Wait, What? Ep. 101: Little Shavers

Kirby. Kubrick. 2001.

2001 for Episode 101?  I don't think it's deliberate, but knowing Mr. McMillan, I wouldn't entirely rule it out either.

After the jump:  Welcome to a new age of... Show notes!

0:00-1:51: Testing, testing! (Okay, I admit it: the new age of show notes is pretty much exactly like the old age of show notes.)

1:51-6:39:  Graeme (and his new friend, a mystical crow) share an observation about Brian Bendis and his interviews on Word Balloon, which leads to a bit of discussion about our sound problems for Ep. 100.  And if anyone wants to do up a splash page for "Even Troopers Have Their Limits!" as described herein, we would figure out some way to thank you for it (probably in twitter shout-outs and old review copies, and if you've listened to enough episodes, you know exactly how the labor for those rewards is being divided).

6:39-10:13: Are you experienced in the art of... K-Box?  Graeme and Jeff begin developing their next money-making scheme before your very eyes--the oral history of infamous Internet commenters.

10:13-29:58: On to the comics! Graeme wraps up his New52 Zero Issue overview with an examination of the highly remarkable revisions to Tim Drake's history. And Jason Todd's history. And Guy Gardener's history.  And Damien Wayne's history. And Selina Kyle's history.  You may sense a trend here.  (Also there were a few parts where I could've edited out the musings of mystical crow in there, but I didn't.)

29:58-34:28: You know what's not an Issue Zero?  Prophet #29 by Brandon Graham and Farel Darymple.  It is probably Jeff's favorite issue since the reboot, if for no other reason than it nails Space Conan angle he finds so enjoyable.  Graeme is much more coolish on the reboot generally, and that is a thing we rap about at least long enough to provide...

34:28-49:25: The world's greatest segue to what Graeme has been reading:  Jack Kirby's 2001: A Space Odyssey!  In the first of this episode's two dramatic readings, Graeme performs Kirby's text page from the first issue to help make sure our minds are properly blown.

49:25-53:38: So properly blown are our minds, in fact, that Jeff has to get off the phone and call back due to worries about the tech quality of the call.  (Also, it should be noted:  Jeff is recording despite managing to once again strain his back, and so has taken a muscle relaxant to allow him to twist at the hips easily and sit comfortably and other fun stuff that feels more and more like dire necessities once they are taken away.  For extra Whatnaut points, can you determine precisely when the muscle relaxants kick in and make Jeff even more thickheaded and easily baffled?)  We get back, Graeme wraps up talking about Kirby and then moves on to Steve Englehart's '70s run on Dr. Strange.  Us talking admiringly about Englehart is pretty much the free space center spot in the middle of the Wait, What? bingo card, isn't it?

53:38-59:28: Jeff exhorts Graeme to check out Tom Scioli's amazing love letter to Marvel Comics, Final Frontier, a webcomic that starts with a quartet of Fantastic Four analogs giving a farewell concert on the roof of their impressively stacked building, and gets only stranger, wilder, and more hilarious from there.

59:28-1:17:34:  Here's a shocking surprise--Graeme had never heard of Mike Allred's movie, Astroesque!  Jeff saw it fourteen years or so ago, and can kinda remember it?  From there and a consideration of the Allred mystique, it's on to discuss the Cult of the Indy Creator, whether it hurts or helps the artist, and what it might mean for comics and/or Matt Wagner (about which, Jeff has bungled some of the points he's taken from the very keen piece on Wagner by Jason Michelitch over at Hooded Utilitarian ) and/or Gilbert Hernandez.

1:17:34-1:21:12: And from there, we get to Jeff confessing his trepidation about Brandon Graham's Multiple Warheads and Brian Lee O'Malley's upcoming Seconds and why or why not that should be the case.

1:21:12-1:21:58: Graeme has a tender moment alone with you, the listener. (Well, more like thirty-five seconds... but it is very, very tender, so there's that.)

1:21:58-1:30:54:  Then a moment of high drama:  Will Jeff and Graeme remember where they left off?  (They do.) Will they have more to say about the expectations of creators and readers, and their shared responsibility for a work? (Yep.) You must tune in to find out! (Except you don't, see, because I already told you...but that's not to say it isn't interesting listening.)

1:30:54-1:41:48: News time!  It's more than just a thing Jeff tries to get Graeme to talk about while he tries to find a reference. Kirkman! Millar! Ultimate Avengers hardcover! Sale prices at Comixology!

1:41:48-1:47:31: Time for our second dramatic reading--this time it's Jeff, covering that well-known cowboy's lament, Letter from Matt Fraction to Jaime Hernandez in Love & Rockets New Stories #5 (in the key of E).  And maybe we get our new podcast motto out of it?

1:47:31-end: Speed round! (By which I mean, the time of the podcast where we kind of act like we're on speed.)  Jeff likes The New Deadwardians.  He likes it a lot.  Graeme mentions Larime Taylor, an artist who draws comics with his mouth.  And then we spend some time wondering about Morrisoncon, which will be over by the time you ever hear us talk about it. (And once again, we prove which of us is the optimistic one and which the more pessimistic one.)  Also, the return of our special guest-star, information about our upcoming birthdays, and how you can prepare for at least one of us, should you so choose.

Chances are you can still find us on iTunes, sort of, but, hey, there's always, like, here?

Wait, What? Ep. 101: Little Shavers

As always, we hope you enjoy...and thanks for listening!

Wait, What? Ep. 60: Two Weeks. Notice.

Hello! I must be going.

I have several days off in a row and I'm going to make the most of them with reading and watching stuff on Netflix and looking at comic books. So there will be a two week hiatus of good ol' Wait, What? But I imagine we will back before you know it (Graeme already pointed out the last issue of Fear Itself will probably come out during that time. Will I really be able to resist shooting my mouth off about it after six issues of whining?).

And in the meantime: Episode 60! It's an hour and forty-five mins. of Mr. McMillan and me, talking Marvel's new digital incentive announcement, September's sales numbers, Apple, Steve Jobs, and Occupy Wall Street.

And for those of you who don't get rely on us for your knowledge of current events, we also talk comics: the second issues of OMAC and Action Comics, X-Men Schism, a very brief chat about the latest issue of Casanova, Love & Rockets Book 4, the winner of our first contest, the announcement of our second contest, and much, much more.

The auditory epic should be lying in wait on iTunes, but you can also find it loitering about at this very site, willing to bend your hour for a minute or two:

Wait, What? Ep. 60: Two Weeks. Notice.

As always, we hope you enjoy and thanks for listening! See you in a fortnight!

Before you go: Jeff Finally Gets Around to Love & Rockets New Stories #1

My timing, as is typical, is atrocious: I've been meaning to write a review of this book ever since I bought a copy at SDCC. Since it just hit stores this week, I all but exhort you to dash out and buy a copy: not just because it's Love & Rockets and it's the Hernandez Bros., and not even because it's the Hernandez Bros. at what may be at the start of (yet another) period of sustained excellence, but because both Jaime and Gilbert give you, in their own way, their versions of Final Crisis and Secret Invasion and the comparison and contrast may soothe and intrigue you.

[More exhorting and coercing and hopefully avuncular rib-poking behind the cut.]

Although it starts as a typical Locas story, with Maggie at her apartment complex talking to her pal Angel about a mysterious tenant, "The Search for Penny Century" changes gears very early on, as Angel, finally alone, changes into costume and scales a roof:

Y'see, the core of the first issue of L&R: NS #1 is 50 pages of Jaime Hernandez doing superheroes, and it so openly and easily moves back forth between the silly and the stellar, it reduced me to a piece of gibbering fanboy protoplasm. And isn't that supposed to be the point of Final Crisis and Secret Invasion? (In fact, although I knew better, I approached Jaime at the table and asked if the story was meant to be a reaction of Marvel and DC's current addiction to big events. He was, thankfully, entirely gracious about it, and just said that he thought it'd be fun to do something with a lot of energy.)

I could go on to summarize what happens in the story, but I think that does it a degree of disservice. Let's just say that Jaime, like Grant Morrison, creates a ton of new characters in a short degree of time and yet, for me, does a much a better job of convincing me to care about them. This shouldn't be particularly surprising, of course: Jaime is, in the very best sense, a cartoonist, and cartooning not only allows for any number of narrative shortcuts, the shortcuts produce a feeling of delight when done correctly.

And this, by the way, is why my timing is so atrocious: If I'd written this review when I'd intended, my comparison of Jaime's story to Final Crisis would be more in a "huh, isn't this funny?" kind of way. Coming now on the heels of my review of Superman Beyond #1, the comparison seems more confrontational, and corrective, than I intend. On the other hand, if you want to buy a copy of L&R:NS #1 to apply the reasoning of my Superman Beyond review to it and show why I'm full of shit, I don't mind at all...as long as you buy a copy of this book.

It'd be a disservice, by the way, to suggest that Jaime's story is the only reason to pick up L&R:NS #1.

Beto contributes a story about a pair of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis analogues that end up on an alien planet, getting superpowers, battling each other, and killing hundreds of aliens. Again, this neatly lines up with current trends and obsessions in current work-for-hire capes & tights, but it's also deeply goofy, hugely fun, and any resemblance to current superhero big events is probably entirely unintentional.

It's a much shorter piece than Jaime's, as Gilbert's peripatetic attention span sends him in several different directions at once. There's cartoon characters engaging in compulsive behavior:

and oblique, evocative non-narratives:

and a fun little story that Mario writes and Beto draws, and a story written and drawn by Beto--that reads a bit like if Vittorio De Sica and Gabriel Garcia Marquez had collaborated--that isn't particularly fun.

Anyway, this is far afield from my usual "blah, blah, blah" type of review, but I hope it nonetheless convinces you to at least pick up the L&R if you find yourself at the comic store this weekend. I thought the book was a knockout, and this is a great place to jump on-board if you never followed Los Bros before.

(Oh, and super-thanks to Fantagraphics for keeping a very well-tended Flickr stream. This review, quite obviously, would've been enormously different without it.)

Polishing off the 8/4 comics

Just a few things to go, then I'll do the books post... LOVE AND ROCKETS v2 #11: Like I said, I don't "get" L&R, but are Jaime and Gilbert just excellent cartoonists? There are panels throughout each story that I like to just stare at. I especially liked bits from "Life Through Whispers". I just don't get the stories at all. Still, aesthetically, hard to say less than Good.

GUARDIANS #2: This is probably moving a lot slower than it should (page 2 and the plot is just starting?) but the art is nice and the characterizations are strong. I don't really care what happens, really (especially for $3 a throw), so let's call it OK.

WOLVERINE / PUNISHER #5: Hard to imagine a more phoned-in script, but, Christ, it's Wolverine & Punisher, I suppose I shouldn't expect Dostoevsky. Still, the story doesn' t end as much as stop, and practically promises a sequel. Big waste of my 5 minutes reading time. Crap.

X-MEN UNLIMITED: The juggernaut story was cute I guess (Except, um, what's up with the hearts in the last panel? Scott and Juggy have made a love connection? Ew!), but the Emma/Logan story didn't hang together than well. Overall, call it Eh.

ENGINE HEAD #4: I tried to read this twice, and I'm still not sure I understood what is going on. I usually like McKeever's art, but it seems unfocused here. Sorry: Awful.

BATMAN / CATWOMAN: TRAIL OF THE GUN: Generally, I have to say, if you gave me a choice, I'd ask to read stories, not one-sided screeds. I favor gun control, and could barely stagger through the polemics of this. Those 5 pages of super-extreme violence upfront were nasty, rather than affecting. Plus, let's be serious, the central idea of the story is inane -- a gun that "never misses"? What, it's telepathic? That sequence where they guy fires a burst IN THE AIR and the bullets circle around to hit 3 different people? Even with comic book physics that's preposterous. Why wouldn't the bullets circle around and hit the firer? Why wouldn't they all go after one target? Sheesh. Plus the whole concept that trying to find the prototype would mean anything? Hello, if such a thing exists, they have the plans to make more. Sheesh. The only saving grace here is Ethan Van Scriver's art, which in a few places is a breathtaking joy to behold. The horror in Selina's posture in what I'll call the mascara pages is really powerful. Too bad, it was in service to such a shitty shitty polemic. Crap.

There you go. Give me an hour or so to come back and do the books....

-B