0:01-19:16: Greetings, but without our traditional greetings bit! Hopefully, you know which one of us is which by now as you are getting us in media fucking res after a *small* tech snafu on Jeff’s end, but from there we move on to talk about the stressful week that was, and try to scooch quickly past the reasons we can’t talk about to the ones we can such as….New York Comic-Con! It was happening as we spoke, it’s happening as I edit this, and almost nobody is talking about it. Is everyone burned out on the virtual comic cons of 2020? Or are there things IRL cons offer that virtual cons just can’t? Discussed: Mike Mignola; Scott Snyder in conversation with James Tynion; BarCon; Endless Winter (and its prequel event, Careless Whisper); and more.
19:16-32:53: Graeme re-watched Spice World! Then gave Jeff crap for seeing it in the theater when it first came out! What the hell, Graeme? Also discussed: other movies Graeme watched, some of which he doesn’t actually give Jeff crap for also watching. [AQUAMAN! We finally get to talk about Aquaman!]
32:53-41:39: Jeff wants to talk about what he’s been reading comic book wise despite the fact that most of it is not new (but is at least newly collected). West Coast Avengers: Tales to Astonish (I should call it by its proper title “Avengers West Coast: Tales to Astonish” but I find that title annoying and stupid, even if I understand why for shelving purposes Marvel would call it that) which not only collects the final issues of West Coast Avengers written by Steve Englehart, but also has Avengers Annual #16, West Coast Avengers Annual #2, and…Emperor Doom?! To badly paraphrase Goody Rickles: Don’t Ask, Just Listen! (Or, alternately, buy if you’re punctual enough to hear this episode within 24 hours of it getting out into the wild in which case you can either shop Comixology’s BOGO sale or just get it at Amazon for half-price).
41:39-50:40: On a completely different but similarly Avengers-related tip, Graeme reread The Korvac Saga, Jim Shooter’s magnum opus of The uptight Avengers versus a horny, middle-class God. It’s on Hoopla (and is also part of the Marvel BOGO sale but is *not* half-price on Amazon, super-weirdly).
50:40-1:10:55: And then! After all this “Jeff reads one Avengers trade, and Graeme reads another,” it turns out that we unknowingly both read the *same* trade at roughly the same time: Hardware: The Man in the Machine by Dwayne McDuffie and the amazing Denys Cowan (and JJ Birch, apparently?) Graeme also recommends Icon by McDuffie and the also-amazing Mark D. Bright, and we talk about what Milestone returning might mean to us now in 2020.
1:10:55-1;20:50: And if *that* isn’t proof we’re going seriously old school with this podcast, Jeff also read Bloodstone and the Legion of Monsters (also covered in the BOGO), a trade which has the much more recent (and pretty decent!) Legion of Monsters mini by Dennis Hopeless and Juan Doe, but also the original Ulysses Bloodstone series which gets an *amazing* final issue written by Steve Gerber that’s….really something to behold.
1:20:50-1:26:31: Sadly, in the “more recent” debacles column, Jeff read the amazingly titled President Werewolf #1 and is here to let you know that, yes, it is amazingly titled. And he read (recently arrived on Marvel Unlimited) Marvel Premiere #27, a Satana issue drawn by The Tribe and written by a very young and very “knew what he liked, even back then” Chris Claremont.
1:26:31-1:43:37: Continuing in this vein of “Jeff drags Graeme down memory lane,” Jeff talks about rebuying the very first issue of Conan The Barbarian he ever read, and the semi-atypical way in which it came into his possession. WARNING: this story is so heavily ‘70s, it should come with its own eight-track player.
1:43:37-1:48:16: But enough of that memory lane jazz? What about comics news? The new Alan Moore interview? The film deal for the comic Black? A weird way to connect the two?
1:48:16-2:08:59: Meanwhile, it’s time for another installment of Graeme Grapples with Death Metal! In this latest ep., Graeme reads all of Death Metal (and its related tie-ins) and concludes, “it actually does make slightly more sense if you read it all in a oner.” Includes discussion of Death Metal: Speed Metal and Death Metal: Multiverse’s End.
2:08:59-end: Closing comments, but with Jeff also remembering to mention the very good Humble Bundle currently running with over 100+ volumes of horror manga from Kodansha! 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: Drokk!! We’re reading Volume 19 of the Complete Judge Dredd Casefiles. Join us!!
Episode, episode—who’s got the episode? No wait, never mind, here it is:
https://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts4/WaitWhat304.mp3
Would Korvac Saga make a good Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover? I’ve always thought this would be the next natural outcropping of a crossover story.
The other half of that Grandmaster vs Death storyline from the WCA/Avengers Annuals has a pretty good artist’s jam going on in the second half, as I recall, and while the whole thing exists to fix the problem with CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS’ finale, it does feature Hawkeye being carny, which is Peak Hawkeye.
Gah, Jeff, definitely watch Doctor Sleepless (and recognize that it won’t be entirely good before you watch). It might be the most Stephen King-ish Stephen King adaptation I’ve ever seen, and Rebecca Ferguson as Rose the Hat is pretty delightful. Also, she gets one scene in particular that’s delightfully bonkers.
I remember that issue of Conan! Unsure if I still have it. I do have the Ploog drawn Kull #11, which is great as well, if you can enjoy all the chopping and hacking, I guess. I also remember those first two Marvel Comics Presents issues. I think my teenage self quite liked the first issue, but the second didn’t move much forward. I could easily be being unfair about a comic I haven’t read for more than 45 years.
Concerning Wonder Man, did the Vision ever have a party phase? Given his personality was based on Simon Williams brain patterns, wouldn’t he have that potential? If not, was it ever explained why not? I feel like a fool to myself for asking, as explaining the Vision is akin to Hawkman’s origin, generally not what I enjoy in a comic.
I met Chris Claremont briefly at Angouleme in 1992. His conversational gambit was ‘I’ll tell you about my sex life.’ I like to think he heroically overshares on all occasions.
The first four issues of Static were collected as Static Shock: Trial by Fire in 2000 and also (kind of weirdly?) with the Static Shock: Rebirth of the Cool miniseries in 2009.
Xombi’s the one I hope gets collected/released. I never managed to find that many issues of the original run when looking for backissues, but enjoyed what I read. I’d hoped that after the John Rozum/Frazer Irving miniseries in 2011 they’d collect the old stuff to, but nope.
Also, I seem to remember all the editorial pages in the old Milestone comics repeatedly bragging that they never shipped a book late, which really seemed like a dig at Image Comics and other publishers at the time.
Oh! The other thing I meant to comment about was the “issues seeming like issues” conversation. I’ve been reading the collections of Rainbow Rowell and Kris Anka’s Runaways series and it really, really seems like a series written by someone who has never read single issue comics. (Something I think is a frequent problem with writers who come in from other fields.) I’m not sure how best to describe it, but it seems like basically nothing happens in any given issue.
Like, I’m enjoying reading the series as collections that I’m borrowing from the library and not paying for, but I feel as though reading this series as single issues would be an incredibly unsatisfying experience? I dunno. If anyone is actually doing that and enjoying it I’d be interested to hear their thoughts.
Re-read that Kull issue and Roy Thomas told me (via the letter column) that Steve Englehart was taking over the next issue. Distribution was spotty around here in the mid-70s, so I didn’t see another issue of Kull until much later. However the internet tells me the next four issues were by Steve E and Mike Ploog. Just mentioning in case you were unaware as well.
Matthew, I’ve been reading The Runaways issue by issue and I am really enjoying the series. A lot! But for me, the joy of this series has always been about the character interactions and less about the ongoing storyline. So I find that there are enough cool character or soapy moments each issue, that I’m more than happy to come back month and after month to check in with them. I don’t care if anything “happens” because so much of the enjoyment for me, is the characters conversing with one another.
Also, the art has been pretty top notch from issue to issue and that’s always a plus.
Well, that was underwhelming. No, not the podcast, silly, The Three Jokers finale. No spoilers, but I wasn’t actually sure what the obvious big moment was, and there were so many bits that fell flat that I can’t be sure which was Graeme’s bit that felt flat.
Martin: Wrong episode show notes, maybe?
But yes, excellent point! I actually forgot about that because I was in so much disbelief at how bad all of it landed!