00:00-8:35: Greetings! We start off this episode with a declaration of love—fitting considering we will soon be talking romance comics. Yes, Graeme loves comics and he is not afraid to say it on this, the three hundred and thirty-sixth episode of this comic book podcast (with close to another 100 episodes of other interrelated podocasts specifically diving into just two titles). Shocker, eh? And yet, it was very great to hear Graeme all hepped up and ready to was enthusiastic about Monkey Prince #1 by Gene Luen Yang and Bernard Chang, a fun book that for Graeme recalls the heyday of Blue Devil (a very high level of praise for a specific set of superhero comic book reader): “There’s some Spider-Man in there, there’s some Static in there […] but it’s just done really well.”
8:35-24:52: And from there (where’s the talk about the weather? Or sense of imminent catastrophe? we just really dove right into the deep end this episode!), we talk about a book both of us have read: Love Everlasting #1 by Tom King and Elsa Charretier, their new ongoing [?] series currently available for free on Substack. King can be a contentious subject in the W,W? household but we both liked this dark and funny subversion of the romance comic. Jeff spends a bit more time both picking nits and speculating as to some of the influences on the book (but isn’t that what Jeff does?). Graeme just goes on to talk about how good it is and why. According to King here, all the issues are available for free (with a lot of paying tiers to get awesome extras and to help underwrite Substack’s underwriting of it). So ya know, if you want free comics (and if you can overlook some of the very heinous people Substack is platforming, like Jeff and Graeme seemingly find it all-too-easy to do), definitely check it out!
24:52-42:16: There were six new Substacks announced this week (during “comics day on Substack“) including one of interest to us: Xanaduum by Grant Morrison. This is very much Graeme’s jam, and so he talks about it, Bible John, and more. By contrast, Jeff talks about Mangasplaining Extra, the substack spinning out of the incredible Mangasplaining podcast that will not only send out the showcasts from that extremely awesome show but will also being sending out a chapter of manga each week! (p.s. as long as we’re talking newsletters, don’ t forget that one of us has one that’s currently very free.)
42:16-51:46: It’s rare that Jeff takes the lead on talking news, but he does have a personal connection to this one: on what is quite probably the penultimate week before Comixology goes away and comic shopping for the Comixology app has to be done on Amazon’s own comics page, someone put up a bootleg copy of hot-in-the-news-not-available-in-digital Maus and Amazon promoted it as a new release…for over two days. Despite people telling them. A whole new way to get scammed by comics? Delightful!
51:46-1:02:31: “Shall we talk about the other news story that for my money still isn’t a story yet but is, at the same time, a really big story?” asks Graeme and so leads us down the hallway to a door marked “Image Comics under investigation by the federal National Labor Relations Board for engaging in unfair labor practices.” yow.
1:02:31-1:27:22: How do we get from there to talking about The Official Image Timeline, the embarrassing and slipshod book from Jim Valentino he has the audacity to charge eight god-damn dollars for? Tune in, and hear what we have to say about it. [I’ll give you a hint: I personally thought it an embarrassing and slipshod book from Jim Valentino that he had the audacity to charge eight god-damn dollars for.] I say: ditch the zero and get with the hero: try out Alin Răuțoiu’s Image Timeline: an amazing data visualization of the publication timeline, complete with a search by series field. You wouldn’t think that Official Image Timeline book could get more embarrassing, but it just did.
1:27:22-1:29:47: But on the flip side of the Image coin, Graeme read and really appreciated Made in Korea, Vol. 1 by Jeremy Holt and George Schall. (“On balance, it’s really very good.”)
1:29:47-1:57:14: But Image is not off the hook yet! Graeme and Jeff also read Geiger 80 Page Giant #1 by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Brian Hitch, Sterling Gates, Kelley Jones, Pete Tomasi, Peter Snejberg, and more! After grousing about volume 1 of Geiger, what did we think of the one-off letting us in on the secret origins of “Who?” and “Oh yeah, I think I remember that guy being mentioned in passing.” And as a bonus—which is code for “Jeff is tired of checking the time stamps and making new paragraph breaks”—we discuss Nocterra by Scott Snyder and Tony Daniel which Graeme read after Jeff talked about its extreme similarities to Geiger, which leads to a discussion about a possible rut for Snyder and Jeff’s theory about what’s behind it.
1:57:14-end: Jeff suddenly realizes we’re closing in on two hours, panics, and so… Closing stuff! We do not mention it on the podcast but sign up for Graeme’s newsletter (https://www.getrevue.co/profile/ComicsFYI!) and:look for us on Stitcher! Itunes! Instagram! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for her continuing support of this podcast.
NEXT WEEK: Just say “Drokk it!!” and join us next week as we read Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files Vol. 32.
And if you want yourself the link for….reasons, here you go:
https://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts5/WaitWhat336.mp3
A little What if Game based on today’s podcast: “What if there was no Image revolution?” What if DC and/or Marvel was able to tempt these 7 bad-boys back to the Big 2 instead of forming their own company. How would the comics scene look today?
Monkey King 1 is also now available digitally on the DC Universe app!
Being such a bitch for Image I went ahead and purchased The Awfullcial Image Timeline. I overlooked it’s many errors, because in comparison to the Inside Image magazine from the 90’s it’s a well put together piece. But yeah… It was was a rushed job to meet the deadline and I’m pretty sure that Jim Valentino was the only person who worked on and proof read it. So yeah, I agree with everything that you guys discussed, however what has me concerned is that I didn’t know about the FBI investigation and Jim pulling credits. Since I have collected every Shadow Hawk comic and plan on doing a read through of it all starting next month. Now after listening to this episode I’m worried that I’ll get halfway through volume three and news will come out that Valentino has been arrested. Since close to the end of last year I have been very gung ho about reading through Shadow Hawk and while listening to this episode I had the sudden realization of “Oh no, what have I done.”
I mean, can you really say you’ve successfully engaged with comics if you don’t find yourself saying “Oh no, what have I done”?
And we’ll see what happens (though to be clear I believe it’s the National Labor Relations Board, not the FBI, thank goodness). It’s a bit too soon to say for sure whether or not Valentino is at fault, how much of a fault, and whether or not he’ll be able to move forward if he was at fault….but I do think for a lot of us Valentino seemed like “the progressive one” of the original Image crew so I understand why you, me, and a lot of others are taken aback.
Gah! Keep calling Monkey Prince “Monkey King”…. You know what I meant. They also have his issue 0 on the DCU app.
Ah, I thought I’d looked for it there and didn’t see it (issue #1, not issue #0). Oh well, hopefully some digital cents go to Yang and Chang from my purchase.
Sounds like maybe the usual support staff wasn’t around to help get the Image Timeline ready for publication. Can’t imagine why that would be the case
The two of you tearing into that Image Timeline was the pick-me-up my week needed. I’m glad neither felt the need to hold back, because that was a cathartic, satisfying 10 minutes of podcasting as I’ll ever hear. Tearing it a terrible piece of creative work can feel icky because you feel like your attacking the creator even if that’s not your intent. But a piece of corporate agitprop like this that they had the gaul to charge eight bucks for? It deserves all the derision you can bring to it.
You managed to spin a lot of yarn out of that Scott Snyder wool. That’s why I love your show, even though I don’t think Snyder merits that much in depth discussion.
I realized with this episode, finally, that Graeme and I are on the other sides of the Alan Moore/Grant Morrison coin. He has nothing but effusive praise for Morrison and their work and the most skinflinty of begrudging respect for Moore, and I would say while not effusive of Moore’s work, I’m definitely on the other end of the room from Graeme when it comes to Morrison’s. Although I would most certainly read a Morrison take on anything over a Snyder version of the same. Not to rain on Graeme’s parade, but I’m not paying $100 for some pictures they took while walking their dog and the unspellchecked first draft of Supergods excisions. YMMV, of course.
Re: Substack–At what point do the number of good people on there outweigh the bad, especially if you actively ignore the bad? Is not the same argument to made about Netflix? (Does every time I watch a Squid Game mean Dave Chappelle gets another comedy special?) Or is Substack more a Spotify-Joe Rogan situation?