0:01-06:18: Greetings from the very first “Wait, What?” podcast of the year! Graeme “Blade Runner Year” McMillan and Jeff “The New Barbarians Year” Lester. We start off by talking about the list compiled of movies set in the year 2019. (Probably not this list, but maybe?) We also talk about other fictional epochs we’ve lived through, pranking the generations to come, and more.
06:18-30:46: How does this lead into our discussion of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century? The answer may surprise you! (Unless you’ve listened to us before, I guess.) But from there on out, it’s the Wait, What? version of Festivus with the airing of the Alan Moore-related grievances. Discussed: Alan Moore and sex; Elizabeth Sandifer’s The Last War in Albion; whether Moore is an Eighties artist or a Seventies artist; a Springsteen analogy that lamentably never comes together; Alan Moore and Star Wars; Who would win in a fight: passive vs. aggressive?; and more.
30:46-1:10:02: We move from there to Shelfdust’s Top 100 Comic Book Issues of All Time, in part as a way to discuss the generation gap as reflected through comics and in part to realize where we fit in the gap and also in part to throw some stink-eye at some of the choices. Also discussed: George Romero; Ernest Hemingway; Chuck Klosterman; the Top Ten of the Shelfdust list; The Top Twenty of the Shelfdust list; being recognized today vs. being recognized “back in the day;” the amount of Azzarello, Ellis, and Ennis on the list; and more.
1:10:02-1:25:21 (or thereabouts): In a sudden surge of anecdotalism, Jeff thinks there’s a sudden uptick in Harry Potter hot takes. And we’re not just talking about the toilet facts recently disclosed about the Potterverse. Also discussed: big books; Neil Gaiman; what it will be like when Jeff has a stroke; and more.
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1:25:21 (or thereabouts)-1:29:38: Back to more Shelfdust talk! Graeme contributed to the list—what book that he picked ranked the highest on the Top 100. And speaking of which Graeme’s list (in *ascending* order):
2:35:37-2:48:27: (Yes, we really do talk about it *that* long.) Anyway, we’re aware we’re running horrifyingly long, but neither of us would forgive ourselves if we didn’t try to at least briefly sing the praises of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (and talk a bit about how baffling it is that it’s not bigger despite the amount of raving done about it). Also discussed: Aquaman has made a huge chunk of money and is incredibly financially successful—so why don’t we know anyone who sees it?
2:48:27-end: Closing comments! We had to make ‘em! 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: Wait, What? Ep. 262! Probably much shorter and with less fighting! Join us!
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,…
0:00-30:49: Greetings! And greetings! And greetings! It’s been a while so we decide to talk a bit about our delay which leads into the epic story of one brave man’s battle against one of nature’s deadliest threats: snow. We invite you to, as George Michael would say, listen without prejudice (volume one) to the kind of super heroics regular people have to engage in every day (or at least one day, during one of their three day business trips). Also discussed: the Jaws movies, Dennis Quaid’s moviemaking choices during the 80s (with an odd black-out by Skype during part of that); what’s a better movie, Innerspace or Ghostbusters; more stories about Jaws, and more.
30:49-43:27: Can we talk about comic books now? Well, hmmm. How about we compromise and talk about what’s the best possible comic book adaptation of a movie: Marvel’s adaptation of Jaws 2? Or the comic book adaptation of 1941? Or Jim Steranko’s adaptation of Outland? Or Blade Runner? Star Wars? Or maybe just the cover to Star Wars #4?
43:27-1:18:39: Comic book news! Every once in a while we talk about comic book news: Sales figures for Marvel? Looney Toons vs. DC? (at 1:04:51) and more!
1:18:39-1:32:37: Thanks to Graeme, we finally get around to talking about some comics that comes out recently—and by recent, I’m not even talking about “this decade” or “this century,” but “this week”! After a bit of talk about the transition of Superman back to being your dad, to discussing Super Sons #1, Inhumans vs. X-Men #1, and more about Super Sons #1.
1:32:37-2:03:07: We also talk about The Wild Storm #1, and Matt Terl’s interesting review right here on the site, but ONLY after spending lot of time talking about Marvel’s New Universe because that’s the kind of sad old nerds we are. And there’s also some talk about Neil Gaiman and Catwoman too, because that’s the kind of laser-like focus we’re capable of bringing to our discussion of comic books.
2:03:07-2:20:59: “Jeff, we’re at two hours,” Graeme says, mostly accurately. “Just tell me the other comics that you’ve read and tell me if you liked them or didn’t. Go!” Mentioned far too briefly: Slasher #1 by Charles Forsman and Floating World Comics; 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank #1-3, Suicide Squad #11, Love is Love TPB, Guy Colwell’s Inner City Romance TPB, Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun vols. 1 & 2 (thank you, Jacinda!), and Duck Avenger #0-3, Juni Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu, Vol. 1; All-Star Comics and the entire run of Super Friends, Batwoman Rebirth #1, Jughead by issues of Zdarsky and North; Justice League of America by Steve Orlando and Ivan Reis; Kamandi Challenge #2, Divinity #3, the IDW relaunch of ROM; and more.
2:20:59-end: Closing comments! But first: We make a plan for a January podcast episode! 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. If you like a lot of bonus end-of-the-cast content, it takes a while for us to run out of steam.
Next week: Next week is another Wait, What? Just like this only better (we hope! God, do we hope…)
In some ways, I’m the purest target audience for The Wild Storm #1, written by Warren Ellis, drawn by Jon Davis Hunt and colored by Ivan Plascencia. In some ways, I’m the worst person to be…
http://theworkingdraft.com/media/WaitWhat213.mp3 0:00-16:39: Greetings! Now longer are we dawdling walruses of last week, unsure of where and how to start. No, this week we are back to being lithe jungle cats, quick to leap on…
0:00-7:06: Greetings! Because Jeff is an idiot, we lost the first hour and sixteen minutes of our recording. So today’s episode will be comparatively short and it starts up with us telling you what you missed. It’s a surprisingly complete summary of seventy-six minutes jammed into six. Discussion of what we discussed: Batman Day (which this episode was recorded on), Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice; Injection by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey; 2000 A.D. Prog. 2000; Suicide Squad #2 by Rob Williams, Jim Lee, and Ivan Reis; Jeff’s admiration for Superwoman #2 and Graeme’s for Supergirl; Detective Comics and Chris Claremont’s New Mutants; All-Star Batman #2; and Tom King’s Batman, which is where we catch up, since Graeme has to reiterate his point about…
7:06-32:23: Tom King and the connection between The Vision and Sheriff of Babylon (which King has described as being part of an unofficial trilogy with his Omega Men), and how it connects to the first six issues we’ve read of Batman. Also discussed: Alan Moore and Alan Moore’s Jerusalem; the promotional interviews with Alan Moore for Alan Moore’s Jerusalem; what would be the non-comic related questions we would ask Alan Moore; and mo(o)re.
32:23-36:13: Jeff wanted to talks about Moon Knight #6 by Jeff Lemire, Wilfredo Torres, Francesco Francavilla, and James Stokoe (!) where Lemire finally has a take on the character that really works for Jeff. 36:13-38:16: Jeff does a loose compare/contrast between Moon Knight and the first issue of Doom Patrol by Gerard Way, Nick Derington, and Tamra Bonvilliain. A good fun book with some absolutely lovely art by Derington and colors by Bonvillain.
38:16-57:25: Jeff also wants to give a shout-out to latest issue of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl with fill-in art by Jacob Chabot and another crazily strong script by Ryan North. And after that, we talk a bit about North’s first issue of Jughead (which sounds *amazing*), which leads us to a not-thrilled impression of Zdarsky’s Howard The Duck, Marvel and hip-hop and much more. 57:25-1:07:55: Also read and also (lightly) discussed: The Fix #5 by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber; Paper Girls #9 by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson and Jared K. Fletcher; Saga by Vaughan and Staples; old issues of Ms. Marvel written by Chris Claremont; and more.
1:07:55-1:11:33: Sad to say, either Graeme did most of the talking in our lost hour, or maybe Jeff was out of control there too, but Jeff does too much talking this episode, even if it’s for a good cause like showing some love for the insane “Prisoners of Three Worlds” story from 1963’s Batman #153, by Bill Finger, Henry Boltinoff, Jack Schiff and Sheldon Moldoff, recently purchased during Comixology’s Road to Batman Day Sale. 1:11:33-1:15:02: I can’t adequately describe how we got to discussing Denny O’Neil’s career as writer and editor, a case Jeff tries to make by incorrectly assigning at least two Batman characters’ first appearances to the wrong era.
1:15:02-1:19:10: Graeeme has some wonderful stuff to tell us about Books With Pictures, a great little comic book store in Portland, Oregon with a back issue drawer curated by Douglas Wolk, as well as the back issues he, Graeme, picked up from said drawer. Mentioned: Heroes and Legends; the Legion of Substitute Heroes Special from 1995; Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane issue #115; Superman and Batman: Heroes Against Hunger; and the zines from our colleagues Jay and Miles.
1:19:10-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 Ep. 21! Read issues #184-200 of the first volume of The Fantastic Four and deconstruct them with us! We will see you then!
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…
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!
Looking back over the reviews I’ve written recently, a couple of things stuck out to me: I’ve said a few times that I wouldn’t pay for a title but would read it on Marvel Unlimited…
You might think that taking part in an 800,000 word roundtable conversation that started with discussion of Batman & Robin Eternal #1 would’ve exhausted everything I had to say about that particular lightweight action-adventure superhero romp….
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