Podcast - Episode 15: Age of Ultron!

Everything has come full circle! This podcast was born from Dave and my write-ups of the Marvel movies leading up to the theatrical release of Avengers: Age of Ultron and now we are talking about that VERY SAME MOVIE the week of its Blu-Ray release! And we are joined by our very good friend, Tiina Johns!

We are keen to get talking about the movie, which we watched together right before recording this episode, so we blow through the news and stuff as fast as possible. In the Renner Report Tiina mentions that Jeremy Renner was on an episode of Angel. Here are a couple of images from that episode:

He looks better as a vampire, right?

We do take some time to talk about Captain America: White no. 2, because of course we do. Here is that ridiculous Namor page that we can't get enough of:

It was nice to revisit Age of Ultron. Dave and I wrote our thoughts out on it in a blog post way back in May. Now we've had months to digest the movie (and a lot of fan hate and backlash on the internet) but we still love it and don't really understand why anyone wouldn't. But we do address the various problems people seem to have with the movie. I honestly can't make a call on how I feel about the Black Widow/Hulk romance. I'm mostly against it, but I don't hate it so much that it ruins the movie. I guess that's it.

I was thinking more about the Steve Rogers 'home' theme throughout the movie and I realized how many places we either see him in, or are mentioned, throughout the movie where he's not comfortable or not at home. Avengers Tower isn't home, Brooklyn isn't home anymore, he's weirded out when he's back in the 1940s in his vision when Peggy talks about going home, the farmhouse is very uncomfortable for him, he gets really upset when Tony talks about going home when the Avengers are no longer needed...and then he's at the new Avengers HQ at the end and he seems very much at peace. He's finally home. I love it. Now go find Bucky!

Here's that looks of pure respect and platonic love that Steve gives Natasha after she bravely suggests they go down with the flying city:

All I want is for Captain America to look at me like that.

Well, this is a short blog post. But it was great having Tiina on! We'll do it again sometime. Hope you enjoy listening to it.

Watch Dave's Tumblr for horror movie drawings and write-ups! Coming soon!

Hey I did it! No Sebastian Stan pics!

Podcast - Episode 14: Let's Settle This

Last week on the podcast I had the pleasure of getting Dave all angry when I suggested that Batman should maybe just kill the Joker. That got us thinking about other arguments and conversations that we never want to have again. So that's what the topic is this week. Yeah, it's a weird one, but it ends with Dave and I getting into a fight over Batman: Year Two. You don't want to miss that.

First we talk about some of the announcements that Marvel made about new or renewed ongoing series for 2016. We talk about Wesley Snipes' depressing campaign to make Blade 4 a thing. We talk about the study that showed that 53% of comic book readers are female. AND I finally got to talk about the shocking and delightful true origin of Red Skull. He was almost called HOT FUDGE, you guys! He was almost ICE CREAM-based!!!

Here are those concept sketches I did. I'm a very good artist:

Man, I wish Joe Simon had never noticed that cherry.

We also reveal the name I came up with for Jeremy Renner's possible secret album that he is maybe working on. And Dave made some great artwork. I couldn't choose one so here are all three.

I can't decide. Maybe number three? They all have a great Eddie Money vibe. I'm glad Dave did this because it saved me having to Google image search Jeremy Renner.

I pronounced Ta-Nahisi Coate's name incorrectly. It's actually Ta-Na-HAH-SI. I am trying a new thing, though, where I just give my best attempt at pronouncing names instead of being like "I don't know how to pronounce this!" because I have a weird name and I know what it's like to have people look at it and say "I'm not even gonna TRY with this one!" I hope I'm pronouncing Alti Firmasyah's name right. Honestly, I hope I'm saying Jeff Lemire's name right.

Dave wasn't lying about that Blade television series. 2006 on the Spike network, and it did indeed star Onyx's Sticky Fingaz! I don't know how I missed out on this whole thing. You can read about it here. Geoff Johns was one of the writers! It actually looks pretty fun. Sticky Fingaz looks great! You can watch the first part of the first episode here.

It wouldn't be a podcast blog post without Sebastian Stan content! Here is where you can watch his entire panel from Salt Lake Comic Con:

I do recommend searching Tumblr for all the fan photo op pictures with Sebastian Stan and/or Chris Evans. A lot of lucky people got to pay money to lay their hands on those men.

Oh, and since I was talking about 1872 this week, here's a cool fan thing someone made about 1872 Natasha and Bucky. It was reblogged on Tumblr by 1872 artist, Nik Virella:

http://blorfff.tumblr.com/post/129836620144/firstenchantervivienne-marvel-1872-insp

If you are interested in reading my 2009 rant defending Wonder Woman, you can find it here. Nothing makes me angrier faster than someone saying that Wonder Woman is lame. You made an enemy for life, Megan Fox.

Here's the thing, guys. Dave is wrong about Batman: Year Two. It sucks. I put forward a very compelling argument against it way back in 2006. I guess that's what I was doing instead of watching the Blade tv series.

Haha! She who controls the blog gets the last word on Batman: Year Two! Eat it, Dave! Eat it forever!

Just kidding Dave. Please don't draw The Reaper in my sketchbook.

Oh and hey, guess what? It looks like next week's episode WILL be the Age of Ultron one after all! Our good friend Tiina Johns will be joining us! We're gonna eat pizza, drink beer, watch the movie, and record the episode immediately after! It will be awesome!

Podcast - Episode 13: Villains

This week we are talking about villains! All kinds of villains!

Dave and I are drinking beer out of bottles during this podcast, and you can REALLY hear it every time we set them down on the desk. I apologize for that. We will go back to drinking beer out of cans next time. But we WILL NOT stop drinking beer during the recording of these podcasts.

There is actually a ton of background noise on this episode, but that's the only one that's our fault.

Here's the episode!

You get the origin story of Dave and my friendship this week and it makes me look super lame (hint: it involves me buying Jeph Loeb comics from Dave). That story Dave tells is probably set twelve or thirteen years ago, when I was 100% cool and not at all awkward. I will say that Dave did not let on at the time that he thought my taste in comics was terrible, and was nothing but helpful and welcoming. And that's why I still read (better) comics today!

I checked, by the way, and I couldn't find my old university cartoon strip anywhere. I even searched my old Livejournal! My LIVEJOURNAL, guys! It was so embarrassing! Maybe next time I'm in Sackville, New Brunswick I'll see if they have old copies of the school paper in the archive or something. Unless one of our listeners has a bunch of copies of the Mount Allison University newspaper from 2001-2002? It's the world's loss, I guess, if it's gone forever.

Dave and I talk a lot about Captain America: White this week. We probably could have talked a lot more about it. Fortunately there will be more issues! Oh man.

So here are those panels we were talking about. First the Nick Fury one that made me almost actually die laughing:

And the the super awkward Bucky-and-Cap on a motorcycle panel:

Weird, Tim Sale. Very weird.

As we mention, Jeph Loeb has kind of a long history of unintentional homoeroticism. It's what keeps me reading!

Dave mentioned that I post kind of a lot of images of Sebastian Stan on these podcast blog posts. Noted!

Here's that rad Sebastian Stan Collider interview where he gives Zack Snyder the business:

And here is a pic of him at NASA being cute:

And here is a video of him at NASA being cute:

Oh, and here is the cute sketch of him that J.Bone did:

A wee Sebastian Stan face. I stink at likenesses but I think this is close. #sebastianstan #drawing #jbone

A photo posted by J.Bone (@originaljbone) on Sep 18, 2015 at 5:40pm PDT

Aw, look at him. You are great at likenesses, J! Shush.

When we talk about villains, we divide them into categories. There are two categories I didn't get to: Petulant Brats (Loki, for example) and Machines/Monsters Running Amuk (Ultron, Amazo, Fin Fang Foom, etc).

And here's the other thing: I had a whole bunch of awesome information to share about the creation of Red Skull and I forgot to talk about it, so I am going to make sure we talk about it next episode. I don't care what next week's topic is. I'll work it in!

The ridiculous Batman (You're the Sex) song that my legendary band, The Stolen Minks, used to play can be found on YouTube here. No video or anything. You know what, though? I was wrong about Bruce leaving the mask on in the sex scene in Son of the Demon. He leaves the mask on when he fights shirtless, but strips from the waist up (and presumably removes the rest at some point) in the sex scene:

Wowzers!

BUT...when Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert brought this story back into canon they left the mask on in the sex scene! It's like they read my fantasy diary!

Thanks, guys!

Why am I posting all of this? Because I can! I would honestly like that tableau from Son of the Demon painted as a mural on my bedroom wall.

Dave and I also mention our past villain-inspired Halloween costumes. Here is Dave as J. Jonah Jameson in 2010 maybe?

And here's me as Captain Cold in 2008:

Man I was sweaty that night.

I just remembered that I dressed as another villain in 2009: Bizarro! Here I am with the rest of the Living Between Wednesdays team: Tiina as Elasti-Girl (not a villain), Johnathan as MODOK (villain), me as Bizarro (villain) and Dave as Hawkeye (former villain):

As you can tell, sex appeal is a huge factor when I am selecting my Halloween costume. My husband was dressed as Jimmy Olsen that night. Things got weird.

Thank you for listening! We're gonna set up a Facebook group maybe? Is that a good idea? Like a clubhouse where we can all complain about bad art and crush on Winter Soldier?

If you feel like clicking on some stars for us on iTunes we would appreciate it. Especially if you click on all five of them!

Podcast - Episode 12: Costumes with Special Guest J.Bone!

Happy Wednesday! New comics are out today and we are here to talk about...last week's comics? Yup, that's what this podcast is. A thrilling glimpse into a few days ago.

Hey, this week we have a guest! A really GREAT guest! J.Bone joined us all the way from Toronto! It sounds like he's joining us from space! It's via Skype and it sounds like it's via Skype, but still completely awesome. We apologize for the sound quality. We had some technical difficulties and eventually just had to go with the best sound we could get. I think it gets better as the episode goes on? We'll work on it for future episodes.

J talks about being nervous meeting famous people. I know the feeling! I was nervous talking to J.Bone!!! He's my favourite! Remember when he drew that sexy Peter Parker in response to that super sexist Mary Jane statue?! He made me a crochet Batman once! It's the first thing you see when you walk into my house! He's the best! And he's on our show this week!!!

The theme this week is superhero costumes. J happens to be VERY good at re-imagining superhero costumes. Check out this Wonder Woman fashion plate!

Awesome, right? Ok, here's the episode:

Right off the bat I want to say that Dave and I FUCKED UP because we forgot to mention The Rocketeer when we were talking about awesome costumes.  Not only is it the best costume, J.BONE DREW ROCKETEER COMICS! I mean...yeah, we failed.

Ok, we'll get back to superhero costumes and our shortcomings as hosts in a second.

I talked quite a bit about Planet Hulk, which wrapped up with issue #5 this week. As I mentioned many, many times on the podcast, I LOVED this crazy thing. But I also mention that it seemed like there was some backpedaling in this final issue as far as the whole Steve-and-Bucky-are-totally-completely-crazy-in-love-in-a-romantic-way thing goes. There was one panel in particular that seemed to be a lot less cute in the final book. Here's the side by side of Mark Laming's original, which he posted on Twitter some time ago, and the final panel:

Not cute, Marvel. Not cute. Extra weird because holding hands at the end of a gladiator battle victory isn't really explicit. But the way they were holding hands is so adorable I want to die!

To be honest, the issue/series was still pretty romantic. And awesome. I bought a beautiful Planet Hulk print from Marc Laming. Check it out! I believe he'll be selling them at New York Comic Con. You should get one!

Also in the 'what we're reading' segment, J recommends Head Lopper by Andrew MacLean, I recommend Virgil by Steve Orlando and JD Faith, and Dave recommends Nailbiter by Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson. So we give Image Comics a lot of love this week.

Because you have to see this thing, here's that Jeremy Renner tweet we were talking about:

Ugh, let's wash that taste out of our mouths with some pictures of Sebastian Stan at TIFF:

Yes. Yessssss. Those pants are way too tight.

Like, come on. Just stop. It's rude to look like that if everyone can't have some. It's like eating a bag of candy in front of me. Does he have a hair elastic on his wrist? Oh my God...

And that was just his afternoon attire! He got all GQ for the actual red carpet premier that night, looking all young European royalty. Here's a gif of him smiling while meeting fans, looking not at all terrible:

Sigh.

J did an AMAZING Winter Soldier sketch cover commission that he posted in a few places. It's so good. Here it is:

So nice. I think I've looked at this on my phone like fifty times over the past week. I want him to draw a Winter Soldier series! Come on, Marvel!!!!

Dave politely suggests that we wrap up the Winter Soldier segment, AND THEN we get into the actual topic, which is costumes. I feel like I need to post a lot of images here. It's a very visual topic for an audio podcast. I am not going to post an image of every costume we talk about, but here are some highlights.

J names the Cheeks Galloway Spider-Man design from the Spectacular Spider-Man animated series as his favourite Spidey costume. Interesting and cool choice!

J also had Flash Thompson's Venom costume on his list of favourites, which I wholeheartedly agree with! Sexy Venom is not something I ever thought would exist, but here we are.

Also getting love from all three of us, Taskmaster! And after the podcast, J brought this Cheeks Galloway rendition of the character to our attention! Rad!

Dave surprises no one by naming the classic 1970s Wonder Man off-the-rack affair as his favourite. Dave should be this for Halloween.

He also mentions Doctor Mid-Nite, who is indeed awesome. Moon-shaped buttons? Forget about it!

I give props to Ted Kord's Blue Beetle costume, which might be my very favourite?

Also, Daredevil. I guess I just really like tone-on-tone colour schemes.

Magnus Robot Fighter is obviously wearing a perfect costume for fighting robots:

So much upskirt. "It's head" is right!

I also love Iron Fist's H&M-looking costume:

Cloak has the most comfortable super hero costume, Dagger has the least comfortable super hero costume:

I said that Tim Drake ditched the yellow on his Robin costume as a tribute to the recently deceased Superboy, but really it was the green he did away with. He still kept a bit of yellow. Oops. Just pretend I'm saying 'green' every time I say 'yellow.' It's a lot of times.

Getting into some of the more ridiculous costumes, here's that badass Bon Jovi looking Nomad and Baby Bucky:

What on Earth is going on there? I think I have a new contender for 'thing I show my kids if they ask me what the 90's were like.'

Of course we love the Steve Epting Winter Solider character design, but are not so crazy about the Alex Ross Bucky-as-Captain America design:

Man I fell hard for that imaginary man in 2005. Well done, Mr. Epting. You ruined my life.

Now I've lost my train of thought.

We talked about Gambit and 90's Cyclops, but you guys know what they look like, right? (I will always kind of love 90's Cyclops). We also mention some of Nightwing's less good costumes. I'm getting so tired of looking up images, guys. But I think it's important that I include this one of Thunderbird:

And maybe this image so you know which Scarlet Witch costume J is talking about:

That looks very hard to put on. You can read the story of the crazy messed up John Byrne thing between Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man in West Coast Avengers here.

Let's wrap this up with a picture of Clock King and his insane homemade costume:

You can read more of my thoughts on Clock King here.

Costumes are fun. They were always an important component of my Rating the Super Hunks series.

Thanks again to J for being on the show and generally being a very nice guy, and being very patient with our technical difficulties. You can check out his blog or his hotter blog to see his older artwork. And you really, really should. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter too to see new stuff!

If you want to hear a really good conversation with J.Bone that actually includes questions about his work and other things that would be smart to ask about, you should check out episode 15 of the Weekend at Burgie's podcast with SJ the Wordburglar. It's really fun.

My son Mitchell makes his debut on the podcast this week in a little segment we like to call 'Hey, Guess What?' with Mitchell. Here is a picture of him dressed as Speedy for Free Comic Book Day this year (I can't sew):

Yeah! I'm one of those parents now! My kid is so interesting!!!

Seriously, he told me he yesterday that he wants to be Starfire for Halloween. #blessed

Alright I'm done! Thanks for listening/reading! Rate us on iTunes!

One more picture of Sebastian Stan at TIFF.

Podcast - Episode 11: Epic Runs, Grand Finales, and Forgettable Fade-outs

This week saw the end of Mark Waid's five-year run on Daredevil, with Chris Samnee on art for almost that entire run. It's sad, but the ending was satisfying, and that got us thinking about long runs by creators and how very few of them actually have solid endings.

So that's what the podcast is about this week.

But first!

Well, honestly, we don't have much to talk about this week.

I mention the creepy Captain America doll that my son picked out for me as a birthday gift. Here's a photo:

And I also mention that Chris Evans was at the premier of his directorial debut, Before We Go, on my birthday, looking super fine. Here's a picture of that:

Please keep in mind that the man in that picture and the doll in the picture above are supposed to look the same.

There was no Renner Report this week. And basically no This Week in Winter Soldier because there is nothing to talk about. But I am pretty distracted imagining that the next Waid/Samnee project is a Winter Soldier comic. Or a Winter Soldier and Black Widow comic. WHAT IF?! #BringBuckyHome

Here's that VERY romantic/horrifying preview image from Planet Hulk #5, which comes out today unless your comics are held up by Labour Day.

Interlaced fingers!!!! If the final issue of this comic isn't at least 80% a hardcore Steve/Bucky make-out session, I am going to be a little disappointed.

I will do whatever I have to to read this comic today, even if it means buying a digital version today, and the hard copy tomorrow. And then the trade whenever that comes out. And then the rights to the movie. I am going to miss these sexy gladiators.

And if you want to see a candid (pap) shot of my boy Sebastian strolling around Manhattan in the least incognito hat he could possibly choose, here you go:

What book is he carrying??!! What's he listening to?! THIS PODCAST?! That's a really big phone in his pocket! He has a pen in his other pocket! For autographs? I love him!

Anyway, these blog posts are very one-sided. I should get Dave to help write them before they just turn into straight Tumblr posts.

We did mention the Moondancers this week when we were talking about Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man. I did a post about those awesome ladies awhile back. You can read it here.

Oh, and that Cerise character Dave mentions? I guess she was in Excalibur a bit or something. You can read about her here, if you like. Or don't.

And, hey! Here's that slow news day front page Dave was talking about at the end of the episode:

Pretty great.

I also want to be clear, when I was talking about Catwoman deciding to give up her baby, what I actually meant is she gave up her 1-year-old daughter, Helena. Like, she had been raising that kid for a year or so. The kid was toddling around and could talk a little. I mean...

So a VERY heart wrenching and difficult decision. And one that...never came up again? And like I said, a few issues later she decides to quit being Catwoman, so the decision to give up her daughter, who she loves, so she could keep being Catwoman is PRETTY DUMB.

Man, I have been wanting to get that off my chest. One of the best series (81 issues!) about a female hero ever and they just throw the whole damn thing in the garbage by the end. Fuck you, DC.

What else did we talk about? Comics...movies...books...Chris Evans? Kind of a lot about Chris Evans this week, I feel (and yet, never enough). Anyway, here he is playing a very physically fit street musician in the movie he directed:

For real I want to see it. Send us a review copy, Chris Evans!

Lord, I'd better just wrap this post up right here. Just know this: we managed to fill an hour because we are the best there is at what we do.

Podcast - Episode 10: Animated Series

Animated series? Animated series'? Animated serieses?

Hey guys, it's my birthday today and that is super important! I am 35 today and to celebrate here is a solid hour of Dave and me talking about super heroes and cartoon shows! Like a couple of grownups!

In the This Week in Winter Soldier we talk about the super cute art that J. Bone made of Bucky and Natasha chilling out and watching Netflix. Here it is!

It's so cute I can't even...I hope Civil War is mostly this!

Speaking of Civil War, here is a link to that Civil War promo art that got released. And here you can see a very purple, one-sleeved Hawkeye (with a little buddy on his shoulder!), a stylish Sharon Carter, a fantastic-looking-as-always Captain America, a fancy new suit Falcon, and a salon-fresh, one-sleeved Winter Soldier:

I love that new Winter Soldier get-up. I also love that he has so many visible weapons (and probably like a couple dozen that you can't see). Still has the red star, though...interesting.

You know what these Marvel movies excel at? Boots. Great boots in every movie. They should release a line of boots.

We talk a lot about Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, which we agree are kind of the gold standard for super hero cartoons. We got so into talking about those shows that we didn't leave time to talk about Batman: The Animated Series, so we will devote a future episode to that show.

But Justice League is awesome.

We also talk about some super hero cartoons from our childhood. I mention one that I can't remember the name of, and that possibly never existed, but guess what? IT DOES! And here is the theme song:

Dave mentions the intro for the Youngblood cartoon that never made it to air. The intro can be found on YouTube, and it's worth watching, especially if you are a fan of spelling 'Youngblood':

And, of course, the Swamp Thing cartoon intro, which had the best theme song ever:

We gave some love to both Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Avengers Assemble. Both very fun shows. Dave needs to watch Avengers Assemble. Here are some gifs to convince him:

So many great cartoon shows, so little time!