0:00-4:10: Greetings from Graeme “Nathan Detroit” McMillan and Jeff “Nicely-Nicely Johnson” Lester! Yes, you know you’re in for a weird one when the very first topic right out of the gate is Guys & Dolls, and who’s seen it and who hasn’t? But that’s only as an opening to Graeme’s desire to become a chicken farmer? We use our title catch phrase a little too often around these parts, but….huh?
4:10-12:20: From farming and growing chicken to comics and…Howard Chaykin? Yes. Graeme did that. And so we talk about the cover controversy to Divided States of Hysteria #4. And we move from that to talk about the XXX covers from Image, the upcoming “hardcore” cover to Savage Dragon #225 posted in censored version by Erik Larsen, about which Graeme so rightly says, “[Larsen] doing it at the same time as the Chaykin thing is amazing. Like, Image would not respond to comment, but the Image founder is like “You guys! Savage Dragon’s got his dick out!”
12:20-46:45: To which Jeff ruefully replies, “Oh man, it’s going to be our dick out episode. This is…really depressing.” (For a good laugh, play Graeme’s “is it?” at 12:25 and chortle at his obvious terror. Maybe it’s just me, but it gets progressively funnier the more you listen to it.) But this is because Jeff just read more or less side-by-side volume one of Stjepan Šejić’s Sunstone, and the first fifty pages of Volume 2 of The Complete Crepax…and so has two erotic comics with a similar lifestyle (BDSM) at their core but two very different ways of looking at same. Also discussed: Adam Warren’s very excellent Empowered, Menage a 3 and the brilliant cartooning of Gisele Lagace (with a very on-topic digression from Graeme about her excellent work on Archie Meets The Ramones); the *very explicit* Alfie by InCase, the classic Oh Joy Sex Toy by Erika Moen, and more.
46:45-1:01:05: It’s a little tough to explain from how we get from there to Jeff asking, “Where is the money in comics, Graeme? Is there money in comics? How will we ever know, essentially?” Discussed: Erika Moen’s Patreon posts (well, actually her husband Matt’s posts) about money, the very enlightening Patreon posts by Lucy Bellwood about money, Patrick Zircher’s Patreon, Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether by Greg Rucka and Rick Burchett; Kieron Gillen’s very enlightening post about making money at Image; Todd Allen’s observation that The Walking Dead is the #2 Bestselling Ongoing Title in All of Comics; and more but…
1:01:05-1:03:13: There’s a very ridiculous form of the patented Wait, What? Techpocalypse as Jeff accidentally tugs his headset out of the USB port with his big, ridiculous feet. This leads to figure out how many times we’ve had the dreaded “we were talking but Skype was not recording” nightmarish situation that has happened once or twice (three times, we think!). Fortunately, it did not happen this time!
1:03:13-1:17:00: Back to money, comics, and if the quite accomplished No Mercy by Alex De Campi and the brilliant Carla “Speed” McNeil ever charted on the Top 300 comics. Also discussed: the piteous working conditions in Anime; the sample work schedule of a manga artist; Fox Films buying a significant part of Boom! Entertainment; and more.
1:17:00-1:42:36: And from there, it’s time for what Graeme hilariously calls “an update on the Marvel Legacy grumping from last week.” Discussed: a retailer call with Marvel where retailers were stunned into silence by what Marvel Legacy is going to be; our attempt to try and figure out how many Marvel characters can actually return; the amazing Marvel Legacy bullet point list; Tom Brevoort making the argument that the only reason there’s no Fantastic Four book is because the FF don’t sell; and… Batman/Elmer Fudd #1 by Tom King and Lee Weeks? How’d thatget there?
1:42:36-2:24:36: Chip Zdarsky and Adam Kubert’s Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #1! We said we’d talk about it. But first! Jeff was supposed to read all of John Byrne’s run on Alpha Flight. He only made it through the first ten. Listen to him complain about it here. And *then* we talk about Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #1. Discussed: that first issue and the Goran Parlov back-up, change and the illusion of change, Marvel and DC and the cyclical nature of reboots and why that might be easier for DC to pull off than Marvel, and then….more complaining about John Byrne’s Alpha Flight! Oh, sweet, sweet complaining! And then one of us finally thinks to check the time and it’s….2:24:36-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. 31! Covering Fantastic Four issues #278-284 by John Byrne. It’s just next week!
Cut? Paste? Don’t mind if you do!
http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts2/WaitWhat228.mp3
I like Sunstone a lot lot more than Jeff, apparently. What I enjoy about its storytelling is that the characters are all to varying degrees significantly damaged good. We know from the opening of volume 1 that enough things will work out for them to feel happy about their situation a few years down the road, but not how they get there, and along the way there is substantial drama. “Getting over old wounds” is not the same thing as “everything works out now”, and I read with genuine interest to see What Happens Next.
So there’s a bit of counterpoint. :)
I appreciate that, Bruce! I wish the “damaged goods” aspect had come out more in the first volume. Ally’s loneliness is convincingly shown, I guess, but there’s no real context for it.
I admit, if the second volume shows up on Hoopla or Comixology Unlimited, I’d totally give it another shot.
Can’t ask for more than that!
Well, I mean, I can, but not with regard to Sunstone and giving it a fair chance.
It’s also true that I’m kind of disproportionately interested in stories of people who manage to work things out at this stage in my life. I could go on a diatribe about how conflict as such is much less necessary to good storytelling than a lot of Westerners think, and about alternative story frameworks, but I’m kinda sleepy and sick right now. I’d agree that Sunstone is a light piece of storytelling, but that it’s got more substance around the fluff than some readers may notice.
Jeff, we already know that your safe word is “Engelhardt”
Spelling aside, I’m appalled by how on-the-money this comment is.
Jeff, have you checked out “I roved out in search of truth and love”? It’s kind of an epic fantasy porn comedy. http://www.irovedout.com/ It updates with a bunch of pages like once a month or so.
No, but it sounds great! The work browser won’t let me anywhere near it, of course, but I’ll check out later. Thanks for the recommendation!
It was uncanny and a little disturbing how closely my comics… let’s go with erotica… reading lines up with Jeff’s. I think he hit all the ones I’m regularly aware of besides Oglaf.
Oglaf’s not that much of an erotic comic anymore, though. It’s a fantasy comedy comic, where sometimes penises and nipples appear.
I kept hearing how much people liked Oglaf so I gave it a try. No laughs, sadly. Barely a chuckle.
Back when it was a fantasy sex comic it wasn’t that funny and I don’t think it tried to be. I liked it a lot more after it switched format and focus.
I think that’s probably why I didn’t mention it? But yes, PersonofCon, I check in on Oglaf every Sunday as well!
I like Menage a3 as well and have been following her recent print work. I felt a little disappointed with it until her Jem and the Holograms work. Given her high standard, I tried to see what had (slightly) bothered me. I think it was to do with the transition from strip to comic book. In the necessarily compressed storytelling format of the comic strip there can be heightened emotional expression to help move things along. That same level of expression on the comic book page is a bit much for me. It’s perhaps analogous to the transition from stage to screen, where an excellent stage actor can look like they are mugging. I think by Jem she’d found her new pace. Of course, now someone will reveal the Jem issues were completed before the Archie /Ramones book…
Ha! I don’t think they are? The Archie/Ramones thing predates them by a bit, I’m pretty sure.
And thanks for the heads up on those Jem books (as well as the very nice analogy about screen and stage acting)–I need to check them out!