0:01-6:54: Greetings from Graeme “Has A Cold” McMillan and Jeff “Has Gone Vegan” Lester, here to talk about the charms of Nyquil and Theraflu. And if that wasn’t exciting enough: weather talk! Exciting!
6:54-14:05: Fortunately, we remembered we’re ostensibly doing a comic book podcast, so Jeff breaks out one of the few topics on his brain: talking about vol. 1 of Mad Bull 34 by Kazuo Koike and Yoshinara Inoue. When is a lowbrow manga too lowbrow for Jeff? And why? Tune in and find out.
14:05-37:06: And from there, what seems like a digression is probably a more interesting topic for discussion: the absurd amounts comics and manga available digitally for a very low price. Also discussed: Vinland Saga; Graeme’s Year of Reading More Manga; After Hours; My Boyfriend Is A Bear; Goddess Mode by Zoe Quinn, Robbi Rodriguez, and Rico Renzi; Action Comics #1000; and more.
37:06-1:04:39: After talking about a bunch of stuff that didn’t really float his boat, Jeff grows audibly relieved to be talking about something he did read and like Invincible: Justice and Fresh Vegetables by Pascal Jousselin. (Huge thanks to kotgb for the recommendation.) Also discussed: Kirkman and Ottley’s Invincible; Hobo Mom; Die #2; Avengers #12; Master of Kung-Fu the omnibus vs. MOKF the digital collection; double page spreads; Barrier #1 and the Marvelscope annuals; and more. (Oh, and George Perez announced his retirement the day we recorded so we spend a lot fo time trying to figure out why he’d already retired?)
1:04:39-1:10:45: Graeme has read the Target exclusive DC Primal Age 100 pg. giant, and has some thoughts about this eccentric (but not uncharming!) toy line tie-in!
1:10:45-1:28:10: What else has Graeme been reading? Why, the Secret Society of Super-Villains, Vols. 1 and 2, of course! The reason why Graeme has been reading it might surprise you (unless you follow our tumblr, in which case you’ll already be in the know). Come for Graeme’s strangely otherworldly echoey voice, stay for the amazing post-Kirby Fourth World shenanigans.
1:28:10-1:46:44: And as long as our eyes are turned to a four-color past, Back Issue Magazine #110 has a long article about the storylines Steve Englehart planned to write for Marvel in the ‘80s when he was canned. (Thanks to Martin Gray for the tip!)
1:46:44-1:51:05: Talking about possibly subscribing digitally to the TwoMorrows books leads us back to the current digital glut and our growing backlog of material to catch up with.
1:51:05-1:58:14: Graeme read two first issues from Marvel he enjoyed a great deal: Black Widow #1 by Jen & Silvia Soska and Flaviano; and Invaders #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Butch Guice, and Carlos Magno.
1:58:14-2:14:47: We talk a bit about Diamond’s bestselling comics for 2018 as well as the top ten graphic novels. Also discussed: the power of Saga; the power of Paper Girls; the power of ongoing publication; the power of repeatedly typing “the power,” and much more.
2:14:47-2:28:50: Symbiote Spider-Man #1—an attempt for Marvel to flood the the market, or a sign of the possible influence of C.B. Cebulski as E-I-C? And related to that, a bit of comics news, Graeme remembers just now: Rob Liefeld returning to X-Men with Major X, a new series.! (That he’s writing, not arting.) Also discussed: what is Jonathan Hickman up to these days?
2:28:50-end: Closing comments! 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: Skip week! But join us in two weeks for a new episode and maybe the official announcement of our next read-through!
Wanna cut? Wanna paste? Be our guest:
http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts3/WaitWhat263.mp3
Madbull was an instant purchase for me and a nearly instant regret. I think i made it to the third chapter where Madbull was having sex with a series of women then stealing their money before i said “i’m done.”
it ranks up there with Video Girl AI as “thing i bought because I had heard good things about it in the 80s which made me question fandom’s collective memory”
Very, very glad it wasn’t just me!
Hey, I’m heavy involved with the fan base of Saga on social media. I understand your concerns and I share many of them. However I am optimistic that the audience will stay loyal based on my interactions with thousands of the readers. The hiatus has been six months so far and the fans are still very active on Facebook and Twitter. Many of them are saying that they are okay this the year long hiatus and that it is well worth the wait. Also many are trade waiters and you’ll be surprised by how many people who read the series in hardcover only and the next hardcover is coming out soon. I’m not sure how much it is necessary to have a primer issue or any other “lost year” stuff. I don’t hear anyone calling for it, but I’m sure many fans would love it as long as only Vaughan and Staples are working on it. That’s another thing the fans don’t want anything saga related from anyone, but Vaughan and Staples. Oh and also many of fans are taking this time to reread one issue a week and discussing it on places like Facebook and Reddit. However the only big concern is many of the fans are worried that Vaughan is leaving comics for movies, but considering his track record with movies I doubt that is going to be problem. Sorry for the long response but I hope this answers your questions.
I don’t know if it will be a comfort to Graeme McMillan to know that there’s someone more irrational about this than he is, but I have the same thing about Lemsip — and for me it has to be Lemsip. Theraflu doesn’t count. Before they changed the law so that you could only buy one at a time, I used to load up on five or six boxes of Lemsip every time I visited my parents, to bring back to the US with me.
I think Paper Girls benefits from a comparison that didn’t exist when it debuted–“you like Saga? Why don’t you read Brian K Vaughan’s other series, Paper Girls. It’s like Stranger Things if all the kids were girls.” That’s not quite accurate (it’s less horror more sci-fi, for starters), but I think it’s enough to draw someone in, even from outside “mainstream” comic book fandom.
This is way off topic, but does Graeme celebrate Burns Night? I’ll be tucking into my Cullen skink, etc with the Scots portion of my family this weekend and it crossed my mind. I did get to walk a wolf on a leash at a Burns Night in Eugene, Oregon in the 80s,so stuff does go on. Also, apart from the Bacchus story where meets Tam O’Shanter, does anyone know of good Burns related comics?
Jeff said he wasn’t sure why Invincible had come up recently, but it was probably because of the recent Nancy strip that does the Invincible schtick.
Everyone knows that Olivia James is a pen name for Robert Kirkman.
Hi, Graeme and Jeff, I was enjoying taking a trip down the crazy memory lane of the Secret Society of Super-Villains recap when you guys next went to my Steve Englehart/Lost WCA article for Back Issue! Imagine my surprise but it shouldn’t have been since you are fans, too. That was a tricky one to write as I wanted to track down as many people as I could to get to the real story. I wanted to keep the focus on Steve’s unpublished scripts but couldn’t ignore the drama that unfolded behind the scenes. Some of those old interviews from places like Amazing Heroes are gold in that they seemed to be pretty unfiltered. Steve didn’t get to the end of those storylines but I was just amazed that those unpublished scripts existed and wanted to get the stories out there. The only way to put them in context to a new reader was to recap some of the previous stories since they had to be placed in a certain sequence. One of the biggest finds was that unpublished Al Milgrom cover. Steve wanted to pull in the East Coast team eventually into the “sometimes kill/no killing” debate but it never got that far. Thanks for bringing up the article and Graeme, I can send you a hard copy if you need it! I would love for you guys to finish your Avengers recap. Why did you stop around 300? All the best! I really enjoy what you guys do. Thanks!
Hi, Dan! thanks for the kind words and the extra bit of context about your article! I hope I made it clear it totally made sense why you organized the article the way you did, and my disappointment was about what I should’ve realized sooner: Englehart, semi-improviser that he is, only had things planned out so far. You did a great service with the article and finding that cover. Cheers!
So this is the power of The Power!
Dave Carter continued his DC breakdowns on his blog without missing a beat (ahem) but it doesn’t look like anyone’s doing detailed Marvel sales comparisons any more.