0:01-32:08: Greetings! We continue our trend in “we don’t really want to talk about 2020 too much, but on the other hand we should let you know how we’re doing since we’re both on the coast that is on fire” discussions. I don’t want to totally spoil Graeme’s discussion of what things are like in Portland, but here’s the money quote: “Yesterday, We rewatched Robocop, the original Robocop? And that feels tame compared to our reality today.”
32:08-35:59: As we transition to talking about comics, Graeme has a very hearty recommendation for the latest issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine. Not only is it the 30th anniversary of the the megazine, not only does it feature a strong lineup of strips, it also has the first installment of the 2000AD Encyclopedia, which is more or less as Graeme says, “The Official Handbook to the 2000AD Universe.” For those who’ve been listening to Drokk!! and intrigued by the idea of jumping in on the current day action, it sounds pretty great?
35:59-57:00: From there, there’s a bit of news pivot because Jeff is confused that this weekend was apparently *another* DC Fandome weekend? And more confusingly, Graeme was *not* covering it? We talk about that, the season two finale of Doom Patrol, what is news, why the follow-up weekend,and then transition into Represent #1 by Christian Cooper, Alitha E. Martinez, and Mark Morales, a free digital comic that DC dropped with no forewarning last Tuesday. It’s a promising and challenging book—but is it going to be something DC keeps walled off in its own little corner, is its viewpoint going to be embraced and reinforced by the rest of the messaging in DC’s other books, and a lot of other questions and possibilities.
57:00-1:01:33: After Graeme talked about it last week, Jeff felt compelled to pick up Death Metal: Trinity Crisis #1 and Graeme is right that it’s an event tie-in book that feels like it should be an issue of the event, even though the whiplash between Francis Manapul as the artist here and Greg Capullo as the artist on the event it makes imagining the upcoming collection very difficult.
1:01:33-1:05:01: And also in “last week/this week” news, after talking so much about the Bill and Ted movies, Jeff picked up Bill and Ted Are Doomed, written by Evan Dorkin, the original creator on Bill & Ted’s earlier comic series and drawn by…Roger Langridge? Dorkin are two great tastes, but do they taste great together?
1:05:01-1:22:41: And to get the final entry into Jeff’s Trifecta of Meh, he read the first two issues of Adventureman by Matt Fraction and Terry & Rachel Dodson, a book he had no idea had even been released. We discuss the pulps, casual comics readers, long-gestating projects, and more.
1:22:41-2:09:08: Back to our obsessions from last week! Graeme continued to make his way through the rest of the Alien movies (AvP movies excepted) as well as some amazing stories about the first Aliens omnibus! Come for the stories about “Billie” and “Wilks,” stay for Graeme’s comparison of Alien: Resurrection to “a Mountain Dew commercial from the same period.”
2:09:08-end: Closing comments with bonus impromptu scheduling session! Look for us on Stitcher! Itunes! Instagram! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including Dominic L. Franco, and 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 (and thank goodness, sez Jeff). Read Volume 18 of the Complete Judge Dredd Casefiles and Join us in two weeks for Drokk!!
Jeff, could you please leave a link in the comments so I can download the episode? Thanks!
Thanks, David, for reminding of that one thing I *knew* I’d forgotten!
https://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts4/WaitWhat303.mp3
Happy to hear you are both (mostly) safe. Hoping that gets all the way to safe soon.
Graeme needs to watch Predator just because it’s the Rosetta Stone for early Image comics. The reason why all their characters were muscle-bound covert ops is due to Predator (and probably Commando)
Another great episode.
I’m halfway through Season Two of Doom Patrick and it is a great series. Graeme mentioned it just ended strangely and it looks like there are only 9 episodes. Was the ending of the a season affected by the pandemic?
Hope you both continue to be safe.
@Dan Billings: yeah, they had to stop production just before they would’ve done the season finale. The episode order was for 10 episodes, and they’ve said that what would’ve been the season two finale will be the season 3 premiere.
Ian’s comment is incredibly on point— Liefeld did a long, rambling, incredibly listenable podcast interview a couple years back where he described his inspiration for Cable as “He’s Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator and Terminator, at the same time!”
Doom Patrol ended the way it ended because they had to cut the season short by an episode.
So the final episode *was* the penultimate episode. It wasn’t the way the creative team intended to end the season, but… stuff happens. You know… like Covid?? Maybe you’ve heard of it? It was pretty widely reported in like, every piece about the season two finale.
Good Lord, Graeme McMillan’s heist-film-but-Alien sounds fabulous, better than the majority of actually-existing Alien films. Someone make that!
And that, incidentally, might be an answer to how you make an Alien film on Earth. The assorted team of criminals break into a Wayland-Yutani lab facility for something else, accidentally release the alien that’s being held there for study, have to use their heist skills to escape, and, third act twist, discover what will happen if it gets out into the general population and have to turn around and go back in to use their heist skills to kill it.
Because I think Jeff Lester is right that Alien: Earth can only disappoint. (For what it’s worth, of the two stories that he outlines, I think you have to go with the one where the aliens spread like wildfire and the survivors escape from Earth. That can work, as a disaster-movie-but-Alien.)
But if you *don’t* ever up the stakes by going to Earth, you are left with the impression of a franchise spinning its wheels (Alien3, Alien: Resurrection) or else you have to go the Prometheus and Alien: Covenant route and start inventing a backstory to explore. And how much do we really care? There’s some good stuff in Alien: Covenant, as our hosts discussed, but at the end of the day, who really feels that Alien (the original film, not the franchise) isn’t better off with all that being left unaddressed?