stayed awake. It was during the World Cup, that very year, that my father instilled in me an enormous interest towards cricket.Though I give my father the majority of the credit, there was one other man who ensured my eyes were glued to the television set. He went on to score a total of 673 runs in the World Cup tournament and won the 'Man of the Series' award but most importantly, he won my heart. Sachin Tendulkar made me a cricket-crazy person. He gave me something I could build a career in - Cricket.

Evolution Of Comics Through The Ages : Post 1980s

Jason Shayer

Jason Shayer is an expert in the field of Marvel and DC Comics. He has half a dozen short story credits and is a regular contributor to Back Issue! magazine. You an find him nostalgically revisiting the 1980s in his Blogs - Marvel 1980s and DC 1980s

In the previous article about Comics Evolution, several highs of the comic book industry have been highlighted along with a few lows but none lower than what hit in the early 1990s. The 1990s were a decade of surplus and greed as all sorts of promotions, like die-cut covers and hordes of family related titles (like the X-Men, Batman, and Superman titles), flooded the comic book market and led to its significant downturn as the speculator boom imploded on itself.

The explosion of the X-Men titles was led by Jim Lee and Chris Claremont as they launched another monthly X-Men book, simply entitled The X-Men, with variant covers. This event proved to be Marvel’s most popular as the sales figures were reported to be over 8.1 million copies. DC Comics responded a few years later with their Death of Superman story-line which culminated with Superman #75 which sold 2-3 million copies. While it was a commercial success, what proved to be entertaining and rewarding for fans was that the follow up story-line, which introduces four different characters, all with their own approaches to carrying on the legacy of Superman.

Tall Man Small Shadow by Vipin Behari Goyal

Tall Man Small Shadow starts of very smoothly showing a happy family where the young girl is just about the best possible fir for the handsome guy next door. The chapters are short and crisp. The slow narration is filled with rich imagery which really brings out the cheerfulness in any human being. The introduction to the characters is quite delightful and their emotions and feelings are well portrayed. The author also analyses simple situations through multiple points of view which results in the reader getting a wholesome picture of the effect of any situation on the society.

Gratitude is a way of reducing the importance
of what somebody has done for you