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!
Need that crazy link for cutting and pasting purposes, Whatnaut?
http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts/WaitWhat202.mp3
Fun show, and I second Graeme in recommending Sugar & Spike (I enjoy the rest of the book too, reviews in the usual place!). I have to disagree that Spike is an idiot, though – well, he’s an idiot in putting up with Sugar’s constant crap, but he’s brave, web-savvy and good in a fight. I do hope those final pages teases are fleshed out – she can’t be THIS horrible for no reason.
And I’m good with the strip being of a different tone with the rest of the book, it’s good the book isn’t one-note.
I agree Blue Beetle was ahead of the curve on a fun teen superhero book. I really came here to note Giffen and his Collaborators being ahead of the curve on diversity ( and as far as I can tell, treating it as business as usual.) I just finished JL 3001 and they gave us an All Female JL, even replacing the big guns with females.
A side note more fitting for last month’s Baxter Building regarding Conway. I’ve found Carnage to be a real surprise hit for me from Marvel, it’s a throwback to 70’s horror comics. I’d love for it to stay beyond 12 issues.
Thanks guys.
The hairs on my arm all but stood up when I read “throwback to 70s horror comics,” Thomas. I’ll definitely check that out. Thanks!
As soon Jeff mentioned it, I knew what scene he was talking about in Platinum End. I though it kind of stuck out of place even given the rest of series. I could have sworn that Ohba wasn’t writing Platinum End but I have no idea where I got that from. Still, its a fun if a kind of empty, temporary fun.
If Jeff is looking for new stuff to try out I would recommend Princess Jellyfish on Crunchyroll and Farewell, My Dear Cramer, which Kodansha is releasing as individual chapters on Comixology like Viz is doing with Platinum End.
Thanks for the recommendations, Eric! I’ve been having this ongoing problem with the Crunchyroll manga app that’s kept me from reading anything the last six weeks or so, but I just noticed Kodansha is having a sale on a 2-in-1 edition of Princess Jellyfish so maybe I’ll just dive into the deep end. (and sample Farewell, My Dear Cramer as well.)
I’m gonna second that Princess Jellyfish recc. Much better than I had imagined it would be (in the best possible way) and really goes out of its way to build all the stereotypes introduced in the first chapter as individual characters that are more than just surface-deep.
Platinum End I may have to just give up on. It had potential but that scene…yeah. Might just hold out until a few volumes are out so I can give it a ‘one-er’ and see it if holds up any better.
And this falls squarely into “guilty pleasure” territory, but if anyone misses the Claremont-era X-men (esp the Dark Phoenix Saga through Trial of Magneto) I’d recommend Fairy Tail. That book is one claw-wielding maniac away from crossing the line from ‘pastiche’ to ‘rip-off.’ Still fun though!
So after reading Graeme’s capsule reviews below and hearing various bits of word of mouth, I decided to skip the “Rebirth” issues and just pick up the first issues of each series. I can always go back and get the Rebirth issue if it turns out to be relevant to the story, but it sounds like for Superman at least it won’t be. So thanks guys for saving me some money! The first issues of Detective and Action turned out to be enjoyable and completely understandable with no Rebirth specials required. (Though Action Comics seems very 1990s – running through a variation of Death of Superman/Reign of the Supermen seems like an odd choice for a Superman relaunch).
I’m also apparently glad that I didn’t read Batman & Robin Eternal, because I really liked the first issue of Detective and Jeff’s reaction makes me think I might not have had I suffered through that weekly series.
I might be in the minority, but I really enjoyed all the Fellini and Radiohead talk.
Jeff, Transformers doesn’t just have an LGBT+ stubtext implied. In the “More Than Meets The Eye” series it’s plain text. That’s why you were gifted that Humble Bundle. Gender identity, self discovery, race, class discrimination, criminal justice, spirituality, and colonialism are all tackled in that series, as played out through giant transforming space robots in an homage to the Giffen & DeMatteis JLI. I love it. MTMTE and Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl are the two books I’ll never stop reading. Even if I too would prefer reading old Batman comics to the new ones.
Oh Scott Lobdell, you are comics’ most successful D student
I haven’t seen enough Fellini but I always loved this
http://67.media.tumblr.com/58bdb19083f5d8a1c8725d2244fc8866/tumblr_o6x0qomJlr1rxrnbio1_1280.jpg