Wait, What? Ep. 107: Hardly Working

Australian, as she is spoke--from All-New X-Men #1, by Brian Bendis and Stuart Immonen

So, I am loathe to admit it...but I totally did that thing where I was running under the gun and so the show notes have a certain je ne sais LEAVE FIFTY THOUSAND IN THE TRASH CAN AT EAST ENTRANCE OF CENTRAL PARK OR SHE IS DEAD quality to them.

Nonetheless, after the jump: show notes!

0:00-4:09:  Greetings!  Opening remarks with just a hint of foreshadowing.  Also, thanks to the generosity of listeners, Jeff has read some Marvel NOW! titles (his first current Marvel titles in several months), and that ends up having a pretty big influence on this week's podcast. (And sorry for the hiss and crackle there are the very intro--I assure you it doesn't return.) 4:09-14:09:  In fact, after running down the issues we've read ( and as Graeme points out, it really was quite a bumper week for new comics) and get right into discussing some of the overall tone to the Marvel NOW! books. 14:09-20:24: Moving from the tone of Marvel editorial in the Marvel NOW! books, we steer into a bit of the ol' meta, and talk about the recent news regarding scheduling and art chores on Uncanny Avengers. 20:24-42:09: And because Jeff has now read Uncanny Avengers #1, we talk about that issue a bit. Also? Captain America--when does he work?  Jeff doesn't really know, but he's going to talk about it, anyway. 42:09-43:53: Foreshadowing has come to pass!  Tech disaster!  It's stuff we should edit out but we're not going to because, uh, of the candor.  Yeah, that's it! We're candid! 43:53-51:29: We get back to talking about what we were talking about (Captain America and the Avengers movie), which Graeme uses as a segue to talk about Avengers Assemble #9 by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Stefano Caselli. 51:29-51:52: Intermission one! (of one?) 51:52-1:19:10:  And we are back to talk about All-New X-Men #1 by Brian Bendis and Stuart Immonen.  Who liked it less?  We're still not sure, but there is a ton of stuff we didn't like. 1:19:10-1:26:14:  Iron Man #1 by Kieron Gillen and Greg Land!  We are split on this one, but there are things liked by the person who didn't like it much and things disliked by the person who overall liked it fine.. 1:26:14-2:19:54:  Fantastic Four #1 by Matt Fraction and Mark Bagley!  Graeme has read it; Jeff has not. Come for the observations about the FF, stay for our talk about "working harder" as a cornerstone of creative criticism. And what do we really need to have a good superhero comic?  Plot? Motivation? Characterization? "Hard work"?  There is discussion about these very important ideas…and then there is even more shit-talking about Brian Bendis. Also, there is discussion about an AvX #6: Infinite, and quick takes on A+X #1 (Jeff), Saga #7 (Graeme), Batman #14 (Graeme), Suicide Squad #14 (Graeme), Batgirl #14 (Graeme), Saucer Country #9 (Graeme), Zaucer of Zilk #2 (Graeme), and Amazing Spider-Man #698 (Graeme, and with possible spoilers), 2000 AD Prog #1809 (both of us), the brilliant "Choose Your Own Xmas" by Al Ewing and John Higgins from Prog #2012 (Jeff), and Tune by Derek Kirk Kim. (Also, Jeff forgot to talk about Thor: God of Thunder by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic but he should have because it was easily the Marvel NOW! book he enjoyed the most. 2:19:54-end:  Closing comments! Since this is getting released the week of Thanksgiving, what are Graeme and Jeff grateful for? Some of the choices are a bit odd (Misfits, really?)  and a bit vague, but it's a good note on which to end the podcast…and gives me hope that we can totally get Graeme to take his holiday spirit to absolutely insane levels as the holiday season kicks into gear.

This fine episode should be available to those Whatnauts with access to iTunes or the show's RSS feed.  Otherwise, you are welcome to give it the ol' audio once-over below:

Wait, What? Ep. 107: Hardly Working.

We're not recording this week, what with Thanksgiving and all, which means no podcast next week, but...that just gives you more of a chance to catch up with the 100+ episodes we currently have available to you free of charge, yeah?  As always, we hope you enjoy and thank you for listening!

Wait, What? Ep. 87: Tiny Yellow Boxes

It's funny. I keep thinking we're going to hit our "proper" hundredth episode any minute now and we're still only eighty-something percent of the way there. (It's probably the high-weirdness of having 145 entries accessible on iTunes that's throwing me off...) But we will get there!

Yes, neither rain nor snow nor sleep, nor screwy Skype, nor half-maintained hardware, nor early morning airport visits, nor crazy screeds by prominent webcomic cartoonists where the phrase "we won!" really means, "stop harshing my mellow," can keep us from our appointed rounds...unless we decide to take a week off.

Whatevs: we have a two hour episode for you, full of complaints about some of the above, but also delightful discussions of Reverse Aquaman, Saga #3 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples, Avenging Spider-Man #7 by Kathryn and Sturart Immonen, the history of kitty cats, Saucer Country #3, Wolverine by Jason Aaron, Bakuman, Batwoman, Watchmen Toasters, the fabulous oral history of DC's Countdown to Final Crisis over at Funnybook Babylon, The Zed-Echs Spectrum, Thor, Thanos, fanfic, Fraction, Bendis, and the perennial favorite:  more, more, more.

It is on iTunes (let's assume for the sake of argument) but it is also here, for you to download and listen to, and to raise as if it was your very own child, albeit one that chatters on endlessly and never really seems to hear what you say (yes, very much like your very own child, indeed!):

Wait, What? Ep. 87: Tiny Yellow Boxes

And as always, we hope you enjoy and we thank you for listening!

Wait, What? Ep. 85: Dashboard

Okay, then. Slight delay but none of us are quite the worse for wear, right?

Unfortunately, I'm still kind of behind the gun, so lemme just block out the ep, aye?

For the first fifteen minutes, charming and talented Graeme McMillan and I shun the comic book talk and instead discuss Graceland, Video Games, and TV theme songs.  Those of you who show up just for the sequential gossip should probably skip over that.

But then we get on to the good stuff (at least as "good stuff" is defined and regulated by state law), talk Action #9, Earth Two #1, and Avengers Vs. X-Men #3.  

And finally, we start answering more of your questions from Twitter, with topics like level-ups in comics, Apocalypse Now,  John Romita Jr., today's hottest artists, today's favorite artists, cereal mascot deathmatch, Valiant Comics, Marvel trades, the big two's history of strange, Disney and Marvel, Damon Lindelof, Brad Bird, Shonen Jump Alpha, Mad Magazine, Saucer Country, the New Deadwardians, suicide squad, sinestro war, blackest night, fear itself, civil war, and much more stuff  I neither bothered to italicize or capitalize.  But believe me, if you're a fan of chiding, goading, apologizing or strange new recording levels, this is the episode for you!

It is very likely that by the time this posts, you will *not* have seen this on iTunes (because I am so very late, dontchasee) BUT it will be available very, very soon and, of course, you are more than invited to grab the file from here as well:

Wait, What? Ep. 85: Dashboard

And, as always, we hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening!

Wait, What? Ep. 79.2: Power of Ones

Hey, guess who did it wrong?

Yeah, I had an incredibly busy Wednesday and it wasn't until my head hit the pillow that I remembered I'd forgotten to upload this podcast.

And create this entry.

So, despite my fond reveries about providing extra content and blahblahblahblah, that will probably have to wait until next week because, well, I'm tired and dumb.

But I wasn't (entirely) when Graeme and I talked now comics for our conclusion to Episode 79!  Nope, I was more or less lucid and we reviewed the latest issues of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel and Faith, Frankenstein, Agent of Shade, Batwoman, and a whole mess of first first issues including Saucer Country, Crossed Badlands, Saga, Avengers Assemble, and of course Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man (which I'm sure some of you were unfortunate enough to realize from the above excerpt).

"A candy-colored clown they call iTunes tiptoes to your feed every night just to sprinkle podcasts and to whisper "Go to sleep, everything is all right."

Alternately:

Wait, What? Ep. 79.2: The Power of Ones

As always, we hope you zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Hibbs says "Heeellllo 3/14's comics!"

Two weeks in a row, yeah, baybee. AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #1: Yeowch, that was rather poor. Part of it is just how inconsequential the story felt (and part of that is having the stupid "Zodiac" characters as the antagonists... ugh, have they EVER been interesting?), part of it was the need for "Marvel Continuity" to now reflect "movie continuity" (despite the fact that this kind of material DOESN'T BRING IN A MEASURABLE NUMBER OF NEW READERS from the films to comics), so we've got "Dumb Hulk" running around here (And I think Bendis totally doesn't "get" his voice, sorry), despite that not being the Status Quo in the Marvel universe, or in any currently published "Hulk" comic, oops. I guess this entire comic is a spoiler? Weightless, flabby, and, of course, $4 for the privilege. Ew, this is absolutely EH work.

CROSSED BADLANDS #1: Gahd, what a horrible title. Well, at least Garth's back on the book he created, but I seriously think that this comic isn't sustainable 24 times a year, and that by June we'll be selling under half of what we might sell of this first issue. Anyway, it's Crossed, and it's Ennis, and so it's filled with all kind of depraved stuff you can just hear that naughty little boy giggling over, and while I like it, I don't really love it, and it's effectively an anthology series now, so we'll see what happens going forward, but for now: I like it, but don't love it. OK

FANTASTIC FOUR #604: I strongly liked this issue, even with it's fairly heavy Deux Ex Machina (even if that's an established plot point) -- I like it's message of Hope and family, even if I'm not exactly sure why the plan worked, or even how it got came up with or anything like that. Still: GOOD.

LUTHER: Hey, not at all a print comic, but Mark Waid's free "proof of concept" for his vision of Digital comics, where you advance through it with the arrow keys.  I liked the story quite a bit, but there's something that's not quite "comics" to me about the whole process.

Sometimes it is overt, like the panel where the shovel suddenly appears in frame, where I think "well, that's just animation, just only two frames, isn't it?"; sometimes it's more covert like all of the times where Waid is actually controlling the reading experience by forcing when balloons or panels actually appear.

I think that comics are, in some ways, as much about time and space as anything else, but all of those elements really should remain in the hand of the reader -- it's my choice if I want to read all of the captions on the page first, or which elements of the illustration I choose to believe are the most significant and deserve my focus.

One last consideration is that this story is all of 33 panels long. Just over 3 pages, if it was a Watchmen-style 3x3 grid. (This is, of course, a stupid thing to say -- if this same story was told on a print page, even if it was 3x3, the rhythm of it would be ENTIRELY different; this same story would, of necessity, be a different size and shape) And while it was a well told and reasonably engaging story, I can't really see spending (let's say) 99 cents for 33 panels of comics.

Having said that, I did very much like the story, and judging it entirely on the basis of the content, I'd call it GOOD. Sadly, it also has the tech issues, and those distracted me, rather than drawing me in, and that reduces my grade, ultimately, to an OK. Still, can't beat the price, go give it a read.

SAGA #1: Now this, on the other hand, I loved.  So much so that we've put a copy is (almost) every subscribers box and are offering it 100% money-back guarantee. "Star Wars meets Game of Thrones" is the easy log-line, but the more important thing is the characters are rich, the world intriguing, the dialogue crisp, and the art really swell. There's kind of this weird "MOONSHADOW" vibe going on with the narration, but, thankfully, without the hippies. Either way, this is a wholly wonderful start to a series by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, and I thoroughly recommend this book as one to read. EXCELLENT.

SAUCER COUNTRY #1: Hrm. On the one hand, I find a lot compelling in here (especially the ghosts [?] of Pioneer 10), on the other hand I'm not sure that the lead thrust of the book is adequately established. It's weird when the supporting characters make more of an impression than the protagonist. I'll most certainly give this another issue (or two) to grab me, but this first one didn't GRAB me all by itself. I want to give it a low GOOD, but I'm having a really hard time actually doing so... it's more like an extremely high OK.

SECRET HISTORY OF DB COOPER #1: Here's the thing: the charm of the title rally depends on you know WHO "DB Cooper" is, and based on a bunch of informal polling virtually none of my customers do (Or, perhaps, some do once you explicitly say it to them -- "oh, yeah, I've heard of him"), which means that a huge chunk of the high concept is immediately swept away. The second problem is that this issue kind of just stops, and I could not, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to jump out of an airplane with $200k, tell you whatsoever what the premise of this book ACTUALLY is, other than the vague notion from the title. There just isn't anything here to get me to come back for issue #2, I'm sorry, which is the only real goal of a first issue. So: I liked what I read, and I liked the surreal concepts I saw, but I don't know why I would spend $4 for it exactly, or why I would want to come back for #2, unlike SAUCER COUNTRY which intrigued me JUST enough to say "Sure, give me another dose". So, yeah, this is merely OK, despite my enjoying the ride as I sat on it. I'd just never stand in line for a second go, y'know?

SHADE #6: I hate this comic because the art from Javier Pulido is SO good, and yet I don't give a single wet fart about any of the not-Shade characters, or what the superhero situation in Barcelona is, at all. It's "The Atlantis Problem" for me (I care about Aquaman and Namor; I DON'T care about "Atlantis". I care about Black Bolt and Medusa; I don't give a fuck about "The Inhumans". I very much love Wonder Woman; I'd rather like the street clean than read about Amazonian culture or what the Greco-Roman gods are doing in modern America. And so on). Y'know, I think that STARMAN worked because Jack was a fine "everyman" of a protagonist; and Shade was a TREMENDOUS foil/friend for him... but I think I only care about Shade in the context of Jack's world, because every issue I sit down, eager to read, and I walk away feeling "Man, that was just OK"

WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #7: Have I said this already? If every Marvel comic was at least as good and dense and humorous as this, then maybe people would be happy to pay $4 for it. But because so many Marvel books just aren't worth the four bones, nowhere enough people are buying this book in my store, and there's this (wrong, so far, in this case) feeling like you can't just read "one" X-book. Well, you can, and it should very much be this one -- it's action packed, it's hilarious, it's incredibly energetic. Jason Aaron is one of the very few writers in comics that I can think of that seems to be able to equally handle "dense, gritty narrative" and "light-hearted romp". I love Nick Bradshaw's art, too -- it's got this nice Art Adams-y thing going on without being derivative. This is probably my favorite superhero comic being published today, and I thought this issue was VERY GOOD.

That's me, this week -- what did YOU think?

-B

Wait, What? Ep. 78: Quotes From Pandora Three-Sixteen

(This installment's accidental shout-out courtesy of Action Comics #7)

Normally, I try and pitch some rhetorical woo at you as a way to encourage or remind you to listen to this miniature stage play of the mind  Graeme (with his smooth, Noel Cowardesque line delivery) and I (with my stammering Method Actor incoherence) offer up each week.

However, as the soul-stealing monster known as Daylight Savings Time has arrived to demand the tribute of an hour from each of us trembling villagers, I fear I've got nothing especially fleet-footed with which to charm you, merely the verbal posturings of the maladroit and the overwrought.  The sundial? Tis broken.  The hourglass? Now hollow.

But if you wish to remember me fondly, then give Wait, What? Ep. 78 a chance:  it has Graeme and I discussing what Savage Critic rating we would give The Bible; spinoff books that can never seem to escape their progenitors; drug use and Dr. Who abuse; Action Comics, The Legion of Superheroes, Birds of Prey, and spinoff books that can never escape their progenitors; Fairest; the first issues of Saucer Country, Hell Yeah, Manhattan Projects (with spoilers for the first issue), and Superbia, Fatale #3; Fantastic Four: Season One; the amazing King City trade paperback from Brandon Graham; Detective Comics; G.I. Joe: Cobra; Wolverine #302; the DC Nation block on Cartoon Network, and much, much more.

iTunes is a wish that your heart makes (when your heart wishes for a cumbersome and inept media management program that gets totally fuxxored if you download the same update more than once, anyway) and so our latest episode should be discoverable there, but you are also invited to lasso that ethereal doggy right here, below:

Wait, What? Ep. 78.1: Quotes from Pandora Three-Sixteen

As always, we appreciate your patronage and hope you enjoy our latest offering!