[apologies if that link doesn’t turn into something you can auto-play. I have no idea why it’s acting up, but hopefully have got the damn episode encoded elsewhere…]
0:01-13:13: Welcome! Graeme announces he is weirdly crabby; Jeff announces he just had a visit from Mr. David Wolkin; and there’s a terrifying story about the best pizza place in Portland going *too* Portland, a profile about the man behind Dave’s Killer Bread, and much more “not yet” talk. Don’t worry! comic book talk is coming!
13:13-1:08:08: In fact, it’s here! Our ALL-SPOILERS, WE GIVE-IT-ALL-AWAY talk about Avengers: Infinity War has arrived. Discussed: Some really smart choices; what happened to Hawkeye; what are the gimmes for the sequel, including Jeff’s beautiful theory that Graeme is more or less entirely sure will not happen; the JMS-ification of MCU Spider-Man; the bit that broke the movie for Graeme; Jeff’s pinko anxiety about the MCU’s neolib anxiety; the Kingsman: The Secret Service connection; the choices made for MCU Thanos; and more (Carboat)!
1:08:08-1:21:31: In fact, Carboat leads us into a discussion of contrarian social media and the motivations behind it; 9/11 and superhero movies, which lead us to…
1:21:31-1:33:06: Actual comic book talk! About comics! Jeff just read Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, Vol. 1 by Inio Asano, and it gave him an abundance of feels! We circle back to the MCU and the military-industrial complex; how Marvel Comics treats the MIC, reflected in, for example, the work of Brian Michael Bendis.
1:33:06-1:55:02: Speaking of Bendis: how is he going to fit into the DCU, considering some of his takes on things at Marvel? Are we going to see something different from him, considering he’s writing Superman, who, as Graeme puts it, “is one of the more establishment characters.” Which ropes us into a discussion of DC Nation #0: the Bendis story in it, but also the pieces in the recent free (or near-free) comic. Also discussed: Justice League: No Justice #1; Dial L for Loeb; discussing Bendis’ final Marvel work, including his work on Iron Man; a summing up of the Superman and Action Comics Rebirth titles up to now; and more.
1:55:02-2:19:48: A comic book round-up of various titles, including: Batman #46 by Tom King and Tony Daniel! Jeff does not like it, but can give a spirited defense of it nonetheless? Discussed: Alan Moore; cheap comedy; and more; You Are Deadpool #1 by Al Ewing and Salva Espin—a Deadpool comic that is a Choose Your Own RPG comic! Absolutely an impressive formalistic achievement…but then why are both Graeme and Jeff left a bit cold? Additionally Jeff caught up on issues #3-5 of Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles by Mark Russell, Mike Freeman, and Mark Morales, and wanted to check in with Graeme about his feelings about the book; and Jeff also caught up with something like six chapters of Platinum End by Ohba and Obata, and is happy to report…he now kinda maybe likes it? Plus: Vampire Tales, Vol. 3!
2:19:48-2:38:53: Finally, a very important Infinity Wars-related question: if you could cast Hawkeye but only with an actor named Jeremy, who would you pick? Also discussed: CQ, what happened to Josh Holloway; are we ever going to see Gambit: The Movie; the Avengers relaunch and the preview of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Captain America; and more.
2:38:53-end: Closing comments! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! 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.
NEXT WEEK: Baxter Building! Join us for a discussion of Fantastic Four Annual #s 19, 22-24, but also feel free to check out the 40 pages of Barry Windsor-Smith’s unpublished Thing graphic novel that several people have pointed us to. We probably won’t discuss it….but we might?
http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts/WaitWhat206.mp3 0:00-4:22: Greetings from Lost Lake Loop—okay, it’s actually Portland and San Francisco but we swear LLL (a location that sounds like a love interest for Superman when I abbreviate it like that) is actually…
0:00-41:30: Greetings from the site of the Portland Prince Memorial Party. (Well, party-adjacent, anyway.) If that’s not enough of a tip-off that we’re not going to start talking comics right away, give yourself a gold star, Whatnaut, because we have a long, long trail of non-comics content to hike down! Because this was recorded within an hour of Jeff getting back from a viewing of Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Graeme and Jeff give their takes on La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Nine, All That Jazz, Fellini’s proposed Sub-Mariner movie, Flash Gordon (both the 1980 film and the film serial from 1936), which Fellini movie is the Jeff movie and which one is the Graeme movie, Radiohead’s theme for Spectre, the video for Partyman, and molto, molto, molto di piu.
41:30-1:05:12: All that said (and we did indeed say a lot), we are a comics podcast, and maybe we should talk about those for a change? Maybe? For those of you who haven’t checked it out, Graeme wrote a very fine set of capsule reviews covering the week 1 and 2 of the DC Rebirth titles over on the website, which Jeff relies on a bit here to talk about some of the books we cover in our discussion, starting with Batman: Rebirth by Scott Snyder, Tom King, Mikel Janin, and June Chung. Also discussed: Superman #1 by Pete Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, and Mick Gray; Detective Comics #1 by James Tynion IV, Eddy Barrows, and Eber Ferreira, some grousing about which was lousier, Batman Eternal or Batman and Robin Eternal; and more.
1:05:12-1:19:57: And from there, Jeff runs semi-quickly down the stuff he’s read recently and enjoyed including The Walking Dead issues #154 and #155 by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Stefano Guadiano, and Cliff Rathburn; Spider-Man/Deadpool #5 by Joe Kelly, Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales, and Jason Keith; issues #5-#7 of The Sheriff of Babylon by Tom King and Mitch Gerads; and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (V2) #8 by Ryan North, Erica Henderson, and Rico Renzi. Also discussed: Jughead by Chip Zdarsky and Erica Henderson; and Madwoman of the Sacred Heart by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius.
1:19:57-2:01:35: And Graeme? Graeme has some things to say about Sugar and Spike by Keith Giffen and Bilquis Evely, currently appearing in Legends of Tomorrow; Imperium by Joshua Dysart and Khari Evans (which Graeme calls “one of the best superhero books on the stands around); Something New: Tales From a Makeshift Bride by Lucy Knisley; and Rolling Blackouts by Sarah Glidden which Graeme does not hesitate to name as one of the books of the year. Also read by Graeme: The Keith Giffen/John Rogers/ Cully Hamner, Rafael Albuquerque, and others; and the first years of Uncanny X-Men after Whilce Portacio has taken over as artist; old Star Trek: The Next Generation comics published by DC; and the current Judge Dredd arc going on in 2000 AD and the Megazine. [Also, my apologies to Graeme for not including images from all my books in these notes and none of his, really: there wasn’t a lot of overlap and this was stuff I could easily screenshot.)
2:01:35-end: Closing comments! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and our special thanks to the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios for their continuing support of this podcast, as well as our continuing special thanks to the Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy…and to our supporters on Patreon who make all this possible. (Also, keep an ear out for some Platinum End grousing.)
Next week: Baxter Building Ep. 18! Read up on issues #147-159 of the first volume of Fantastic Four and join us!
Okay, so you survived the American Thanksgiving, Black Friday (apparently also known as “Brown Friday” because of the propensity for people in line to shit in odd places so as not to lose their places…
Welcome to the super-early, pre-surgical edition of Wait, What? Jeff is heading in to deal with a minor health condition (that rhymes with pygmy scones) which will kind of make our usual Monday mid-day drop time a bit on the impossible side. So pull up the player of choice, kick back with the following show notes, and try not to think of one of your hosts squirming in discomfort on a hospital gurney somewhere. (Cheery, right? Seriously, don’t worry about me: I’ll be drugged to the gills.) (I hope.) 00:00-9:19: Greetings from Jeff “Whoville” Lester and Graeme “The Graemetown Massacre” McMillan, who feel like they haven’t talked in a while…because they haven’t! It’s a fine jumping off point for a bit of pre-comics talk about human intimacy, Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance, the atrophying of conversational muscles, Twitter changing from stars to hearts, Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World’s First Digital Weapon, The Journalist and the Murderer, and other potentially depressing ephemera.
9:19-26:43: Yes, ephemera! Not like good old live-forever-and-can-never-die comic books! Graeme has been thinking about the latter and he’s got stuff to blow our mind with. He’s been looking at sales figures and he’s got some very interesting insights to share with us, including how Star Wars comics are essentially the fourth largest comics publisher in the direct market, how much money DC is seeing from issues of Prez (with help from the info assembled by Alex De Campi, Printing costs and other behind-the-scenes info from Jim Zub). Discussed: DC You and profit, Snakes on a Plane, the Batgirl of Burnside, The Dark Knight Returns and the prestige format books, how to craft a book that is both safe and has the potential to go wide, and more.
26:43-55:46: In the course of talking about books from the Big Two that take some risks, Jeff brings up the first issue of Vision by Tom King, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, and Jordie Bellaire. Graeme has thoughts about it too, some of them relating to the recent first issue roundtable we did with Matt Terl on the website, Impressively enough, we manage to keep the end of the issue unspoiled but otherwise consider it pretty much ALL SPOILERS, ALL THE TIME. but Discussed: tradewaiting, slow burns, second issues sales, a mission statement framed via a semantic argument, Mr. Spock in American Beauty, an almost comical reluctance by Jeff to bring up Alan Moore, the “return” to Marvel’s 70s diversity, our own struggles with comic book cynicism, and more.
55:46-1:03:52: Graeme wants to talk about Ms. Marvel #19 by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona, which was so satisfying for Graeme that he kind of feels…done with it? With everything happening at Marvel, there’s probably never been a better time to talk about Jumping Off Points (well, okay, except for maybe the New 52), and so that’s something we kick around the old sonic playing field. (I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but you may get a lot more out of the first two minutes of the conversation if you’re aware that Jeff is confused and thinks Graeme is talking about Captain Marvel but is trying to hide it.) Discussed: Alan Moore leaving Swamp Thing, the post-Morrison years of Animal Man, and more.
1:03:52-1:09:21: A mention of Al Ewing reminds Graeme that in approximately two months all of Mr. Ewing’s work on Loki will be available on Marvel Unlimited, and this is a seventeen issue run that Graeme very much recommends. Discussed: whether or not one should read Gillen’s Journey Into Mystery (and Young Avengers) before reading Ewing’s run, Mighty Avengers as a victim of Marvel Eventitis, and more.
1:09:21-1:19:00: “Marvel Unlimited is such an amazing resource,” says Jeff, before going on to talk about how his mad month-long buying spree on Comixology has him reading purchased stuff instead of all that (amazing!) all-you-can-eat stuff. Will Jeff disclose how much he spent? Can Graeme find a gentle way to tell his friend has a problem? Discussed: how much Graeme spent at the comic store; the first week of Jeff’s experiment of foregoing floppies (and his store discount) and buying digitally; the issues Jeff bought this week, which leads us to…
1:19:00-1:27:20: “Hey, so what’d you think of Unfollow, then?” Graeme asks, which gives us both a chance to talk about how much we enjoyed Unfollow #1 by Rob Williams, Michael Dowling, and Quinton Winter. Vertigo has had a pretty strong batch of first issue launches recently, but this is so far the strongest. Discussed: Survivors Club and Stephen King’s It; The Sheriff of Babylon and Jacked; Dowling’s beautiful art; Mark Millar and Grant Morrison; and more.
1:27:20-1:30:33: Jeff wants to talk about the first issue of Platinum End, by the Death Note/Bakuman team of Ohba and Obata and very much in the vein of the former than the latter. At the time of recording, it hadn’t seemed like a lot of people knew that you can buy each chapter digitally for ninety-nine cents at the same time as its Japanese release. You can get it at Viz; you can get it at Comixology; you can get it on Amazon for the Kindle. As Jeff puts it, “If you want to see what Mark Millar is going to be ripping off two years from now, check it out.”
1:30:33-1:35:11: Graeme wants to know if Jeff’s picked up Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda. Is it, as Graeme calls it “the ultimate Image book?” We go on to discuss it, along with Sarah Horrocks’ piece on Bitch Planet, Graeme utters the phrase, “I don’t even like fantasy, and this book is stunning to me.” (At the time of recording Jeff hadn’t, but he did not long after based on what Graeme says here and was pretty impressed… as you can see here.) The first issue is 71 pages for $4.99, it looks beautiful, and as Graeme says (and I go on to agree with in my piece), “Marjorie Liu is bring some really impressive fucking chops to it.”
1:35:11-1:39:51: The other first issue? The new James Bond book, Vargr, by Warren Ellis and James Masters. SPOILERS: It sounds pretty good…certainly better than Jeff’s take on what might happen.
1:39:51-1:43:58: We’ve both read Klaus #1 by Grant Morrison and Dan Mora. Considering it’s a comic book about Santa Claus, you would think Graeme would love it, right? Did he? Didn’t he? You’ll find out but you’ll hear a lot more about it from Jeff who refers to it as The Game of Thrones Christmas Special. (Which it’s really not, but come on, that would be AMAZING.)
1:43:58-1:48:10: If you did read the first issue roundtable, you’ll know both Jeff and Greeme were pretty underwhelmed by the first issue of Paper Girls by Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang. So along comes issue #2 and….we happily eat ourselves some crow. Discussed: Whether Brian K. Vaughan is doing Lost even though he worked on Lost, or whether Brian K. Vaughan is doing Under the Dome even though he worked on Under the Dome; FULL SPOILERS for plot developments in the issue; Jeff compares the second issue of Survivors Club versus the second issue of Paper Girls, and an eensy bit more.
1:48:10-2:11:16: Just to finish up talking about books we discussed on the roundtable…Jeff is a few issues behind on reading Batman and Robin Eternal, but Graeme is still reading it and, remarkably enough, is onboard! Discussed: the delight of a monoplot; how long this weekly book lasts; how long it takes before the “everything changes!” trick wears thin; Batman comics written by Scott Snyder’s clique and Batman comics written by people outside Scott Snyder’s clique; Pete Tomasi and the Curse of Pete Tomasi [Note: not officially referred to out loud as the Curse of Pete Tomasi], the Justice League Darkseid War one-shots, and issues #40-45 of Justice League which we revisit because Jeff picked them up after Graeme talked about them last time. (Seriously, we talk about them a lot.)
2:11:16-end: Closing comments! We try to figure out what’s coming up next…which is confusing in part because next episode is our Secret Convergence of Infinite Podcasts episode. Graeme won’t be here (he’s on episodes 1, 3, and 5 of the crossovers) but Jeff will be joined by Chico Leo, Gary Lactus, and Paul O’Brien, discussing “The Worm Turns: Characters, Comic Books, and Creators We Used to Love But Now Hate, and Vice-Versa.” Our special thanks to the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios for their continuing support of this podcast..as well as our special thanks to the Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy…and to all 114 of our supporters on Patreon who make all this possible. Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr! And, of course, where, as of this count, 114 patrons make this whole thing possible!
Okay, so check out the first comment if you need a link to cut and paste into the player of your choice, and, hey, maybe even drop us a note if you want? That might be…nice? Either way, as always, thank you for listening!
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