http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts2/BaxterBungalowExtra.mp3 Sure, it should be a skip week this week, but in the spirit of the holidays, here’s a compilation of the previously Patreon-only Baxter Bungalow episodes, in which I talk about (deep breath) Alpha Flight #4, The Uncanny…

0:00-12:06: Greetings! Greetings and a long, perhaps too-detailed story about Jeff’s niece’s walkathon. So we discuss physical fitness for kids today, and what it was like back when we were kids.  SPOILERS: Graeme’s story is a lot like this:

12:06-25:15: And from there, we get into the comic book discussion, with Jeff talking about downloading the first trade of Power Man/Iron Fist Vol 1 by David Walker and Sanford Greene from Comixology Unlimited, in part so he can give a special shout-out to the double-barrelled Kurosawa tribute in issue #5.
Also discussed: the fact that Marvel is now on Comixology Unlimited, which is a news story from this week that nobody really seems that excited by but is kind of a thing. We also discuss Marvel Unlimited, and the pros and cons there.
25:15-55:24:  This was recorded on Free Comic Book Day, and so Graeme has a story about the differences between the print and digital copies of the FCBD books, as well as a review of his five favorite free issues this year.  (As for Jeff, well, you probably saw the picture making the rounds of Twitter from this year’s Spongebob comic, but if not, it’s at the top of this post!)  And then we go on to discuss, among other things, the Secret Empire FCBD issue and some of the confounding story choices that are made.  Graeme also covers some speculation concerning future issues of the event, as well as reception, rumors and what-have-you.  (Yes, the ever-fascinating *what-have-you*!)
55:24-1:16:01: Only tangentially related to Secret Empire (in that it involves the digital copies offered by SE #0), Jeff wants to talk about reading Mockingbird issue #6 by Chelsea Cain and Kate Niemczyk, and how that got Jeff to read the other two issues via Marvel Unlimited *and* about the unexpected retcon that messes with the West Coast Avengers story by our beloved Steve Englehart.  Come for the trepidation, stay for Jeff’s clumsy re-read of Mockingbird #8.
1:16:01-1:26:46: In other “Jeff is kind of a terrible person” news, please overlook his failed attempt to tease Graeme for seeing Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (not in a press screening, but at an actual damn screening!)  I mean, Graeme was kind enough to overlook it, so you can too, right?  (FWIW, Jeff still feels terrible about it.)  But enough about Jeff!  Graeme saw GOTG, Vol. 2, and so we discuss the film.  There is a casting spoiler from 1:18:43 to 1:19:28, general spoilers about characterization from 1:19:28 to 1:19:52 or so, and then there’s a spoiler for one of the post-credit sequences we talk about at 1:20:44.  So this section is pretty spoiler-heavy for a movie that just came out this weekend (which is generally unlike us, I hope?).  Maybe skip over the whole thing and come back to it after you’ve seen the film, I guess?  No plot spoilers, but we do not couch talking about the film much at all.
1:26:46-1:39:52:  “But is it better than Suicide Squad?” asked nobody ever.  And yet that is the road we sort of go down as Jeff admits he watched Suicide Squad recently (thanks to good ol’ HBO Now) and he wants to revisit what he understood to be some of Graeme’s statements about it.  We discuss how the theatrical release was made, what things (no matter how slight) worked, all the many things that didn’t, and more.
1:39:52-1:55:29: Then, as a complete change-up to the way the conversation has been going, we finally get around to talking about a bit of excellent superhero stuff in a non-comic medium:  the first season of Legion (currently on Hulu) which we both pretty much love the bejesus out of.  Full spoilers for this one, right down to how Jeff thinks the cliffhanger at the end of S2 is going.  So if you haven’t seen it yet, just go see it and then come back and listen to us talk about all the stuff we found truly fascinating about it.  But for those of you who saw it (probably long ago), please hang out and listen to the blather.
1:55:29-2:08:23: Wow, has it been almost two hours already?  It has!  But we have barely talked about actual, you know, comic books, so we get a chance to chime in about a thing each we’ve read and loved, with Graeme being in the tank for the first two hardcover volumes of Lazarus by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark, and Jeff grooving on the first two omnibi of Battle Angel Alita: Last Order by Yukito Kishiro.
2:08:23-2:27:24: But we are just getting our second wind so Graeme jumps off of that to talk about the four collections of Strontium Dog by John Wagner, Alan Grant, and the amazing Carlos Ezquerra he has read recently and very much loves.  And Jeff follows up that up with a spoiler-free review of Walking Dead #167 since it’s a pretty major issue and also because Jeff can’t figure out why he is still reading the damn book considering how much he dunks on it.
2:27:24-end: And so but finally:  Closing Comments! Look for us on  Stitcher! Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! MattTumblr,  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. PLUS: a beautiful little plug from Graeme which he quite appropriately calls, “a payoff for anyone who stayed with us two and a half hours.”  Oh, and you can also check out Jeff role-playing the mysterious and glamorous Cha-Cha X on the FCBD Exiled podcast episode.
Next week:  Baxter Building Ep. 29!  Covering Fantastic Four Annuals #14-18 and What If? #36! Read them, then join us here, won’t you?
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 0:00-7:32: Greetings from a very relaxed Graeme McMillan and a perhaps somewhat less relaxed Jeff Lester.  But, relaxed though they may be, they are still reading some of the books they discussed last week:  Graeme is still making his way through Hostage by Guy Delisle, and Jeff is still making his way through (deep breath) Abandoned Cars by Tim Lane, Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth Saga Uncensored by Pat Mills, Mike McMahon and just about everybody, and although he finished vol. 1 of West Coast Avengers by Englehart, Milgrom, and Sinnott, he’s just barely dug into volume 2 (which actually starts seven issues after volume 1.  Boo, Marvel!)


7:32-21:46: The discussion about 2000 A.D. pacing in the 70s leads fittingly into Rob Williams’ current writing on Suicide Squad with art first by Jim Lee and currently by John Romita, Jr. (and a plethora of artists for each issue’s back-up strips, such as Eddy Barrows and Eber Ferreria in issue #14).  Also discussed:  the combat banter of Steve Englehart; the use of shtick and the back-up story structure in Suicide Squad; and more.

21:46-29:52:  Jeff was a bit bummed to hear one of his favorite comics, DC’s The Flintstones, is ending after issue #12.  And asking about this is a very fine way to get Graeme to talk about the upcoming DC/Hanna Barbera crossover annuals for which Graeme has read the review copies.  Discussed:  Flintstones/Booster Gold by Mark Russell and Rick Leonardi; the Snagglepuss back-up; the Batman/Top Cat crossover; and more.
29:52-35:28:  This episode was recorded on the day the new Justice League trailer was released (see above), so it made sense to transition from talking about the latest DC comics to DC’s latest attempt to build a franchise.  What’d we think?

35:28-59:47: And from the DC movie trailer, to the latest Marvel (non-Marvel Studios) movie, Logan.  Please note this is a full spoilers discussion—pretty much every bit of it gets spoiled so stay away from this section if you still haven’t seen it.
59:47-1:02:46: From there we pivot to discusss…the other Wait, What? podcast! (Wait, what?) We are many, and we contain multitudes, apparently?
1:02:46-1:12:12: And hey, here we are discussing this Marvel retailer conference thing that’s happening kinda/sorta of the downlow.  Jeff is wondering what Graeme has heard about, and if he thinks the Marvel Leopard can change its spots.
1:12:12-1:23:11:  What should’ve been a discussion on what Graeme’s reading becomes a longer discussion about Tom King’s Batman—Graeme is enjoying it tremendously, but Jeff is so far behind, will he ever catch up? And if so, how?


1:23:11-1:35:50: Graeme is also very impressed with what Joshua Williamson (with a raft of artists such as Carmine Di Giandomenico, Jesus Merino, and others) is doing to reinvent Barry Allen for The Flash, by taking the TV Barry Allen and doing an even better job with it. And that gets us into a discussion of characters that we care enough about that we’ll check out no matter who is on the title.
1:35:50-1:57:08: Graeme had linked to an article on Medium by Meg Downey about fanfic and although Jeff still hasn’t read the piece (he fav’d it for later), we discuss a bit about fanfic’s ability to give audiences what they want on certain properties better than the corporate owners of the properties. And then there’s some more talk from Jeff about Englehart and West Coast Avengers because, hey, who can stop him?


1:57:08-2:02:05: Also, thanks to another A+ manga recommendation from a Whatnaut, Jeff just finished the first volume of Interviews with Monster Girls by Petos, and wants to talk about it.

2:02:05-2:09:43: And Graeme wants to talk a bit about Terms and Conditions by R. Sikoryak which he is, uh, coolish about. He also wants to discuss Boundless by Jillian Tomaki, which he loves. And then…
2:09:43-: Closing Comments!  Look for us on  Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! MattTumblr,  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. Oh, but before we go, Jeff has a theory about the Cursed Earth Saga, a certain creation of Pat Mills, and a certain creation of Jack Kirby.

Next week:  A skip week!  And then in two weeks, a Baxter Building!
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http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts2/WaitWhat220.mp3 First things first, make sure you don’t miss out Matt talking about that Logan movie right below this very entry, y’hear? Good stuff, right?  And now, some show notes: 0:00-3:47: Greetings! This week’s opening…

Yup, here we are with another two hour episode!  Somehow we managed to squeeze in right after Image Expo and right before SDCC, which I personally think is appropriate.

Anyway, yes: Grab the episode!  Read the show notes!  Trade with friends!

00:00-15:24:  Salutations!  Once again, Graeme is hiding from the heat in his basement (and by “the heat,” we don’t mean “the legal authorities,” we mean, you know, temperature and stuff) while Jeff is more than happy to gloat about the amazingly mild weather in San Francisco.  Also discussed: movies and shows that make it a point to destroy San Francisco; what kind of earnings might we expect from Magic Mike XXL and will Channing Tatum see RDJ money; how Magic Mike XXL will win the holiday weekend (it didn’t); if Channing Tatum will become the next Will Smith (he didn’t); Graeme’s super-crazy week of preparation for San Diego Comic Con; and more.
15:24-38:19: Speaking of San Diego Comic Con, right around the time of recording this episode, the City of San Diego announced Comic Con would be there through 2018, a two year extension.  Graeme and Jeff talk about that, then swap stories about what’s happened at previous Nerd Viet Nams, and what surprises it might hold for Graeme this year; Graeme’s confusion about the Fourth of July; our last attempt to podcast during SDCC; San Francisco being without a comic book convention; Graeme not-so-discreetly trying to get Portland to bully in on SF’s possible future; and more comics precursor conversation.
38:19-56:37: And so we finally get to…no, sorry, no comics conversation yet, we’re afraid.  Instead Graeme has some thoughts about the first season of Fargo.  Jeff hasn’t seen it, but he has seen Twin Peaks so when Graeme tries to talk about BOB on Twin Peaks being a cop-out (especially compared to Fargo), Jeff has some choice words.  CHOICE. WORDS.  And I thought about trying to balance the Twin Peaks clip above with a Fargo one below, but I wasn’t sure how spoilery they might ended up being.  They had one clip on YouTube with Billy Bob Thornton pulling a kind of modified Takeshi Kitano gun fight thing that I liked, but there was a credit sequence at the end for some reason that went on wayyyyy too long.  So I went with this bundle of show trailers:

56:37-1:06:34:  Wait, when are they going to talk comics?  Now….after a fashion.  Which is to say, we talk about the All-New, All-Different Marvel announcements now that they’re finally out.  Oh sure, Al Ewing has three books and Tom Taylor has one, which is good news but weren’t the announcements kind of…blah?  Where is Jessica Jones? A solo queer lead?  Where is fucking RED WOLF, a character shown in the ads?
1:06:34-1:10:28: Quick segue: Graeme read Action Comics #42 by Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder and really liked it.  And Graeme’s description sounds pretty great.  And then after that, we talk about Omega Men #2 by Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda and some of the formal playfulness therein.
1:10:28-1:18:18: Which is why Graeme thinks if any of the All-New, All-Different Marvel books are going to be the next Hawkeye, it’s probably going to be The Vision by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta. And we’re back to discussing the other announcements, and Marvel’s different publishing pushes, and writers who have stepped away from writing Marvel titles, Kaare Andrews not being allowed in the Marvel offices; and more.
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(Sorry; could not find a bigger version…)

1:18:18-1:46:16: And because that Kaare Andrews story came out of the Image Expo, it’s a fine time to pivot and talk about the Expo 2015.  In the past, we’ve been underwhelmed by Expo announcements but we thought this was a pretty good year!  Among the topics discussed: Bryan Lee O’Malley (!!) writing a regular ongoing; Brian K. Vaughn and what Jeff sees as an ongoing attempt to calibrate against Robert Kirkman; the return of Warren Ellis and Tula Lotay; Sunset Park and Slave Punk, both by Ronald Wimberly, and much, much more, along with an ongoing contrast of the announcements from Marvel and DC (is it just us, or do the X-Men plans look kinda super-weird?).  Join us for a huge bowl of first impressions, idle guesses, rampant speculation, and anticipatory glee!

1:46:16-1:57:12: At some point, I decided to mark off another segment, since it’s arguable we run from the subject of new book announcements and have moved directly to talking about stuff we’ve read on the Internet, like Jeff Lemire being challenged to live up to adjectives, or a super-long “discussion” between John Byrne and Dan Slott that, depending on your age and/or outlook on life, will either depress you about the state of John Byrne or give you some hope about the state of Dan Slott.

1:57:12-2:03:49: It’s almost the end of the show!  Graeme has read a chunk of the original Micronauts by Bill Mantlo and Pat Broderick and it’s very game and very, very shameless.  He’s also read the last few issues of Steve Englehart’s West Coast Avengers, which are fascinating in the set-up for the new status quo, and then how the run gets  wrapped up by Tom DeFalco and Ralph Macchio.  Also included: the secret Simpsons reference Graeme didn’t get; more closure with Hank Pym.
2:03:49-end:  Opening comments! I mean: closing comments!  Gravity’s Totebag! Places to look for us at—Stitcher!  Itunes!  Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Tumblr )!  And, of course, on Patreon where, as of this count, 106 patrons make this whole thing possible.
Remember: next week—skip week!  The week after that: Baxter Building Ep. 7, featuring issues #61-67 of the Fantastic Four by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee!  And then Wait, What, Ep. 181 right after that!
Also: if you want just a link to the podcast to copy and paste for your own nefarious ends, check out the very first comment to this post.  If you’re going to SDCC, have a great convention: we’ll be here when you get back!
 http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts/WaitWhat180.mp3
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