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.
CI7fRfjWEAEXoBS1

(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
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Artwork-from-emZenith-Pha-001Greetings, Whatnauts!  We hope Episode 171 finds you well, since it found us on the edge of wellness (look for the DVD marketing of Edge of Wellness to confuse everybody into thinking it’s actually called “Cough, Mute, Repeat”).  Despite our professed love of the partially muted cough or sneeze, Jeff put a lot of work into editing that out so all you get are two hours and seven minutes of pure, unfiltered comic book opinionation!  Look at the show notes below and see!Rogue00:00-10:29:  Bonus musical opening!  And then we *finally* announce the winners of our Rogue Trooper Last Man Standing contest, where the contestants told us what they would rename us if we were biochips and what piece of equipment you put us on.  Listen in as we announce the winners and read their entries because they are, as Graeme so perfectly puts it, “harsh but fair but harsh.”  Congratulations to Eric Reehl, Brendan O’Hare, Michael Loughlin, and Matthew Murray, and big thanks to Last Man Standing author and Whatnaut Brian Ruckley for making it possible for us to share the love (no matter how belatedly).

Blight-design-by-Mikel-Janin10:29-36:13: Graeme has been catching up on a bunch of old comics recently and one of them is the collected edition of DC’s Forever Evil spinoffs, and tells us about Forever Evil: Blight, a sixteen issue sub-event that starts out great and then burned through so much of Graeme’s good will, it’s kind of a shame. Also discussed: Alan Moore and American Gothic and John Constantine (and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice); J.M. DeMatteis; DeMatteis’ run on Defenders and Captain America; Ray Fawkes; shout outs to Jesus; Jamie Delano’s Hellblazer run; Gary Seven; the Star Trek: Vanguard series; and the phrase “come through my magical portal!” which Graeme says with such panache it really does deserve to become its own meme.

Suicide_Squad_002336:13-46:33: Also read by Graeme: five or so collections of New 52’s Suicide Squad, with runs by Adam Glass, Ales Kot, and Matt Kindt on writing.  Also discussed:  the Ostrander Suicide Squad run; Charles Soule’s Thunderbolts; Thunderbolts as being overdue for a big Marvel Unlimited readthrough on Jeff’s part; Warren Ellis as muse of Marvel Comics; and an appearance by everyone’s favorite set of barking dogs, Ernie and Gus!
46:33-1:23:28:  Continued from above, but perhaps worth breaking into its own time-stamp, we talk about the idea of Marvel as a particularly American narrative, and the influence of British writers like Millar and Ellis on that narrative; Marvel’s purported distrust of The Man and its not-so-secret love of The Man; the one story Marvel can’t stop telling about SHIELD; Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the direction of the Marvel universe; the Original Sin event from Marvel (with spoilers for the final issue); Comparisons to Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales; head-scratching about what events from are “successful” and what do we mean by success, anyway?; and us talking about AXIS, Battle of the Atom, Superman: Doomed, and of course much more.
7a626333cf7b46c2274fff3b56f20f481:23:28-1:27:31: “We’ve gone horribly off-topic; how did we even get onto this?” Unsure, we turn to another set of comics Graeme tackled this week: Valiant, which Graeme especially enjoys when tackling in big chunks, as he did with Rai and Q2: The Return of Quantum and Woody, as well as new titles like Imperium and Ivar, Time Walker.
1:27:31-1:34:59: More recommendations from Graeme? “Get the fuck back into 2000 A.D.,” he advises Jeff (or perhaps it’s an oblique exorcism ritual? I didn’t realize Graeme had caught on to the fact that I was 2-D Prog demon made flesh!). And people in the U.K. he tells to go get the Judge Dredd Mega Collection by being published every fortnight by Hachette; finally, for all of us with access to a Kindle or a Kindle app, he exhorts us to purchase the omnibus of Judge Dredd: Year One novellas by Mike Carroll, Matt Smith, and Al Ewing.  So pushy, that Graeme McMillian fellow!
1:34:59-1:46:52: And, on the subject of 2000 A.D., Jeff finally got around to reading Zenith: Phase One by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell. So we talk about Morrison from way, way, way back in the day, what he’s doing then and what he’s doing now (such as Nameless #2 by G-Mo and Chris Burnham).
leia-1-aurebesh-1261041:46:52-1:51:55:  Jeff bought and read Princess Leia #1 by Mark Waid and Terry and Rachel Dodson and has a lot of ambivalent feelings about it (and Star Wars in general).  Listen here to find out why! (Ha, and I said Graeme was pushy.)
1:51:55-1:57:28:  Jeff also wanted to talk about Grayson #8 by Tom King, Tim Seeley, and Mikel Janin; and Scooby-Doo Team-Up #9 by Sholly Fisch and Dario Brizuela.
1:57:28-end: Shop talk! We got great feedback for our discussion on the last podcast about the first half-dozen issues of the Legion: Five Years Later.  We also wring our hands over our pace on Baxter Building, our FF readthrough podcast (protip: read issues #25-36 plus Annual #2, if you want to be prepped for our next ep!), and politely insist everyone to check out the revivified House to Astonish!  [link:  ]
and then it’s on to our closing comments! Against The Tote Bag! Places to look for us at—Stitcher! Itunes! Twitter! Tumblr! and, of course, on Patreon where, as of this count, 95 patrons make this whole thing possible.

Remember, if you do not like our audio player (and many of you do not), and you don’t like retrieving our podcast from the RSS feed or what have you, check out the very first comment for a plain text link for you to copy and paste freely!  As mentioned above, we will be back next week with Episode 3 of Baxter Building.  So if you excuse me, I have some crazy-ass Kirby/Lee comics to attend to…but, as always, thank you for listening!

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts/WaitWhat165.mp3 It’s funny, the unintended consequences thing:  the youtube video was supposed to be worked into our podcast conversation as per the request/behest of Mr. Graeme McMillan, but I wasn’t able to do that because…

Oh, Robin.

Oh, Robin.

Man, no sooner have you survived the bombardment that was San Diego Comic Con than here comes the two hour and forty-nine minute missile that is Wait, What? Ep. 155, with Graeme and Jeff talking about San Diego Comic Con….and the Image Expo….and Marvel’s diverse attempts to diversify its diversity…and Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Seconds, and Supreme: Black Rose, and G.I. Joe Vs. Transformers #1 and, oh yes, more than an hour spent discussing Avengers #152-178 (give or take a few issues.)

Join me after the leap for the show notes, eh?

Continue reading

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Last week I dropped some science on the first week of Comixology’s twenty day giveaway–namely, that I am a god-damned fool when it comes to the cartoonist, Jason. What will I drop this week, you…

omac1Wait What? Ep. 1.What Now?

Hoo boy, the more things change, the more they stay the same, am I right?

Hey, everybody!  Here’s a laugh  for you — Graeme and I have been racing around like lunatics to get this launch set up so it can go live on this day, setting up a Tumblr, setting up a Twitter, setting up a Patreon page so that people who want us to beat our previous record of 150+ episodes can help us do so,  and, with the help of friends and family, getting this new website in place.  Seriously, this WP theme we’ve got working can really kick out the jams:  I can embed podcasts in their own entries, we can have a rotating series of entries on our top banner…

And I know how to work none of it.  And since Graeme and Kate are offline for the night and I want this to get launched on the first day of June… I’m going to be kicking it old school.  Which is to say: incompetently.

And to top things off, I didn’t even mean to bite Graeme’s opening entry by using the (kinda dinky?) image that I did…it’s just that Photobucket is acting broken and I can’t upload some lovely art from the new Flash Gordon series by Jeff Parker, Evan “Doc” Shaner, Jordie Bellaire and others.  Or at least I can’t yet…maybe by tomorrow, we’ll have worked out the bugs?

Anyway, since we don’t have to worry about pushing aside other fine collaborators, how about we get straight into the show notes, yeah?

  • 00:00-07:13: New greetings!  Which are a lot like our old greetings except, comically, we are more awkward at them?  As you can see, this new house of ours and newish venture has us a little off our game…at first.  Presumably, we’ll get back into the swing of things sooner rather than later.  But for the first few minutes, it’s us comparing ourselves to The Chevy Chase Show, which is  not the most inspiring of comparisons, to be sure.
  • 07:13-8:08: Oh, and also check out the Tumblr: for things like our reading lists, images we’ve plucked from those books, links to the show, and what-have-you.  That’s got to be, like, a signficant percentage of what one posts on Tumblr, right?  What-have-yous?
  • 8:08-10:01:  Speaking of which, it’s time to play the game that Jeff always loses: Let’s Talk About How Much We’ve Read (But May Not Get Around to Discussing).  In Graeme’s corner: Trees #1 (ditto for Jeff); Saga #19  (ditto); Lumberjanes #1 and #2 (ditto for Jeff); Southern Bastards #2 (ditto); Forever Evil #7 and Justice League #30 and Justice League of America #15; the first five issues of DC New 52: Future’s End; the final issue of Nightwing; the first couple issues of Flash Gordon (ditto from Jeff, although listening to it now, I’m not sure if Graeme is being coy and actually has read issue #3 ahead of the rest of us plebes or not); the Gold Key books from Dynamite (Turok, Doctor Spektor (Regina Spektor’s older brother), Magnus Robot Fighter, and Solar, Man of the Atom); Original Sins #1; the most recent issues of 2000 A.D.; the pending ABC Warriors collection A.B.C. Warriors (Mek Files);The Banzai Batallion collection Banzai Battalion: Just Another Bug Hunt; the latest Devlin Waugh collection; Velvet #5; Zero issues #6, 7, and 8 (ditto for Jeff); Shutter #2 (ditto): Starlight #3 (ditto); Dead Letters #2; Petty Theft by Pascal Girard and Nobrow 9: It’s Oh So Quiet (Nobrow Magazine). 10:01-14:14: And in Jeff’s far more anemic corner (especially when he leaves out the ones Graeme’s mentioned above):  the Free Comic Book Day edition of Transformers vs. G.I. Joe (ditto Graeme); Aquaman #31 (ditto);  Batman #31; Afterlife with Archie #5 (ditto); Batman & Frankenstein #31; Tales From The Con #1; Walking Dead #127; Minimum Wage #5; Bee and Puppycat #1; Star Trek New Visions: The Mirror Crack’d (about which Graeme literally has to jump in and immediately ask questions, so excited is he by the prospect of John Byrne photoshopping a goatee onto images of Leonard Nimoy) (and, really, who can blame him?) (Graeme, I mean, not John Byrne—we blame John Byrne for *sooooo* much); Batman Eternal issues #6, 7, and 8; Crossed Badlands #53; The Fuse #4; and approximately 25 issues of Marvel’s Avengers (we say approximately because we were supposed to read up to issue #138 or so and Graeme, of course, read to issue #141 and Jeff made it to issue #132 (although he read the Giant Size Avengers issues, which means bupkis in the face of all that other amazing crap Graeme read while simultaneously writing for six other websites).  And more (but less than Graeme)!
  • 14:14-28:59: Jeff is about a month behind on his 2000 A.D. reading (and don’t even get him started on Shonen Jump Weekly, Whatnauts!) but that does mean that he did get to finish the stunning “Mega-City Confidential” by John Wagner, Colin MacNeil, Chris Blythe, and Annie Parkhouse.  And so we talk about this fine piece of unsubtle, polemical, slow-burn storytelling, and what has been a very, very good year for Judge Dredd stories.  Also mentioned: the Titan story, Shooter’s Night; the classic storyline Judge Dredd: America (of course); The Dark Knight Returns; The Wire; and more.
  • 28:59-1:10:56:  From new 2000 A.D. to very old 2000 A.D.:  through 2000 A.D.’s iPad app, Jeff purchased The Ballad of Halo Jones (Alan Moore) by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson, a classic early Moore work that Jeff had never read.  So, with a minimal amount of shaming from Graeme (thank goodness!), we talk about Halo Jones, the work of Ian Gibson, Miracleman,  Mark Millar and the brilliant Shameless by Colin Smith; and The Last War in Albion by Philip Sandifer.  Also mentioned: Graeme’s thought experiment about Alan Moore (at 35:44);  From Hell; Alan Moore’s work for Image; Graeme’s ambivalence about (especially) Supreme; Jeff natters on about an essay he read talking about a Jim Starlin’s run on DC Comics Presents and how it provided some imagery for one of Alan Moore’s Supreme flashbacks (and because we love you, we can tell you that essay was written by the mighty Tom Scioli; Alan Moore, raconteur; Promethea; America’s Best Comics; and an unexpected compare/contrast that I think suprised both Graeme and me; the announcement of Electricomics; Moore’s stance about DC; the Clovis episode of Veep; comparisons to Thrillbent; Jeff’s reaction as a subscriber thereto, specifically to The Damnation of Charlie Wormwood; and (allen) more!
  • 1:10:56-1:13:50: Graeme has interesting news about, believe it or not, Left Behind and Nicholas Cage.  Come for the week-old movie news, stay for the creation of our new Patreon milestone: GET NICHOLAS CAGE ON OUR PODCAST.  Other news worth mentioning:  Shaft becoming a comic book; and Graeme and Jeff being old.  So very old, you guys.  So old.
  • 1:13:50-1:27:44: From Nicholas Cage to Warren Ellis (but of course!), here we are talking about Trees #1 by Ellis and Jason Howard.  Also discussed:  Ellis and his mailing list; Ellis on Supreme; Ellis off Moon Knight; Ellis Doesn’t Live Here Any More; Ellis Sweet Ellis; Ellis in Chains; and maybe the last two or three of those are just things I threw in to keep myself entertained?  But also, what is up with Marvel and their big-name writers leaving books within the first six issues (Aaron, Waid, Fraction, Wells, etc.)
  • 1:27:44-1:30:43:Starlight, why are you still reading it?” asks Graeme, in hopes of beginning our move toward a hastier discussion of the books we’ve read.  First off, the third issue of this miniseries by Mark Millar and Goran Parlov.
  • 1:30:43-1:36:32: Bouncing quite naturally off that, the second issue of Flash Gordon by Jeff Parker, Evan “Doc” Shaner, and Jordie Bellaire.  TRIGGER WARNING: We use the word “fun” a lot. And we also discuss a great interview with Jordie Bellaire that also has an amazing anecdote detailing the difficulty of the freelancer’s life.  Graeme also very much liked King’s Watch, the prequel miniseries to the Flash Gordon series.
  • 1:36:32-1:44:27: Speaking of books edited and packaged by Nate Cosby, Graeme entreats Jeff to check out the Gold Key revival books at Dynamite (Turok, Phil Spektor Producer of the Occult, Magnus Robot RickRoller, and Solar Man of the Atom).  And here’s a problem Jeff has been having—reading very good “superhero” books that don’t manage to *stick* as regulars on his reading list (the very good but frequently ignored Archer & Armstrong, for example).
  • 1:44:27-1:48:33: Graeme talks about the last issue of Forever Evil, with some surprising news (at least to Jeff): against all odds, it almost worked! There will be spoilers in this very brief discussion of the last issue, including the last two pages of the miniseries. And because of Justice League #30, Graeme is also interested in the “Luthor Joins the Justice League” storyline that’s developing.  Again, spoilers on all this stuff but worth checking out if you’re okay with that.
  • 1:48:33-1:50:10:  Jeff has peeked at the preview of Superman they’ve been running by Geoff Johns and John Romita, Jr., and wants to get Graeme’s take on it.
  • 1:50:10-2:01:00: But to hell with that, because Graeme really wants to tell us about Nobrow 9: It’s Oh So Quiet (Nobrow Magazine) which he does briefly (but passionately!).  Jeff, left to pick his one book to talk about, of course ambles all over the place, putting most of his passion into blaming Graeme for reading ahead on Avengers. But eventually he focuses on Saga #19, including his tin-hat conspiracy theory about one of the contributors to the issue’s letter column, and there’s a bit of hand-wringing to be had about Walking Dead #127.
  • 2:01:00-end: Closing comments! If you’re reading these words, you’re probably on our website, so do check out our Patreon page and help Jeff’s Nicholas Cage dream come true!

Okay, so yeah.  Man, I wish I could do this with all the high-falutin’ stuff this website can do, but I’ll just link to the episode again down here like I did up top?  That’ll do for now, right?  Hopefully, we can give you a bit more to work with very soon.

Wait What? Ep. 1.What Now?

So, yes.  As always: THANK YOU FOR LISTENING.  Yes, I thought I would be all yell-y about that.  I hope you’re as glad to have us back as we are!

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail