Hey, everyone! Welcome to our non-episode episode, where Graeme and Jeff talk separately about hanging out together recently in Portland, Oregon. Graeme is concise; Jeff is not; what else is new? But at least you get to hear about Shazam! (the motion picture), DC Digests, Carmine Infantino and Don Heck, Deadpool Kills The Deadpool Universe #4, and what’s really going through the head of the person you’re bargain comics shopping with!
We’ll be back next week with a full episode of (we think) Drokk!
http://theworkingdraft.com/Media/Drokk/DrokkEp3.mp3 Previously on Drokk!: Two years’ worth of Judge Dredd strips have passed, but things are only now starting to congeal when it comes to working out just who the title character is for both…
http://theworkingdraft.com/Media/Drokk/DrokkEp2.mp3 Previously on Drokk!: The world of Judge Dredd began with the stories collected in Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files Vol. 1, an uneven collection that introduced the basics but didn’t seem to know…
http://theworkingdraft.com/Media/Drokk/DrokkEp1.mp3 Welcome to the year 2099, where the law is everything, and one man is the law — even if, in the stories we’re reading in this first episode of Drokk!, Judge Dredd isn’t exactly…
0:01-32:14: Greetings from Graeme “Gradiated Purple” McMillan and Jeff “Privacy Tab” Lester, with an opening about the joys of Skype updates. Also discussed: Superbowl Sunday, watching commercials as their own thing compared to watching movie trailers as their own thing; the Hobbs & Shaw trailer; the Harley Quinn teaser; James Gunn rumors; and more.
32:14-1:07:51: Remember all that great stuff Jeff was saying about Vinland Saga? Well, Graeme has read the first volume and has his own take. So we talk about that first volume and what we liked (and didn’t!) and why we are on different pages about Vinland Saga’s different pages. Also discussed: contemporary colloquial historical language; Jackie Chan’s Police Story; the conclusion of the first arc of Action Comics and Young Justice #1; teasing our next podcast; reader buy-in; and more.
1:07:51-1:31:21: Jeff thinks he can tie in our talk about genre and medium conventions and audience buy-in by talking about the first two seasons of Netflix’s The Punisher. Let’s…see how that goes for him? Discussed: The Punisher on TV vs. The Punisher in the Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher Vs. The Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher Max universe; and more.
1:31:21-2:17:26: As he’s discussed here recently, Graeme has been doing a pretty hefty read of the post-Kirby New Gods, and it’s only getting bigger and bigger as he goes on. Join us for an update on his readthrough experience. Discussed: the different takes on the mythology when written by Mark Evanier, Tom Peyer, and Jim Starlin; the upcoming Female Furies miniseries by Cecil Castellucci and Adriana Melo; what part of the New Gods mythos works best today; the very recent Justice League Annual #1 by Scott Snyder, James T Tynion IV, Juan Albarran, Daniel Sampere; and more.
2:17:26-2:30:31: And finally, we’re pleased to officially announce our next readthrough podcast now that Baxter Building, our Fantastic Four readthrough, is done. Next week will be the first episode of Drokk!, our readthrough of the Judge Dredd Casefiles. Here we talk about our decision to do this readthrough, what scares us and excites us about this new podcast, the monthly giveaways we hope we’ll be able to institute, and more.
2:30:31-end: Closing comments! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes!Instagram! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast. And then we’re out!
0:01-4:00: Greetings from Graeme “Gracious Winner” McMillan and Jeff “Suck It Up” Lester. Are we complaining less in 2019? It’s not just a potentially awesome American Voices topic, it’s also something we contemplate briefly before getting things underway.
4:00-47:51: “Look, I think this whole fight thing from last week was overrrated,” Gracious Winner declares. “Mmm-hmm,” agrees Suck It Up. And so we’re once again unified in our quest to talk comics, comics news, and comics media. So, first up: Aquaman! How has Jeff seen this but Graeme hasn’t? We can’t work that out but Jeff does have some “damning with faint praise/praising with faint damnation” thoughts about the movie. Yes, we have to admit upfront that it’s a shame that Aquaman is going to get much more mouth-time than Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (unless we turn that around next episode) but, well, Jeff has thoughts and you know what that means. (Cut to montage of calendar pages dropping to the ground one by one). Also discussed: superhero movies where the weakness on the page becomes a strength on film; *spoiler of post-credit sequence at 20:28* if that’s a thing you care about. Also discussed: Justice League 2, Ben Whishaw as Bruce Wayne, Wes Anderson’s Batman movie (and now that I think about it, it should be a remake of Batman Returns with Lea Seydoux as Catwoman, Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck (for double bonus in-joke points!) and Jason Schwartzbaum as the Penguin running amok in Gotham as The Kinks’ Father Christmas plays. Come on!); Riverdale; Legends of Tomorrow; Titans; Trolls; and more.
47:51-58:54: Hey!! Kids Comics! We talk about Aquaman #43 by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Robson Rocha and Daniel Henriques; Wonder Woman issues #58-61 by G. Willow Wilson, Cary Nord, Mick Gray, and Xermanico; Superman #7 by Brian Michael Bendis, Brandon Peterson, and Ivan Reis.
58:54-1:16:40: (Had to start a few seconds earlier so I could get Graeme’s “Oh!” included in this. Speaking of DC Comics, there was a bit of news the other week about DC joining Comixology Unlimited (as well as bringing titles to Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading). We discuss that news which includes the 15% discount on digital titles; what’s available there as opposed to the DC Universe app; DC’s different approaches to its different readerships; the first volume of Immortal Hulk being on CU; Jeff’s pie-in-the-sky dreams for having these services as the openers of the way to readers and fans, and more.
1:16:40-1:18:42: Also in comics news: the passing of Ron Smith (Judge Dredd, 2000 AD) and Batton Lash
(Wolff & Byrdd Counselors of the Macabre, and Archie Meets The Punisher).
1:18:42-1:33:13: Since we were talking about 2000 AD, Jeff really wanted to talk about The Green Lantern #3 by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp, which is simultaneously a love letter to 2000 AD, DC Silver Age comic book covers, and, uh, more? Less? We’re still not quite sure, but it may have some big ramifications for Hal Jordan…or not.
1:33:13-1:49:55: We talk a bit about the most recent issues of Batman by Tom King, Mikel Janin and Jorge Fornes, Travis Moore, Mitch Gerads, and others, as well as Batman Annual #3 by Tom Taylor and Otto Schmidt. Also discusssed: Heroes in Crisis; ambition, politics, and Watchmen references; and more.
1:49:55-2:00:40: When is a comic we like not a comic that we like? Sadly, when it’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1 by Tom Taylor, Juann Cabal, and Marcelo Ferreira. We pull apart what doesn’t work for us in a book we really wanted to work.
2:00:40-2:04:18: We point out (mentioned above in the notes but not actually in the podcast) that the first trade of Immortal Hulk is on Comixology Unlimited. We then go on to rave very briefly about the most recent issue, Immortal Hulk #11 by Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, and Ruy José.
2:04:18-2:19:04: And from there, Graeme goes on to talk a bit about what he’s been reading, including: trades of Action Comics: Rebirth by Dan Jurgens, Patch Zircher, and Tyler Kirkham; Young Justice #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Patrick Gleason; Captain Marvel #1 by Kelly Thompson and Carmen Carnero; Uncanny X-Men by Ed Brisson, Matt Rosenberg, Kelly Thompson and Yildiray Cidar; the Shortbox releases of 2017; the Hilda graphic novels by Luke Pearson; the Asterix graphic novels by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo; and a brief discussion about what constitutes new on Hoopla.
2:19:04-2:45:00: Jeff’s turn! He’s read and wants to talk super-briefly about Die Wergelder Vol. 2 by Hiroaki Samura; Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura; Conan The Barbarian #1 by Jason Aaron and Mahmud Asrar; Criminal #1 by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Jacob Phillip; Outer Darkness #3 by John Layman and Afu Chan; Gunning for Hits (Music Thriller) #1 by Jeff Rougvie and Moritat; Keeping His Whims In Check by PI; I Moved to Los Angeles to Work in Animation by Natalie Nourigat; Go-Bots #2 by Thomas Scioli; and Man-Eaters #3 and 4 by Chelsea Cain, Kate Niemczyk, and Lia Miternique; and from there we talk about Chelsea Cain’s very problematic tweet from the other week.
2:45:00- end: Closing comments! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes!Instagram! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast. And then we’re out!
NEXT WEEK: Another episode of Wait, What? Yes, somehow!
0:01-7:07: Greetings from Jeff “Bottle Episode?” Lester and Graeme “Clip Show!” McMillan! Yes, due to a very unique October for us, this is being recorded a week in advance! We start off by discussing some tendered suggestions about follow-up episodes for Graeme’s more elliptical comments.
7:07-33:48: Graeme has a couple things to ask Jeff on the eve of NYCC: Graeme knows about the end of Jeff’s convention going days….but what about the beginning? What was the first con Jeff attended? Discussed: Willie Ito; Terry Austin; the odd business of selling movie stills; comic book adaptations of movies; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; and more.
33:48-1:09:34: Jeff has a question for Graeme: since Graeme is familiar with both the 100 page Giants of the ‘70s, and the British Marvel anthology titles of the ‘80s, what would be his pick for titles for similar reprint books (with some new material) for DC, Marvel, and another publisher? Discussed: Morrison and Porter’s JLA; Chip Zdarsky’s Spider-Man; Jack Kirby’s 2001: A Space Odyssey; The recent Titan Books reprint of The Prisoner by Kirby, Englehart, and Kane; comics that don’t age well; Finder by Carol Speed McNeil; and more.
1:09:34-1:24:04: Graeme mentions 2000 A.D. as a science fiction themed anthology, which leads Jeff to wonder about a horror anthology where there are recurring characters. So crazy it just might work? We talk about some of the big successes (and many, many failures) of horror comics with recurring characters. Discussed: The Ghost Rider; The 13th Floor; John Constantine; the Castle Rock TV show; fan service and the Gotham TV show; and more.
1:24:04-1:35:02: Jeff managed to get his wife to watch the Justice League movie with him. Why would he do that to his spouse?! Why would he do that to himself!?! Discussed: Justice League; The Avengers; Guardians of the Galaxy 2; Captain America: The Winter Soldier; and more.
1:35:02-2:13:49: Since we’re talking superhero movies and which ones we found better or worse than others, Jeff asks Graeme: top five comic book superhero movies? Top five comic book movies? Also discussed: upcoming untitled Deadpool film project for December; Dark Phoenix and the X-Men movies; the Spider-Man movies; and more.
2:13:49-2:23:58: And since we’re talking about the Spider-Man movies, we talk about…Spider-Man! But maybe not in the way you would expect.
2:23:58-end: Closing comments! (But also: CheeWees!) Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes!Instagram! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast. And then we’re out!
NEXT WEEK: Baxter Building! Read issues #397-405 of Fantastic Four by Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan and join us!
0:01-20:26: Greetings from Jeff “We Must Talk About Batman’s Penis” Lester and Graeme “Really, Jeff?” McMillan! We get right to the meat of it immediately, and talk about the appearance of “Lil Wayne” in Batman: Damned #1 by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo, DC’s attempt to do a Mature Readers label featuring characters you can still buy underoos of. How’d that turn out, you might wonder if you had no access to the Internet until now? We are more than happy to enlighten you, even as we struggle to keep the double entendres to a minimum. Also discussed: Dongtor Manhattan; DC’s decision to automatically censor the book; and more.
20:26-33:43: Jeff worries if between this, Ben Percy being yoinked from Nightwing, and the three month delay after the rejection of the art for Justice League Odyssey if DC is returning to some bad habits they had foresworn before Rebirth. Discussed: all of the above, and Dan Didio getting a bad rap, the artist lineup on DC’s Age of Heroes book not even a year in; whether the Nightwing controversy would’ve landed harder without Marvel’s Vision controversy; what fans want from Nightwing and what DC gives us with Nightwing; and more.
33:43-1:10:35: On what Jeff suspects is a related note, Graeme has a quick spoiler-free bit of feedback about Heroes in Crisis #1 but not before we discuss what’s going on with Nightwing these days, especially as presented in the pages of Batman #55 by Tom King and Tony Daniel. Then we turn back to Heroes in Crisis and the fates of midlevel heroes we’re roughly grouping here under Wolfman-era New Teen Titans. From there we go on to discuss the return of Wally West in DC Rebirth #1, and to what extent that return is a signal of a need for “loose” continuity or “tight” continuity, to what extent the DCU “self corrects,” and with a bit of a comparison to what’s going on over at Marvel with regards to their continuity issues, especially with regards to the current Infinity Wars event.
1:10:35-1:21:08: And, relatedly, Jeff picked up Thanos Wins by Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw, and Cosmic Ghost Rider #1 and #2 by Cates and Dylan Burnett, which he thinks ties in to some of these ideas about continuity, what works, and who it works for.
1:21:08-1:39:28: Don’t get him wrong, there are comics that Jeff really liked last week and he runs through them briefly here: Immortal Hulk #6 by Al Ewing and Lee Garbett; Mister Miracle #11 by Tom King and Mitch Gerads; Avengers #8 by Jason Aaron and David Marquez; Batman #55 by Tom King and Tony Daniel; The Seeds #2 by Ann Nocenti and David Aja; and most of the first volume of Seto Utsumi by Kadzuya Konomoto. And in celebration of the Killraven Masterworks arriving on Comixology and DC potentially completing the digitization of Kirby’s Kamandi, there’s a brief bit of comparison and contrast between the two. They start off a little closer than you might think? Come for the comparison, stay for the re-creation of a McGregor-Russell Killraven issue.
1:39:28-1:47:39: And while we’re comparing stuff, did you ever notice that Smokey & The Bandit is pretty much just a wacky remake of Vanishing Point? Also, Jeff saw Her and thinks Graeme would like it, but Graeme in inclined to disagree.
1:47:39-2:07:41: And as long as we’re talking movies—the footage from The Joker film! That Captain Marvel trailer!
2:07:41-2:12:13: Closing comments fakeout #1!! Graeme has a quick review of Wonder Woman: Earth One, Vol. 2, by Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette.
2:12:13-2:15:56: Closing comments fakeout #2! There is a direct sequel to Judge Dredd: Trifecta starting in 2000 AD prog #2100.
2:15:56-end: Closing comments! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes!Instagram! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast. And then we’re out!
NEXT WEEK: We are…pretty sure we will be back next week? Stay tuned!!
0:01-11:45: Greetings from Graeme “Jury Duty” McMillan and Jeff “Read a Tom King Comic About Jury Duty” Lester, for reasons those impromptu nicknames probably make clear, leap right in to discussing Batman #53 by Tom King, Lee Weeks and Elizabeth Breitweiser. Like most of King’s Batman, the issue continues to hit Graeme in the feels, whereas Jeff is a little…more…uh, reserved in his praise, shall we say? Discussed: emotional pin-ups; Kirby immediacy plus Moore formalism equals…profit? (I’m leaning pretty heavy here on the ellipses I’m noticing.); Batman: Year One; and more.
11:45-23:30: Jeff, who admits to being crabbier than usual, cedes the ground to Graeme, which is a good thing for us all, as Graeme has read some upcoming graphic novels we should be on the lookout for, and talks about them in exciting (but non-spoilery) ways: the amazing sounding Bastard by Max de Radiguès; Coyote Doggirl by Lisa Hanawalt; Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal; and the complete collection of Berlin by Jason Lutes (!!!).
23:30-31:18: Graeme has finally read all of Snagglepuss: Exit Stage Left by Mark Russell, Mike Feehan, and Sean Russell. Remarkably, we manage to keep the discussion spoiler-free, despite Graeme talking about how much th ending really makes the whole work really that much stronger.
31:18-46:21: Speaking of Russell, Graeme mentions Russell’s recent appearance on the 2000AD podcast (in part, although not wholly, because of the work Russell is doing on Dredd for IDW), and that spurs us on to talk about Judge Dredd, the Simpsons, and the changing nature of satire and Mega City One.
46:21-1:05:21: Graeme spins off from all this to talk about something he did not love: the coming collection of Batman: White Knight by Sean Murphy. Also discussed: Mark Millar; Mark Millar and Grant Morrison’s Swamp Thing; Batman: The Damned; Batman: Hush; Legends of the Dark Knight; all those god-damned Batman books; and more.
1:05:21-1:22:38: Talking about who we might want to see about Batman leads, oddly, to a new theory Jeff has about the success of Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men and why they work better than the original Lee/Kirby X-Men. And from there, we end up discussing the switch on the book’s focus from gay culture to (maybe?) Israel?
1:22:38-1:41:23: Turns out this is the right week to be talking about old X-Men stories and creators like John Byrne, because this is the week it was announced C.B. Cebulski/Akira Yoshida signed John Byrne to return to Marvel and do an X-Men book. What the hell is going on? We discuss, and that also leads us to talk a bit about sales of Superman under Bendis, Pearl #1 by Bendis and Alex Maleev, and more.
1:41:23-2:00:43: The wonderful Leef Smith of Mission: Comics and Art asked us to read Hey Kids Comics #1 by Howard Chaykin and share our thoughts. Graeme didn’t read it, Jeff did, and…hoo boy.
2:00:43-2:06:36: Jeff also read Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun, Vol. 9 by Izumi Tsubaki. He’s also read Prison School, Vol. 3 by Akira Hiramoto, and believe you me, you won’t mistake one series for the other anytime soon.
2:06:36-2:12:08: Graeme has a recommendation for Jeff: the first two books of Brink by Dan Abnett and I.N.J. Culbard, a 2000 A.D. series that’s kind of a detective story, kind of not: Graeme mentions someone else’s description of it as “True Detective meets Outland.”
2:12:08-2:27:24: In “news,” Jeff wants to know if Graeme knows anything about this weird and more than slightly suspect TokyoPop sale on Comixology. Selling digital versions of books currently available from other publishers? Licensed comics featuring characters they surely can’t still own the licenes for? What is up with this sale? Graeme doesn’t have any answers, but he does point out some strange stuff about the Project Superpowers sale. And we talk about some reading options currently available on Marvel Unlimited, including the entire run of Master of Kung-Fu, which leads Graeme to ask a question—“Jeff, I’ve never read Master of Kung-Fu. Should I?”—Jeff has literally never thought of before.
2:27:24-end: A classic closing comments fakeout!! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes!Instagram! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast. (And then! We talk about the sentencing of comics writer Gerard Jones to six years of prison, which is admittedly a very, very weird way to end the episode.) And then we’re out!
NEXT WEEK: Skip week! Rest up and join us in September!
http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts2/WaitWhat253.mp3 0:01-10:49: Greetings! Graeme “Bad Chicken Sandwich” McMillan and Jeff “Really Bad Back” Lester have one of their most meta-openings ever, as we talk about…why our episodes open the way they do! Harbinger to come,…
Recent Comments