0:00-18:02: Greetings from Graeme McMillan and Jeff Lester!  It’s only a few seconds in when Graeme says, “Welcome to the Mellow Wait, What? Hour,” and although he’s only riffing on Jeff’s low-key opening…he’s kind of on the money!  (Although, y’know, not an hour, of course.)  Yes, *un*-strap your seatbelts as two semi-overworked dudes let down what’s left of their hair to talk comics with a certain je ne sais atténué.  We move quickly on to talk about the world of comics news, but there is a certain indolence there as well because, as Graeme puts it, “a lot of people are, to be honest, shitting themselves before San Diego.”  Discussed: supporting examples; the few announcements that have popped up, the lack of even embargoed news for Graeme to have up his sleeve; Previews Night; a thought experiment about what might have happened if DC had tried to do a prequel to Watchmen; and what happened to bookstore sales of Wonder Woman after being the biggest movie of the summer; and more.
18:02-29:27: By the way, if you’re Dan Coyle—and hopefully that is only applicable to one person and there’s not a small army of people using that monicker to snark at us in our website’s comments—our discussion of a conspiracy theory about Marvel’s role in keeping Wonder Woman from making any of the sales charts on Amazon leads to us both explicitly agreeing: Yes! Yes, we will talk about John Byrne’s run on Star Brand!  And then us being us, we go on to talk a bit about our memories of John Byrne’s Star Brand, the end of the New Universe (and Graeme being Graeme, he admits to having already just read what he’s just agreed to read), a sly serving of three way mid-80s beef, and more. But first! We talk a bit about digital buffet fatigue, the reduction of prices in the 2000AD online store (which Jeff can’t even think about too much or he will lose his mind and most of his most recent paycheck), and other sundries.  If you haven’t gotten the sense this is an even more meandering episode than usual, dear Whatnaut, hopefully the fact I just talked about stuff I remember us discussing before it even actually got mentioned in the logical order you would expect it in should give you a clue.
29:27-41:57: And here’s another clue: “Oh man, Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe,” Graeme sighs,” what did you do to me?”  If you think that means we are going to tread on the edges of sacred House to Astonish ground and discuss both the Handbook and Who’s Who in the DCU, give yourself a cigar! A thirty-plus year old cigar! One inked by Josef Rubenstein! And then was pressed in a Tuska-era issue of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes! (Don’t worry, it will all make sense if you listen.)
41:57-58:12: “Ah, Graeme, do you want to talk about recent comics that you’ve read?” Graeme admits (not entirely accurately, as it will turn out) the only recent comics he’s read is Dark Days: The Casting by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Jim Lee, Andy Kubert, John Romita, Jr., Scott Williams, Klaus Janson, and Danny Miki (with Alex Sinclair and Jeremiah Skipper on colors)!  But should you be surprised when talk turns to which Super Powers action figures and which Secret Wars action figures each of us had? Probably not, no.
58:12-1:01:21: Want to hear Graeme recap the amazing “City of the Damned” storyline from Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files, Vol. 8?  If not, skip the section but hoo boy you will be missing out.  I *really* want to read this storyline now!
1:01:21-1:06:57: And then we’re back to talking about Dark Days: The Casting again!
1:06:57-2:01:02: And then Jeff wants to blab about the other recent comics he’s read because he thinks—possibly quite mistakenly—that would be something the listeners to this podcast might want to hear about:  Discussed:  Rocket #3 by Al Ewing and Adam Gorham; Suicide Squad #21 by Rob Williams and Gus Vasquez; Deathstroke #21 by Christopher Priest, Diogenes Neves, and Jason Paz; Batman #25 and #26 by Tom King and Mikel Janin;  Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #7 by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Robert Hack, which leads to a very long discussion/disagreement between Graeme and Jeff about who would be on a list of the best-selling/most reliable creators of the current generation of Image creators, with a lot of Graeme looking up sales figures and dates; Kill or Be Killed #10 by Brubaker and Phillips (and Elizabeth Breitweiser!); Rock Candy Mountain #4 (so good!) by Kyle Starks and part of an ongoing underlying conversation across these titles—why aren’t more good comics discussed as they go along? Are we *all* addicted to dissecting the next new thing?
2:01:02-2:08:11: Also read by Jeff: Motor Girl #1 by Terry Moore (“as if Greg Rucka was writing Angel & The Ape?” Well, kinda!); Wave, Listen To Me!, Vol. 1 by Hiroaki Samura; and some preliminary comments on Manga Poverty by Sato Shuho (translated by Dan Luffey).
2:08:11-2:22:15: Closing comments? No, not quite! Jeff wanted to correct an earlier misstatement of his from a few weeks back when he said that all episodes of Wait, What? are currently available on iTunes.  Turns out iTunes’ podcast lists top out at 300 so…happy tricentennial to us?  And also, though we tried to avoid doing our quickly-becoming-a-standard-shtick of complaing about Marvel: you guys did you see that damn t-shirt variant cover thing? What the hell?!
2:22:15-end: “I have, I’ve got to admit, really enjoyed this meandering episode,” announces Graeme.  “Because it really is so close to San Diego that this is exactly where my mind is at right now.” And with that—after some debate as to when we will return (spoilers: three weeks!), we move to..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.
In Three Weeks:  Wait, What?, Ep. 230 (or three hundred and something, but who’s counting?) Have a nice little summer break and come back and join us here in August!
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0:00-21:49: Greetings! And then a story about greetings!  And then, because we are such professionals, we have an honest to God addendum about our last episode with the news that Jaws, Jaws 2, Jaws 3(-D), and Jaws: The Revenge are all leaving Netflix on March 1st.  Quick, call in sick!  Us being us, we then return to back to touch on all things we didn’t touch on in our first discussion (and some of the things we did).  Things like:  after Jaws, what is the second best Jaws movie?  Ryan North’s study of the novelization of Back To The Future? And who the hell were some of those movie novelizations written for?  And as long as I’m doing all these links, get this.  I’m buying one for Graeme right now!
21:49-32:44: And from there, Graeme drops a pretty big spoiler bomb about Kong: Skull Island that blows Jeff’s tiny mind!  And then Graeme drops a serious spoiler for The Lego Batman Movie! And then Jeff talks…waffles!
 
Also discussed: the best Twitter account still not on Twitter, the best Captain Beefheart album, etc.
32:44-37:26: Comic books!  We also talk about those!  Or, maybe more to the point, we talk about websites that talk about comic books…occasionally.
37:26-49:24: But Jeff is part of the problem certainly, because he read those issues of IDW’s Rom Graeme recommended last episode and all he could think was: man, what a great TV show this would be! Also discussed: those damn Transformers movies, Anthony Hopkins, Shia LaBeouf, the best title for the most recent Indiana Jones movie, and more.
49:24-1:02:30: Graeme has a comic book question for Jeff.  Marvel has Generations and the upcoming Make Mine Marvel initiatives.  Could they make Jeff jump back on to Marvel’s bandwagon? Discussed: Marvel Unlimited acting up, the first four issues of Civil War II (but not really because there are all these other issues of Civil War II before you even get to the first issue), and then…TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.
1:02:30-1:10:17: But then we are back, better than ever!  So that Jeff can complain some more about Brian Bendis.  Lucky you.
1:10:17-1:55:45: And then Graeme talks about the recently released solicits for the first three issues of Secret Empire, the upcoming Marvel event that is now apparently weekly?  Also discussed:  Marvel’s disappearing act, “the weird Marvel machismo,” the possible fall of the direct market and Jeff’s frustration at retailers not changing things up enough over the last few years, handselling people on Image titles and so on.  But then, partway through this narrative, we kind of find ourselves thinking, “well, hmm, what about Image these days?  Are they really that safe a bet for a retailer trying to keep his weekly customers happy?” We look at the publication schedules of  several Image mainstays many retailers *did* handsell that have gone awry.  It’s a potentially important story—is anyone talking about it?
1:55:45-2:00:09:  So, yeah, now that it’s been about two hours, we should at least briefly talk about the comics we’ve been reading, don’t you think?  Graeme starts by talking about something he’s read that’s excited him more than any comic he’s read recently—the new Nobrow catalog!  Just check out the image at the top of the post and just above.
2:00:09-2:03:08: The other comic Graeme wants to talk about the 2000 AD 40th Anniversary Special, featuring a Zombo strip that Graeme says is “everything I wanted.”
2:03:08-2:22:22: And then it’s Jeff’s turn!  Jeff speed-talks his way through the comics he’s read so you don’t have to! (Wha?)  Also featuring additional additions from Graeme!
2:22:22-end:  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.
Next week:  Next week is a skip week!  And then the week after that is a Baxter Building! Read issues #248-260  of The Fantastic Four and then come listen to us misunderstand them!
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00:00-6:19: Greetings from Jeff “Cute Bree” Lester and Graeme “or could it be Bree Cute?” McMillan, who are here to tell you about the Patreon security breach in the most indirect way possible!  Also, if you listen closely (okay, not that closely—you pretty much just have to listen), you can hear Graeme read the names from the Wait, What? Hall of Thank Yous, wherein the names of our contributing patrons have been inscribed.  Thank you, patrons!

6:19-7:29: Are we having internet troubles, or is Jeff just an idiot?  Hmm, tough call, tough call (no pun intended). So we spend a minute or two trying to figure out if we’ll need to skype one another back or not.  (Spoilers: we do, though not quite yet.)
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7:29-17:05:  “Hey, Jeff!” sez Graeme. “Have you read new comics this week or, like me, have you just been reading old comics?” Jeff has run down the list of books that he’s read, most of which are new or newish, Thanks to the way Jeff presented it (as “that $30 issue of Scooby-Doo Team-Up”), Graeme wants a few more details about that book, about which you might already know (and Graeme did too).  SPOILERS for the super-special guest stars of this issue.  This in turn leads to a quick discussion of the launch of DC Superhero Girls, and the first webisode which doesn’t look especially easy to embed otherwise we’d be doing it here.  Also mentioned more or less in passing: APE was happening just a few days after we recorded (and has wrapped by the time I write this) and New York Comic-Con is right around the corner.  Jeff has a slightly muddled history of the Alternative Press Expo for you, we discuss why it’s so damn difficult to have a comic book convention in San Francisco, and then…
17:05-17:34: We decide to jump off the line and try again since one of us is cutting out a bit on the other (although we’re happy to say you can’t hear it in the recording at all) so that bring us to…
17:34-24:03: Greetings, part two!  We’re back almost as soon as we left to talk discuss, well, how gullible is Jeff really?  And this leads into a discussion of made-up technology and apps that clearly don’t exist in the real world but are just spoofs designed to satirize today’s culture, such as Qoopy, or Peeple or Snapchat or Ello.
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 24:03-48:02: “Graeme!” sez Jeff.  “You’d asked me about comics I’d read.  Do you want to tell me what  comics you’ve read, and should we talk about, like, the comics?” And you think that would lead us into talking about exactly that—in no small part because Jeff wants to—but because Jeff hadn’t heard about the story by Janelle Asselin that broke over at Graphic Policy about Scott Allie’s history of alleged assault at comic conventions, Graeme recaps the story. So we talk about this situation, some of the other stories that have recently come to light in the comics industry, and about the struggle to find nuance without using that as a way to freeze out, ignore, or invalidate those who step forward. Also discussed: owning up to stuff, having to own up to stuff, apologizing to Ridley Scott, and more.
48:02-55:04:  “Let’s see,” sez Graeme.  “You asked what comics I’d read, didn’t you?” Graeme talks briefly about Sandman Overture #6 by Neil Gaiman and J.H. Williams III; we bemoan the change-up of Skull The Slayer by Steve Englehart and the wrap-up by Bill Mantlo; and we mention more or less in passing the Steve Englehart issues of JLA.
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55:04-1:26:05:  All of which leads Graeme to read (thanks to his magical library system) Time Runs Out, Jonathan Hickman’s closing arc to Avengers and New Avengers, which Graeme spends a certain amount of time dissecting and trying to wrap his brain around.  Discussed:  crazy dialogue, Mark Millar worship, Hickman’s concept of characterization, and how it pertains to his versions of Captain America and Iron Man; the appeal of ambition and the long game; a loosey-goosey comparison of Fraction’s Fear Itself and Hickman’s Secret Wars, as well as the Marvel work of Fraction and Hickman; the presence of irony; why it might not be the best idea to tie your event into a story that happened thirty years ago; and more.
1:26:05-1:37:19: “So what’s really interesting is comparing all of that to Remender in Rage of Ultron,” sez Graeme, and then vents a bit more about Avengers: Rage of Ultron by Rick Remender,  Jerome Opena, Pepe Larraz, and Mark Morales.  We discuss the characterization of Hank Pym, comics and wrestling with a great point from Graeme about wrestling; Sense and Sensible Rebooting starring The Vision; the new Daredevil series being written by Charles Soule; and more.
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1:37:19-2:02:04:  All this talk of continuity in comics and how long readers should be expected to remember things or creators should be expected to keep consistent with previous characterizations leads to a more personal revelation from Jeff: after years and years of reading comics series in print, it’s probably become time for him to make the transition to digital, thanks to experiences he’s had reading The Fade Out, Nameless, and The Walking Dead in digital as opposed to print.  Why digital over floppies? Why digital over trades? Irresponsible reader? Irresponsible customer? Or just an old fart?  YOU DECIDE.
2:02:04-end: Closing comments! Or it would be if we didn’t revisit the Scott Allie situation as his first statement had been released since the time we talked about the situation ninety minutes earlier!  Stitcher! Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff!  MattTumblr!  And, of course, on Patreon where, as of this count, 109 patrons make this whole thing possible!  We will be back next week!

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Next week:  A new Baxter Building!  Read up on issues #82-87 and Annual #6 of the Fantastic Four and join us for a monthly dose of semi-historical comic analyses!

And, since the player is once again being overembeddy, check out the first comment in the thread if you need a direct link to the episode for your cutting and pasting purposes!

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I’m a little worried about this:  Graeme and I podcast this  very week so there’s a chance, if I do it wrong, I’ll writing about stuff here that would really benefit by me talking about…