Podcast - Episode 64: Creator Wars!

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Dave is going to tell us some stories this week about petty nerd fights between creators. Fights that could not be contained within the realm of reality! They had to spill onto the pages of the comics! Men!

It's a busy time for me, but here are some quick visual references to enhance your podcast-listening experience!

First, here is the stunningly awesome custom Strange Adventures Lego set that Eric Miller of Dartmouth Clothing Company created for our friend Cal Johnston!

So great! I can't wait to see it built!

Here is the fantastic trailer for the fan-created (and, sadly, not real) Indiana Jones animated series:

Here are a couple of the official images from the JSA season of Legends of Tomorrow. You can decide for yourselves if these costumes look good on film or not:

Here is what I am talking about when I am relentlessly complaining about the art in the current Thunderbolts series. First, a side-by-side comparison of the Death of Capatain America panel:

And a very odd panel of a man drinking coffee from a mug (I guess?):

And here are a couple of the things that Dave talked about when he was sharing some creator feud stories. First, here's Jack Kirby's Funky Flashman and Houseroy characters:

potshot-funky.jpg

Houseroy is the sickest burn. I love it.

And here is the page where Peter David gets his dig in on Erik Larsen:

Oh, nerds.

I'm out! See you next week with Sean Jordan! And check out Dave's Tumblr for all of his daily fictional horror movie posters!

Podcast - Episode 63: Superhero Starting Points

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Dave and I run through five characters this week, making recommendations for people who became interested in them through the movies or television, and are looking for good places to start with the comics. These are necessarily the best comics ever written about each character, but they are good, accessible stories that most likely give new fans what they are looking for.

Before we get to that, here is Sean "Wordburglar" Jordan's new music video!

Here are our recommendations:

CAPTAIN AMERICA

The entire Ed Brubaker run, which would be:

  1. Winter Soldier
  2. Red Menace
  3. Captain America: Civil War
  4. The Death of Captain America
  5. The Man with No Face
  6. Road to Reborn/Reborn
  7. Two Americas
  8. No Escape
  9. The Trial of Captain America
  10. Prisoner of War
  11. Steve Rogers Super Soldier
  12. Secret Avengers (Mission to Mars/Eye of the Dragon)
  13. Fear Itself
  14.  Captain America (relaunch) #1-19
  15. Captain America & Bucky (The Life Story of Bucky Barnes/Old Wounds)
  16. Winter Soldier solo series (#1-14)

So if you haven't read all of that already, get going! If you need to skip parts, we would suggest skipping Road to Reborn/Reborn. You don't really need to read Secret Avengers, either, but it's good.

Captain America: War and Remembrance by Roger Stern and John Byrne (now collected in an Epic Collection called Dawn's Early Light)

The Avengers: Epic Collection Earth's Mightiest Heroes by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, et al.
This collects the first twenty issues of the original 1960s Avengers comics. It's very fun.

Captain America: Man Out of Time by Mark Waid and Jorge Molina
NOTE: I don't actually like this book all that much. But it is accessible, and gives fans of the movie version of the characters what they are looking for, more or less.

Captain America: the 1940s Newspaper Strip by Karl Kesel
This was collected in a book in 2010. It's out of print, but you can probably track down a copy one way or another. They are all on Marvel Unlimited as well.

Captain America and The Falcon by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and others
This is getting collected into Epic Collections. A few are out now. Mad Bomb is probably the most significant story to come out of this run.

SUPERMAN

The Geoff Johns run, which would be:

  1. The Last Son of Krypton
  2. Secret Origin
  3. Brainiac
  4. Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes
  5. Escape from Bizarro World

I don't think it really matters what order you read these in, they were all kinda coming out at the same time. Some were dragged out while others filled in the space in between. It was confusing, but these are five great Superman books.

World's Finest by Dave Gibbons and Steve Rude

Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu
NOTE: neither of us are crazy about this book, but it's good for new readers.

Superman For All Seasons by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
Same note as above.

IRON MAN

The Matt Fraction/Salvador Larocca run, which would be:

  1. The Five Nightmares
  2. World's Most Wanted
  3. Stark Disassembled
  4. Stark Resilient
  5. My Monsters
  6. Unfixable
  7. Demon
  8. Long Way Down
  9. The Future

Demon in a Bottle by David Michelinie, Bob Layton and John Romita
Again, we only sort of recommend this. And it's not even a real story arc exactly, but it is collected in a book with this title and if you want to see Tony Stark hit rock bottom, this is for you.

WOLVERINE

Wolverine (1982) by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller
It's kinda weird, but still holds up. Good especially if you're interested in Wolverine's connection to Japan.

Wolverine: Weapon X by Jason Aaron and Ron Garney
We both really love this run. I can't recommend it enough. It's collected into, I believe, three volumes.

Wolverine and the X-Men by Jason Aaron and various artists
This is a fantastic run that followed the Schism event, and Wolverine is the headmaster of the new Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. The school is staffed by other anti-Cyclops X-Men, including Kitty Pryde, Storm, Ice Man, Beast and more. There are, I think, eight volumes of this. And it's really the last appearance of Wolverine because he's been dead in the comics for awhile.

Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday
Wolverine is a bit of a background player in this one, but I think he's note perfect in the scenes he's in. It's collected into two books.

WONDER WOMAN

Who Is Wonder Woman? by Allan Heinberg and Terry Dodson
Cool series where Diana Prince is a secret agent with gorgeous Dodson art.

Current "Year One" run by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott
Every other issue that is coming out right now is part of the "Year One" storyline and it's great.  

Wonder Woman: Earth One by Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette
It's a little weird, but it's an interesting examination of the character with beautiful art.

Wonder Woman run by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang
There are six volumes of this run, and it's pretty great. 

DC's The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke
Obviously.

Podcast - Episode 62: Unrealized Projects

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This week Dave and I discuss some unrealized superhero projects. Pitches and scripts that, for whatever reason, never made it to fruition. It's a Dave-heavy episode (ladies).

I'll let you decide, but I think you can hear how eagerly Dave wants to wrap things up so he can eat dinner.

Here are some links to more info on some of those projects:

First, here's the full script for Tom Mankiewicz's Batman movie.

And here's the AV Club article about it that revealed that John Lithgow would have been cast as The Joker.

Here is the archived full text of Alan Moore's Twilight of the Superheroes pitch for DC.

And here are the details of Grant Morrison and Mark Millar's Superman 2000 pitch.

And some info on their Apocalypse 2099 pitch for Marvel.

And here's that awesome Winter Soldier drawing that Mike Henderson posted:

Yeah. That's good Bucky.

Alright! That's it for this week! Thanks for listening! Follow us on Instagram!

Podcast - Episode 61: A Visit From J.Bone!

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J.Bone came to visit! It took months to convince him that:

a) Nova Scotia has much more comfortable summer temperatures than Toronto (it was muggy as hell here);
b) My kids are fun (they are...fine);
c) There are lots of hot guys here (there are)

Anyway. He was here and it was awesome and now he's gone and I'm sad. But first he recorded this episode of the podcast with us! I don't know if there was a theme, per se, but we had fun.

The nice thing about J.Bone coming to visit is that he leaves lots of nice things, including crayon drawings that came from a very heated drawing competition with Mitchell:

Here's the 'Joker' round of the competition:

And then J put Trevor to work penciling pages. Not cool, J:

My kids seriously loved him.

Ok, on with the podcast.

This is the Tim Sale cover we talk way too much about. It's for Batman #6, which was out this past week. Look at those ridiculous shorts!

Side note: I would like J to start a podcast called "I Don't Want to Take Down Another Artist, BUT..."

J was kind enough to share some of the always hilarious Baby Huey comics he's been reading:

Comedy gold!

The collected trade paperback of The Saviors by James Robinson and J comes out in October from Image Comics, so pick that up! Look at how nice! 

THAT'S how you do an eye-catching cover, my friends.

Ok, let's just round this post out with Bucky straddling that motorcycle:

Podcast - Episode 60: The New Frontier

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We have come to the end of our summer book club! We read a lot of great books (and also Hush!) and now we end with one of the best things ever written, honestly, Darwyn Cooke's The New Frontier.

Ok, first of all, check out this thing that Dave drew for me for my birthday:

Amazing, right? I love that Winter Scout has a Super Soaker. And I love that Dave gave Bucky nice, thick thighs.

Here is the Winter Soldier cake that my husband made me. It was really delicious:

Dave and I talk about the Harvey Awards, which were given out this past week. I mention the 2009 nominations when a NASCAR Heroes comic was nominated in, I believe, several categories. Chris Haley and Curt Franklin had a great comic about it, which you can see here (along with all of the great Let's Be Friends Again comics).

Man, I just fell down a hole of reading a whole bunch of their comics again. So great!

Ok, let's just bask in the majesty that is The New Frontier.

Man, I could just pull panels from this thing forever. 

Thanks for joining us for our first book club! It was fun! Next week J.Bone will be joining us...not via Skype this time!

Podcast - Episode 59: Captain America: Man Without a Country

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Who likes Captain America? WE DO!

It's the penultimate week of the Living Between Wednesdays book club and we read the Mark Waid/Ron Garney Captain America stories, Operation: Rebirth and Man Without a Country. 

Here is the 1993 interview with Jack Kirby on Prisoners of Gravity that Dave mentioned:

Here is that really nice Marco Checchetto Thunderbolts #7 variant cover:

Enough with the mask, though. Seriously. I'm begging you. This is my Bucky:

Ok, so about this book we read. This is what we're talking about when we say that Steve's costume is in TATTERS:

And here is what we mean when we say Sharon is really cold to Steve:

And here is shirtless Steve sitting on the floor being sad with a cheeseburger:

And here is an example of some bad Photoshop title lettering AND some very romantic Steve/Bucky subtext:

This is an image of Steve's perfect fantasy world. I am not making this up. This is canon. Red Skull is basically writing Stucky fanfic in this book.

And speaking of Stucky, I explain a lot about Captain America fanfic to Dave this week. I legitimately love most fic in that fandom. Hit me up for recs!

Now, if anyone needs me, I'll be watching Civil War behind the scenes gifs until the movie is available on Friday (my birthday!!!).