Podcast - Episode 8: Superhero Friendships

We are STILL waiting for that Civil War trailer. Guys, why won't they release it? WHYYYYYYY??!!!

Anyway, in the meantime, here is a new episode of our podcast.

When I gush talk about Planet Hulk this week I mention that the colours are amazing, but I do not mention that the colourist is Jordan Boyd. Seriously amazing art on this book.

I mention my adventures on Tumblr and some of the blogs I have been enjoying. Here is a link to parksandcap, which pairs Parks and Recreation quotes with Captain America stills and is HILARIOUS. Behold:

And now I just want to watch all of Parks and Rec again.

I also mentioned the textsfromcapscrew blog, which pairs tweets from the 'Texts from Last Night' Twitter account with Captain America stills. Also hilarious:

So funny. Go follow both of those blogs.

In the superhero friendships discussion part of this episode, we talk maybe too much (but never enough) about one of my favourite comics ever, Action Comics #241. I wrote about this story at length in a post on this blog here. It's seriously the best. I mean...

Some of the other specific comic issues that we mention/rec are:

Marvel Two-in-One #86 (The Thing hangs with Sandman)
Marvel Two-in-One #51 (Poker game with Beast, Wonder Man, Ms Marvel, Nick Fury and DumDum Dugan)
The Avengers #198 (Wonder Man and Beast shake off hangovers to fight a giant robot)
Wolverine: Weapon X #11 (Wolverine takes Captain America on a post-resurrection pub crawl around the world with Nightcrawler as designated driver)

We also mention the completely awesome (and completely out-of-print) Spider-Man/Human Torch series by Dan Slott and Ty Templeton. You can buy a digital version on Comixology if you can't find some old copies at your local comic shop. It is the best.

That about wraps it up for this week. And now back to anxiously awaiting the Civil War trailer. And looking at Chris Evans gifs from D23. Gifs like this one:

THANK YOU TUMBLR!!!!!  Source.

Go buy Dave's new comic, The Last Paper Route! You can buy it online here.

Podcast - Episode 7: Fantastic Four

We both re-watched the 2005 Fantastic Four, Dave watched the 1994 unreleased Fantastic Four, and then we went to see the new Fantastic Four movie on opening night together. So life has been PRETTY awesome lately.

Here's the thing: that 2005 movie is NOT THAT BAD. For one thing, my 5-yr-old son loved it, and isn't that worth something? For another, Chris Evans. For another, Chris Evans with chest hair.

Also, both of these guys were just great:

The new movie, however, is very bad and we clearly outline what was bad about it in the second half of this episode. I posted a bit of a rant about a specific problem with the movie here on Tumblr (Yeah! I have a Tumblr and I almost know how to use it! Dave has one too!).

Here is that J.Bone Devil Dinosaur print that he gave to my son, and the Marvel High print he gave me at Boston Comic Con:

Mitchell immediately called him on Superman being a DC and Devil Dinosaur being a Marvel.

Look at MODOK! Look at Captain America! Look at Tony Stark!!!

J.Bone is awesome.

And here is that Deadpool that Franco drew for Mitchell. Pretty adorable little mercenary!

To clear up any confusion, yes that Midnighter series I was talking about was by Garth Ennis and drawn by Chris Sprouse, then the writing was taken over by Keith Giffen. It was good. The new Midnighter series is by Steve Orlando and ACO. I forgot to mention that on the episode (of course).

I mention in the This Week in Winter Soldier segment that some images were leaked from the Berlin set of Civil War that feature my boy in them. Here's one of them and you can find the rest here.

Such a happy winter soldier! I want to buy him one of those ice creams and watch the sun set together.

We will be talking to Dave (and hopefully Sean Jordan) next week on the show about their new comic, The Last Paper Route. You can buy a digital version of the first issue here.

And you can buy the new Wordburglar album, Rapplicable Skills (featuring awesome cover art by Dave and Signalnoise) here.

Hopefully we will have Sean Jordan aka The Wordburglar, on the show next week to talk about both of these things. And probably Tigra. Dude likes Tigra.

TOUGH KID SQUAD

Overdue for a reboot, Marvel. Or maybe a movie! JK Simmons as Doctor Klutch! A cast of unknowns as the Danger Twins and the rest of the Squad! It'll be the Summer blockbuster of 2026!

(A cast of unknowns because I don't know the names of any child actors)

Getting Back into the Game

So: I recently returned to lovely Nova Scotia after a year away, a year in which I ended up going cold turkey on buying comics. Money was tight and every item I brought into the house was another thing that would have to be moved home, so I didn't even visit a shop in that time. Meanwhile, digital comics are a bit too bountiful a garden for me to visit without an infinite line of credit. So: I have read almost nothing in the last year.

Once we returned, there was a lot to do: we had a whole house to unpack and get in order while my wife was starting a new job - it was all very grown-up. I even did yard work because I cared that my yard looked bad!

So with one thing and another I didn't start unpacking any of my comic stuff until about a week ago. And then this happened:

For reference: those stacks are waist high.

Pulling out all of the trades and OGNs and strip collections was basically the equivalent of the a movie character having One Last Cigarette in a moment of stress. If I had actually been trying to quit comic booking, all of my hard work would have been in the toilet. Instead, I got to feel the familiar desire to read all comics everywhere reassert itself in my heart.

Eventually things got neater and a lot of stuff got packed away again, but I was left with this:

... which represents everything in those former piles that I thought I might like to read in the near future. And that's what I'm going to do, and then I'm going to write about 'em here. Not quite sure whether there's going to be a set format or if I'm just going to tell you about my feelings, so it's a good thing that my first choice of reading material was this:

Ignore the glare. I am not a professional

Hellboy is basically the prototype of the comics series that I will love. Tales of the supernatural featuring a big lug who solves most problems with punching? Deep dives into folklore? A story that evolves from fun vignettes into a cohesive and compelling tragedy over the course of years? 

And so on.

So, I'll see you later, cool kids.

Podcast - Episode 6: Crossovers!

drawn by carmine infantino and dick giordano!!!!!!!!!!!

This was a light week on all fronts. Barely any comics, barely any news, not a Winter Soldier for miles, and all quiet on the Renner front. Despite all this, we pull together a pretty entertaining hour of super hero chat. Because we're professionals.

I mention that J. Bone did some mind-shatteringly hot really great sketches of Winter Soldier this week, including a couple of my favourite bionic commando as a sexy auto mechanic. Yeah, that's what I said. Feast your eyes on these!

Good lord. How am I supposed to get anything done?

Meanwhile, my 5-year-old son, Mitchell, was doing a Winter Solider drawing of his own:

He did a whole bunch of drawings of super heroes, and they are all hilarious. Behold: Ant-Man, Iron Fist, Nick Fury, Storm, Hawkeye, Thor, and Falcon as Captain America.

The best, right? I drew a couple of my own for him, at his request. I worked way too hard one these, considering they look like they were drawn by an 11-year-old at best. I am especially proud of my Silver Surfer. Look out, Mike Allred! I'm coming for your job!

Clearly Dave is the artistic talent half of this podcast team.

We talk about crossovers this week, and speaking of crossovers, I crossed over to another Canadian comic book podcast! This week I am a guest host on Panel Culture. You can check out the episode here. It's also available on iTunes here (episode 219). It was very nice to finally talk to Owen Craig after corresponding online for years! Go Canadian comic book podcasts!

Hey, that reminds me! We are also on iTunes here and we would love it if you would subscribe or rate us!

I am away this upcoming week so there will be no new episode next week, but we'll be back with a vengeance after that!

Podcast - Episode 5: Ant-Man!!!

Dave and I saw Ant-Man this week and we spoil the hell out of it in this Giant-Size Ant-Man episode (actually a normal length episode). And can I just say, it was nice to have a recorded conversation with Dave about a Marvel movie after writing out all those dialogues for our Countdown to Age of Ultron recaps on this blog.

First we discuss the Batman vs Superman trailer, which you can watch here:

And I really go off on "Renner of the Week" Jesse Eisenberg's dumb 'genocide' comments about Comic Con. You can read about what he actually said here.

We talk about the X-Men: Apocalypse images, which you can see here.

And I try to talk coherently about Hayley Atwell's DubSmash videos. I can't. Just watch these and try not to die (like you haven't watched them a million times already). You can see the whole epic battle here.

Mic dropped, @clarkgregg @ChloeBennet4 ? Consider it picked up and thrown out of the f***ing window... pic.twitter.com/HJFGi3yOUC

— Hayley Atwell (@HayleyAtwell) July 15, 2015

#TeamCarter we celebrated 😝 pic.twitter.com/oGbhysHXB4

— Hayley Atwell (@HayleyAtwell) July 15, 2015

Just follow Hayley Atwell on Twitter and Instagram. She's the best. You can check out the full Pajiba 10 2015 list, which is a great list of sexy people that I fully endorse. It's also full of hot pics and gifs like this one:

I keep talking about how awesome Planet Hulk is on the podcast and I keep not mentioning either the writer or the artist's names. which is very dumb and horrible. So here they are:

Planet Hulk is written by SAM HUMPHRIES!

Planet Hulk is drawn by MARC LAMING!

As I mention, the Ant-Man end of credits scene makes me lose my damn mind. There is a good in-depth look at both end credits scenes here. This line made me very sad:

“Add in Sebastian Stan’s intense acting and it doesn’t take much to believe that this Bucky is also one who has pretty much decided to give up.”

— Andrea Towers, Entertainment Weekly

Bucky!!! Noooo!!! I love youuuuuu!!!

Dave had another idea about the end credits scene, which he has drawn here and it is the best:

On the episode I refer to the writer of the Paul Rudd article as a man. It was a woman! Ugh! I am part of the problem!!! You can read that great New York Times article on Paul Rudd here, and you can join me in trying to solve the Mystery of the Obnoxious Avenger that the author clearly hates (I still think it's Downey, though my heart wants it to be Renner). Here's the quote, for quick reference:

“Twenty feet away, a different Avenger hammily belted show tunes into a personal fan while some crew members pretended to laugh. Noninclusive.”

— Molly Young, The New York Times Magazine

Big thanks to Dave for letting me go on about Magic Mike XXL for awhile. It's basically all I can think about.

I am not kidding about adding Sebastian Stan to Magic Mike 3. I mean, I know these movies don't need more white dudes, but please. I went home after recording and Google image searched things like 'Sebastian Stan dancing' 'Sebastian Stan shirtless' and 'Sebastian Stan lips' for quite awhile. More than usual, even.

Next week we are totally going to talk about comic books on this podcast.