Category Archives: SPYCRAFT & WARFARE

A dozen swinging sixties’ super-spies – part 2

Posted on December 18, 2025 by I.M. Baytor

If you’ve read last week’s post, you know what’s going on. Basically, these were the cinematic cousins of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., back in the 1960s: OSS 117: Mission for a Killer (1965) We’ll start with yet another bonkers … Continue reading →

Posted in SPYCRAFT & WARFARE | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

A dozen swinging sixties’ super-spies – part 1

Posted on December 10, 2025 by I.M. Baytor

I’m finally getting a hold on work and family life, so 2026 is bound to be a more regular year for Gotham Calling, but, for now, I’ll just keep throwing in some idiosyncratic stuff I’ve been digging into… Last time … Continue reading →

Posted in SPYCRAFT & WARFARE | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Reading 1930s’ thrillers

Posted on November 6, 2025 by I.M. Baytor

I planned to post the second part of the 2000s’ Batman comics reading guide, but life keeps getting in the way and taking me down other paths… So I ended up in a very different place, with this post recommending … Continue reading →

Posted in SPYCRAFT & WARFARE | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A dozen great movies about antifascist resistance, just because

Posted on October 9, 2025 by I.M. Baytor

For some reason, I decided to do a list of films about antifascist resistance. Even setting aside intelligent Andor-like sci-fi allegories, or movies about organized resistance to the current rise of authoritarianism (like the wild One Battle After Another), there … Continue reading →

Posted in SPYCRAFT & WARFARE | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A couple of amazing old-timey novels of political intrigue

Posted on August 6, 2025 by I.M. Baytor

Summer break is often a time for longer reads. This includes comics, of course, and I recently had a veritable blast making my way through Appollo’s and Brüno’s Commando colonial trilogy, a set of thrilling spy adventures set across WWII … Continue reading →

Posted in SPYCRAFT & WARFARE | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Back to Slough House

Posted on December 5, 2024 by I.M. Baytor

Having recently read what may very well be my favorite Mick Herron novel so far, The Secret Hours, I was going to write one of Gotham Calling’s occasional pieces about spy yarns without pictures inside… Between this and catching up … Continue reading →

Posted in SPYCRAFT & WARFARE | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A couple of offbeat spy novels

Posted on October 10, 2024 by I.M. Baytor

When I’m not compulsively watching spy shows on TV, spy fiction tends to occupy a sizeable portion of my reading time, so I thought I’d share a few impressions on a couple of novels that approach the genre in very … Continue reading →

Posted in SPYCRAFT & WARFARE | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

More thoughts on 21st-century spy shows: Cold War edition

Posted on May 23, 2024 by I.M. Baytor

When I wrote about the TV series Slow Horses, last month, I mentioned how one of the departures from the source novels was that the show didn’t take advantage of the potential of sleeper agents to act as metaphors for … Continue reading →

Posted in SPYCRAFT & WARFARE | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Some thoughts on 21st-century spy shows

Posted on April 17, 2024 by I.M. Baytor

Secret agents and international intrigue have really come back with a vengeance in the past decade or so. The War on Terror and, later, the renewed tension between the West and Russia seem to have stimulated the public’s appetite for … Continue reading →

Posted in SPYCRAFT & WARFARE | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Spotlight on the Unknown Soldier, 1997

Posted on March 20, 2024 by I.M. Baytor

After being absent from the stands for about eight years, in 1997 the spy/war comic Unknown Soldier got the Vertigo treatment. By then, the Vertigo imprint had come to specialize in getting edgy (usually British) creators to reimagine third-tier DC … Continue reading →

Posted in SPYCRAFT & WARFARE | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment