0:01-4:18: Welcome! Ever wonder how easily thrown we are when displaced from routine? Well, wonder no more as we spend our opening moments downright flummoxed by Skype. It says a lot about us that we’re more in our element trying to recall the publication date of a decades-old Andrew Vacchs book than figuring out how the tech we use every day works.
4:18-31:20: Jeff wants us to move into comics news first and have Graeme break it down for us! Covered: Diamond’s return date and the two hour livestream with Steve Geppi; Jeff’s modest proposal for two important podcast spinoffs; Steve Geppi’s twitter feed; Marvel’s return to publication and their offbeat choice of returning issues and trades; and more.
31:20-39:02: Jeff had some things to clarify and expand upon from the previous episode, starting with something he doesn’t remember actually discussing last week (but maybe?): Hoopla not updating with DC’s trades on day and date the way they have been previously; the appearance of the trade of First Issue Special; Jeff finally reading that *amazing* Dr. Fate one-shot drawn by Walt Simonson (available to read on DC Universe). Just stunning work.
39:02-45:02: Also mentioned in our discussion of the First Issue Special trade: a startling discovery Jeff made by going full-McMillan. Also discussed: Graeme of course managing to out full-McMillan Jeff in the full-McMillan department; Ditko’s Creeper as opposed to Ditko’s and Fleisher’s Creeper; the young and talented Gerry Conway captured in all his ability and power by the anonymous editor that is….the young and talented Gerry Conway; and more.
45:02-56:02: Jeff revisits last week’s discussion of Wotakoi; Love is Hard for Otaku by Fujita. Jeff still loves it, but has a bit of extra context as to its appeal and talks about that here.
56:02-1:23:19: “So Graeme,” Jeff asks, “why did you make me read Absolute Carnage?” Which is the most generous way possible to discuss the (comparatively) recent Marvel event by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman, now collected (and available digitally on Hoopla)? Discussed: splatterpunk; the Venom mythos; King, Millar, and Cates; the Absolute Carnage trade as an event that gives you no signposts into anything else; and more.
1:23:19-1:34:52: Something else Graeme made Jeff read: Amazing Spider-Man: Full Circle #1 (available to read on Marvel Unlimited), a DC Challenge/Exquisite Corpse style one shot by Jonathan Hickman, Chris Bachalo, Al Ewing, Michael Allred, Greg Smallwood, Chip Zdarsky, Chris Sprouse, Cameron Stewart, Kelly Thompson and many, many (!) more.1:34:52-1:36:54: When not assigning books for Jeff to read, Graeme has been reading Tales of the Dark Multiverse (currently available on Hoopla), which has a lot of the earmarks of classic What If? stories (omnipotent observer, worlds where events went differently, bummer endings). If Jeff sounds distracted during this, it’s because he’s trying to hunt up the collection on Hoopla and wasn’t having the best luck.
1:36:54-2:01:03: Also on Hoopla and also (re-)read by Graeme: the House of X/Powers of X collection by Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz, R.B. Silva and Mark Brooks. When it first came out, we were super-stoked by this change-up to the X-Men status quo. And now?
2:01:03-2:11:13: Also on the re-read pile for Graeme: Brightest Day, the Geoff Johns/Pete Tomasi/Patrick Gleason/Ivan Reis/ (and many others) year-long fortnightly event that is an object of curiosity for what it did, what it didn’t do, and where it didn’t go, thanks to Flashpoint and the New 52.
2:11:13-end: Closing Comments! 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: Judge Dredd The Restricted Files, Vol. 2? Drokk!!
If you need to cut / or need to paste,
Just take from here / with speed and haste:
https://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts3/WaitWhat294.mp3
I would do the reaction video to the diamond live stream and for money I’ll do the porn parody, but it would just be me shirtless eating a banana.
Given that ten of swords empyre and outlawws were all happening more or less at once. Doesnr it make a certain amount of sense they wouldn’t want to start releasing that stuff til things seems steady
My guess the deal with the weird Marvel trade books are those books that have to be printed overseas and are already in warehouses. The omnibuses and masterworks books definitely fall into that category.
Hey guys, appreciated your thoughts re: HOX/POX, 6 months or so on. Definitely an astute comment that once you put a writer who doesn’t really care about characters on a book mostly known for character-based romantic melodrama set at a school, what you’re left with is literally just (“just”?) a polyamourous sex cult.
I’ve been following (pre-pandemic, ofc) Hix-Men main title and I’m also astonished at how the contradiction of “I am not interested in continuity or fine details like how Wolverine regrows his adamantium when he re-spawns” but also “I steadfastly refuse to explain to new readers the continuity that I *am* using,” as particularly evidenced by the whole twist around L’il Broo or whatever his name is which I was left kind of numbed by.
Incidentally, I know Marauders is the big breakout book of the line, but I’ve been enjoying Ben Percy’s X-Force and Wolverine a surprising amount, as they’re much more interested in writing characters and hewing a bit more to traditional (albeit bloody) superhero dynamics but within the high-concept framework that Hickman’s set up. Worth a read if you haven’t already.
Thanks as always for the show, it’s really a big help during quarantining.
Wow! I was McMillaning that Dr Fate issue before I knew the term! I reached over and took ‘The Art of Walt Simonson’ from 1989 off my shelf when you brought it up, just to look at it again. Then when I compared it to what you posted in the show notes, completely different! Anubis has a blue headdress, Khalis is a dirty grey. I prefer the brighter colours in your posting. Anyone got the original issue to hand?
The whole ‘What If?’ being a bummer is so true and in general sits somewhere between being annoying for it’s implicit conservatism- ‘You want to change things? Fine… it’ll be worse’ and being one of the more sustained trolling exercises a company ever indulged in against it’s audience. However, it is also the set up for The Best Frank Miller Joke. His What Ifs are happy! In one, Matt becomes an Agent of Shield and saves his dad’s life and in the other Electra isn’t killed and she and Matt end the story kissing on a lovely beach. Admittedly, after the Electra one the Watcher does say, maybe it’ll all go sour later, but I think that’s just Frank underscoring what he’s doing.
Still thinking about that Dr Fate issue and found this interview- where Mr S talks about it at https://twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/10simonson.html
I’m willing to bet that everything Marvel has coming out currently scheduled was printed prior to the shutdown, and sitting in a warehouse, truck or boat since then, and they’re waiting to see how the next two months go before committing to sending anything else to the printer, and are even holding a few already printed books back in case they need a few more weeks padding in July before resuming printing.
And as I was typing that, the other shoe just dropped and a bunch of lower-tier books are going to digital first for their last few issues, theoretically to be collected in print later.
By the way, if you like that Pasko/Simonson Doctor Fate, see if you can track down the 8-part back-up Pasko did in Flash a few years later (reprinted as #2 and #3 of THE IMMORTAL DOCTOR FATE mini-series, with the Simonson story, a Levitz/Staton origin and an early golden age story in #1). Giffen art, simultaneous with his “Great Darkness Saga” work, and after I saw the Simonson story a few years after reading them originally I could see Giffen must have been taking notes from that. And Steve Gerber even co-writes the second half of the series, which is much weirder and full of potential. Some of the ideas seem to inform that later Giffen/DeMatteis take on the character.
While Donny Cates might not deserve all the praise he gets, he doesn’t have the meanness and contempt for the audience of Mark Millar. He’s not there yet but I think he could be a decent writer in time. He made me care about Eddie Brock, no one else has managed that.