0:01-09:21: Greetings from Graeme “Wonders of Technology” McMillan and Jeff “How can that even be?” Lester, where we start off slow, with talk about Skype weirdness, Twilight Zone pitches, and (literally) the weather (although with a comic news twist!)
09:21-15:29: We’ve done well over three hundred episodes of this podcast (when you count in the Baxter Buildings). Have we ever talked about Garfield before? Well. Guess. What. Also discussed: kid’s comics; Doonesbury; vol. 2 of Nyankees, and more.
15:29-1:29:18: Aaaaaaaaand here’s hoping you’ve seen Avengers: Endgame because Jeff has seen it and he wants to talk about *all* of it. Please skip this discussion if you haven’t seen the film (or maybe even if you have and don’t want us mucking it up with our takes, particularly Jeff’s faux-Baudrillard nonsense) and enjoy the rest of what will be for you a conveniently short episode! But otherwise…discussed: “finally” seeing a movie in its eighth day of release; lowered expectations; Avengers: Endgame as the cinematic equivalent of a Steve Englehart comic; Avengers: Infinity War as a Jim Shooter comic; the use of Captain Marvel in Endgame; intentionality; Taterpie’s excellent essay on Avengers: Endgame’s treatment of Steve Rogers, as well as Meg Downey’s excellent piece on the same; two video essays from Patrick Willems about the MCU; agreeing with Tony Stark; the MCU and Republicanism; the MCU and 9/11; Jeff’s theory about time travel movies; season 8 of Game of Thrones; Dave Itzkoff’s interview with the screenwriters of Endgame; The Russo Brothers’s understanding of the end of Endgame; an excellent piece about Fat Thor and Chris Hemsworth’s Centr app; “real” movies, “blockbuster” movies, “genre” movies, and, y’know, movies.
1:29:18-1:39:09: And now…comics! (Whew!) Graeme has read a lovely batch of comics at their most comicsy, doing what the medium can do best: Dan White’s Cindy and Biscuit books; Aud Koch’s “If You Wander In The Badlands,” and the work of Molly Mendoza.
1:39:09-1:52:08: And we both read Year of The Villain, DC’s intro-on-the-cheap to their upcoming events that feature, well, villains. Also discussed: Batman: Last Knight on Earth; Scott Snyder’s interview about The Last Knight on Earth and the free preview running around in DC comics this week; incorrect prep materials and faking your way through interviews; Hickman’s Avengers; and more.
1:52:08-2:04:08: We talked about this a bit last time and we’re revisiting it again: Jeff has read DCeased #1 and can’t tell if it lands differently in a DC Universe where continuity feels out of joint, and how much that seems to be the standard these days. Also discussed: Female Furies #3 and #4; Savage Avengers #1; The Green Lantern #7; old issues of Detective Comics on the DC Universe app; six chapters of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (now available on the Shonen Jump app); Aoharu X Machinegun Vol. 1; and more.
2:04:08-2:17:54: Jeff is really enjoying the comic streaming services these days and so we return again to discussion of the DC Universe app in the wake of its first post-upgrade release of 12-months-ago comics and (thankfully!) a bunch of old Detective Comics and very old Teen Titans books. Also discussed: our first buggy experiences while using the app; Jeff’s preference for the old junk; Graeme’s rediscovery of Countdown to Adventure and DC’s forgotten Lady Styx-verse; notably missing work on the app (only 12 issues of Kirby’s The Demon?!); mixes of scans, refinished pages, and black and white material; the fate of Wildstorm; and more.
2:17:54-2:28:30: Since we’re recording this on Free Comic Book Day, Jeff feels compelled to plug his participation in Luke Herr’s FCBD bonus installment of the Exiled podcast, and the fun he had playing Stardust the Super-Wizard alongside Jean Adaser (Dr. Light); Madison Rowan (Mysterio); and Mr. Al Ewing (Kid Colt). Don’t ask, just….buy it? Also discussed: the crunchy sound of Hammond organs and why the Internet is a Beautiful Place.
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2:28:30-end: 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 Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for her continuing support of this podcast. (Also, don’t forget about Spotify!)
Next week: Skip week! Time for Jeff’s semi-annual pilgrimage, so we will be back in two weeks for what will either be a Drokk! or another Wait, What? (Smart money is currently on the latter.)
This one goes out to all the cutters and the pasters:
http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts3/WaitWhat270.mp3
It happens I’ve been re-reading Bloom Country in fits and starts the last few months, and you are both SO WRONG. Well, with qualifications.
It did take Breathed much of his first year to really get a handle on what worked best in his strip, as is usual for strips with a lot of moving parts. It ran from 1980 to 1989, and really, the first half of that run is pure gold now. It remains strong partly because, like Pogo before it, it’s popular culture seen through a variety of fun-house mirrors. It goes downhill in the second half of the decade for a variety of reasons, including: Breathed more clearly standing aside and lecturing, as opposed to laughing-with as well as laughing-at, increasingly ingrown and boring continuity, and, I dunno, just not being as funny.
But I was really, really glad to read a bunch of those strips again, and enjoyed them as much now as I did then.
I’ll cheerfully echo Graeme’s endorsement of Cindy and Biscuit, it’s such a great comic. Cindy’s existence has created a level of pathos when I think of Minnie the Minx.
I enjoyed your discussion of Endgame, which I saw on Saturday. Up until Friday I had managed not to be spoiled on it. Actually I wasn’t spoiled, because I misheard what I overheard. If it’s a spoiler to say something that wasn’t in Endgame: Spoiler warning! I felt quite aggrieved at being spoiled on Monark Starstalker being in the film. Some of you may deduce what I actually heard…
To me, Endgame accurately recreated the experience of reading a big comics crossover event. This is not exactly a compliment, but it was interesting to see that sort of thing in a movie setting. In particular the Relay-Race-of-Characters-That-Have-a-Second-Move-Coming-Out-Soon in the last act reminded me a lot of the way the last issue of the big crossover often clumsily sets up the spin-offs.
Regarding Whedon having the Avengers focus on saving everyone: I always took Age of Ulton as a reaction to Man of Steel. There was so much emphasis on collateral damage in that movie and they doubled that emphasis in Batman v. Superman. Age of Ultron responded by emphasizing how much they were saving everyone. There very much was a sense that they wouldn’t have left that floating city until every person survived. It’s one of the things that bothered me about Civil War, which emphasized how so many people died in Age of Ultron instead. It’s a weird contrast between Whedon’s superhero optimism and Mark Millar cynicism in just those two movies.
If you guys have a link to the story you mentioned comparing what is on Comixolgy vs the DCU app, could you share it? I tried searching for it and am not having much luck.
I spent about 20 minutes term-searching for it when putting together the show notes and had no luck. I’ll double-check with Graeme but it’s pretty clear from the audio he’d already given up trying to find it again… I’m dying to see it!
I honestly don’t care if Avengers Endgame was subtly plugging a fitness app – and I’m not convinced – isn’t it just another kind of product placement? Blimey, the amount of time that went into that article…
On the subject of the fat suit, there’s an article at CBR that goes on and on about how fat jokes are abominations. Let’s hope the writer never comes across the several hundred comic book appearances of the Voluminous Volstagg.
It’s a subtle tribute to the hucksterism of the source material. It’s the deliberate equivalent of a Charles Atlas ad. Next: Chris Evans will turn out to be trying to sell sea monkeys.
Dude, “there have always been fat jokes, so what’s the big deal about yet another one?” isn’t a great look.
RE: Marvel Unlimited app, I have found that loading comics on the fly (not downloading them) works far better than it used to and, for me at least, works better than downloading them.
I’m wondering if it might have something to do with the internet connection on your iPad? Because it’s much less likely to work well if I’m on janky wifi like you get at a hotel. But when I’m at home where I have fast & good wifi, it works incredibly smoothly.
The MU app does seem to not be very resilient to interruptions in the internet connection, so a bad wifi (or cellular connection if you have a cellular iPad) might be source of the problem.
Ed, I think you’re dead-on. My home wifi is kinda junk, thanks to all the chicken wire and crap in the walls and it wouldn’t surprise me if this is totally the problem. I may try seeing if I can get a better cellular connection via the iPad and go that way? Appreciate the insight!
Switching to mesh wifi like Eero or Google Home might also help. I live in an old building in Chicago that had crappy wifi for the same reason as you until I switched to mesh.
Maybe I’m expecting too much, but I was really disappointed when the Technet’s iso-cube breakout didn’t end with a huge battle between Stardust the Super Wizard and Jamie Braddock.
Al Ewing’s cowboy accent made up for it, though.