0:01-7:58: Greetings from Graeme “It’s Not Fucking Sweltering” McMillan and Jeff “Eschew Hyperbole” Lester! It’s been a while so even after we stop talking about the weather, we have questions—important questions!—to answer about the song Wooly Bully, pillow talk (though not in the way that term’s traditionally used), visual cues, and….
7:58-39:18: Doomsday Clock! Issue #11 is out, and while it’s too soon to discuss the limited series with any degree of finality, it is perhaps time for Graeme to talk about the arc of the series, the trend of issues #10 and #11, and some reflection on Watchmen and the career of one Geoff “Ozymandias” Johns. Kick off your shoes and settle in to your chair because this’ll take a while. (Though not nearly as long as the times between issues of Doomsday Clock.)
39:18-55:53: Pivoting: Tox Jox Blox HoxPox! Checking in about the weekly Jonathan Hickman x-event, we admit we are both….exhausted? We talk scheduling, characterization, the strengths of Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva (on House of X and Powers of X, respectively, the charms of Avengers: No Surrender, and books that we don’t read immediately and those we do.
55:53-1:12:41: Talking about pacing ourselves, we briefly discuss the stuff Graeme’s just recently caughtt up on and that leads in to a quick (spoiler-free!) chat about the upcoming issue of Batman by Tom King and Clay Mann and then really digging into the latest issue of The Green Lantern by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp. Graeme had wandered away from the book and wandered back to see the lead-in to the upcoming Green Lantern: Blackstars book. Jeff, who is hanging on to interest in the book by his fingernails wants to talk about, among other things, why? Why is Morrison doing what he’s choosing to do with this book?
1:12:41-1:30:14: Relatedly, a superhero book we are both loving is the current run of Daredevil. Jeff just read Daredevil: Know Fear, the trade collecting the first five issues by Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto, and Sunny Gho. Jeff thinks it’s a great book for fans of the Netflix show, and Graeme thinks it’s just a great book, period. Also discussed: Tom Taylor on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man; Savage Avengers #5; Infinity Wars; and more.
1:30:14-1:41:23: Another book Jeff has greatly enjoyed—and without a superhero in sight—is My Pink is Overflowing by Yuki Minnou about a cafe waitress who needs to be loved and the uptight, scowly manager with whom she comes to an agreement. Some day Jeff will come up with a better description of volume 1 than “less of a story and more the equivalent of two nervous dogs trying to sniff each other’s butts for 300 pages,” but that day is not today. (Spoilers for vol. 3! Not that the plot is really the point of My Pink Is Overflowing.) Also discussed: Vinland Saga, manga vs. anime, and more.
1:41:23-1:52:04: The anime angle gives Jeff a chance to ask Graeme about what he’s watching these days. Discussed: Million Pound Menu, No Offence, the most current season of The Great British Baking Show which inspired this delightful thread by CalamityJon:
It’s a new season of The Great British Bak(ing Show)e-Off! Let’s meet some of the new contestants, freshly plucked from a clover lawn, like all British bakers! No spoilers ahead, but I probably make a mean joke about your current favorite: pic.twitter.com/HZ4PVcYbbf
— A Calamity Jon you will not hear about on the news (@calamityjon) September 4, 2019
[HQ]
1:52:04-2:02:27: As for what Graeme has been reading, he’s been reading a lot of prep stuff for work (though he’s quite enjoyed them). Stuff like: Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh; Sparrowhawk by Delilah Dawson, Matias Basla, and Rebecca Nalty; The Magicians: Alice’s Story by Lilah Sturges, Lev Grossman, and Pius Bak; The Blue Road: A Fable of Migration by Wayde Compton and April dela Noche Milne; The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television by Koren Shadmi; Battle Stations, the first volume in the upcoming Hugo Pratt War Picture Library series; the book design of The Batman Who Laughs; and more.
2:02:27-2:14:17: And, saving the best (?) for last (?), Graeme read Spawn #300! Discussed: SPAWN!; Graeme teasing us about an hour long interview he conducted with Todd McFarlane; and more.
2:14:17-end: Closing comments? Kind of! I mean, sure, after we diss Gus Van Sant, news about The Joker gets the Golden Lion Award. And, well, okay, we also have to mention the mayor of Rio de Janeiro wanting to ban The Avengers: Children’s Crusade; and then finally… 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 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: Episode 279! Join us, won’t you?
And if you want that link to cut, paste, mutilate, fold, etc.:
http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts3/WaitWhat278.mp3
I never saw the Fred Sirieix show with Gordon Ramsey and Gino D’Acampo but we’ve just had four BBC2 (that’s where Million Pound Menu was, Graeme) documentaries with Fred and four separate chefs travelling to eateries in Venice, Paris, Edinburgh etc. It’s called Remarkable Places to Eat and the San Sebastian episode is like a spoof, the food is ridiculous. But Fred remains awesome – I suspect the reason he’s so happy is endorphins – the man is bonkers ripped.
You might also try another Fred show, it’s ostensibly kids’ TV but fun for all. Step Up to the Plate (stupid title, that’s not an expression Brits use, so yes, that’ll be turning up over there) has two young teams running a restaurant as chefs and front of house staff. It’s positively Reithian in its mix of education and entertainment.
But if you try just one show I’m recommending, find Channel 4’s Flirty Dancing. Apparently inspired by one of the dance numbers in La La Land, it has two single people taught a dance separately by Ashley Banjo of the Diversity dance group, and the first time they meet they perform together, in a public place, without speaking, then leave. The compulsory forced ‘drama’ is ‘will they choose to meet again?’ Forget that, it’s ruddy wonderful!
Given how tepid John’s AVENGERS run was and how much he likes to play in established histories, I think even if he wanted to return to Marvel, that’s not really what they do anymore.
I’m going to guess that the English folk singer Graeme was searching for the name of was Richard Thompson. Of course, if I’m correct, my prize is Jeff has to sing Empress Audrey Mask to the tune of 1952 Vincent Black Lightning! Well, the whole of that last portion of the podcast was a wonderful gift which had me laughing aloud on my walk to work with the innocent whimsy.
This was contrasted with my less than innocent mirth listening to the discussion of Doomsday Clock #11 and Mr John’s presumed hubris. Then your podcast functioned as a truth-telling mirror showing me a certain meanness of my spirit. So, amused and morally challenged= fine work, chaps!
Re: Morrison’s GL: a friend and I have been batting around an idea about why GL isn’t really working. One of the things I’ve brought up is that Morrison’s always been an inherently anti-authoritarian writer, up until the past say 5 or 6 years (and even then, his run on Action Comics is more in-line, politically, with The Invisibles than GL). So I wonder if (a) he’s been having an odd identity crisis, having become “The Man” (especially while he was editing Heavy Metal). or (b) GL isn’t quite working out because it’s not as much politically in-line with his earlier stuff.
I have a different take on HoX/PoX than you two. I’ve been REALLY enjoying it as a weekly book. This is the first time since who knows when that I was racing to the comic shop every Wednesday and reading the comic immediately rather than doing both at my leisure. That’s not to say it’s my favorite comic on the shelves right now, just that there’s a sense of urgency to the comic. It’s kind of like when Lost was on the air. You want to know what happened and you don’t want to get spoiled.
Similarly, I feel like the “break” you were looking for by it being bi-weekly has actually happened through the issues being less overwhelming with their “Big Ideas”-ness than the first three. Those first three were just so *much* that there’s no way it could have continued like that. The more traditional plotting of the recent issues feels like a breather (even though he’s done all kinds of wild shit including killing two separate Wolverines). I’m pretty sure it will ramp back up next week; that’s the next issue that’s colored red on the index in the back of the book.
So, on reading this week’s issue of HoX POX, I’m struck by the thought that it’s much better than the last couple, and, bizarrely, although they are in effect one book, I think HoX is generally weaker than PoX, and that having had two HoX issues in a row — which were much more generic superhero/X-men than the others — hurt it a bit.
I think PoX + HoX 2 (the life of Moira X) probably will stand a lot more alone than the others. I could, of course, be wrong.
I was inordinately pleased with myself that I predicted Jeff would ape the tune to “Cynthia Mask,” even though I haven’t heard or thought of it since that album (“Eye”) came out in 1990. Even better, Jeff’s throwaway “Get the funk!” at the end of his P-Funk version caused me to lose it.
Doomsday Clock is carrying on the tradition of Watchmen kind of fucking up in the end.