Wait, What? Ep. 133: Born Before '61

As I reacall, Patti Smith shit-talked the Bizarro Movement in Just Kids, didn't she?

yes yes yes this is a real thing that was published and yes yes yes it is Steve Gerber how did you know?

After the jump, another episode of our humble little show, complete with show notes that are even more humble and, um, even more little?

0:00-4:26: A weirdly off introduction! Words are exchanged about the weather, albeit briefly.There were some Natalie Merchant/10,000 Maniacs I was going to drop here in the show notes because she sings some song where the chorus mentions the weather, right?  I owned that Maniacs record where she sings about  beat writers and I don't know why, but thinking about that now makes me wish I could travel back in time and punch myself in the face.  I mean, technically, I could just punch myself in the face right now without the time travel (and god knows, there's plenty of times where I do exactly that, most days) but it seems like it would be letting the me of the record-buying era off far too easily. 4:26-17:20: "You know what it is?  It's nature preparing us for James Spader as Ultron." And with that, we are officially off to the races!  Also covered: Variety headlines; Nextwave: Agent of Hate; Ben Stein; every Ultron story ever; and Dan Slott's interview on the Nerdist. 17:20-26:47:  This leads to us talking more specifically about Superior Spider-Man by (you guessed it) Dan Slott and various artists. 26:47-33:57: By contrast, Graeme also has a lot to say about Young Avengers #9 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie.  Graeme also is loving Wolverine and the X-Men by Jason Aaron and Nick Bradshaw (with heavy-duty spoilers at the 31:01 mark for about a minute?) 33:57-40:00: And we had positive things to say about Justice League #23 by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis and the conclusion of Trinity War. (And there are spoilers here at 35:52 until about 37:00, if you want to avoid having one of the book's big moments revealed.) 40:00-43:31: The Batman Inc. Special! Dear god, am I going to list the times for every one of these books, and also whenever we spoil an important moment in that book?  I wonder who will find my desiccated corpse in this chair? Anyway, we talk about this grab bag "epilogue" with a special shout-out to the terribly executed afterword by Grant Morrison.  What the fuck, DC -- that is basically the special shout-out (spoilers!) -- what the fuck. 43:31-55:09: The American Vampire Anthology! Adventures of Superman #4 with stunning work by Chris Weston!

Action Comics by Scott Lobdell and Tyler Kirkham!  Superman Unchained by two unknown newcomers whose names escape me! 55:09-1:12:02: Superman related!  Jeff grabbed Superman: Phantom Zone by Steve Gerber and Gene Colan and he has mixed feelings about it.  Adoration, sure, I mean how can you not adore stuff like the image that heads up this entry but….well, there are things, and Jeff talks about them. (Oh, does he talk about them!) 1:12:02-1:25:42:  Graeme has read the latest Batwoman collection, Batwoman Vol. 3: World's Finest. And this leads to us talking about the fruits of collaboration, the current difficulty with seeing today's work as such, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, and more. 1:25:42-1:34:59:  Speaking of Jack Kirby's OMAC: One Man Army Corps:

Jeff speed-reread all eight issues of OMAC and oh man that is glorious, glorious stuff. Since this was recorded the day after Jack Kirby's 96th birthday, we had to talk (all too briefly!) about the wonder that is the man's work. 1:34:59-1:38:03: Jeff also read the collected The End of the Fucking World by Charles Forsman, finally getting a chance to finish it many months after loving the first issue. 1:38:03-1:44:21: Jeff has read Batman 66 and walks to talk about it, and tries to instigate a bigger conversation about digital motion comics that, sadly, neither Graeme nor Jeff himself are really ready to have yet?  Oops. 1:44:21-1:53:53: This does lead us to discuss Infinity's infinite comic, which leads us to discuss recent work by Jonathan Hickman for Marvel, which leads us to discuss Matt Fraction's work for Marvel, which leads to... 1:53:53-end: Closing comments!  Ben Affleck as Batman! Scary fingers! And…scene.

Look to the skies! (By which I mean: iTunes!) Look to the skies! (By which I also mean:  our RSS feed, which is absurdly long now.  It's like the opening scrawl to Star Wars -- it just scrolls into the horizon forever, at this point.)  The candy-coated skies!  (By which I mean, uh... you are also welcome to check out the episode below, should you choose, at your leisure?)

Wait, What? Ep. 133: Born Before '61

As ever, we thank you for your kindly attention!

Wait, What? Ep. 127: Capers

Welcome to my nightmare, ladies and gentlemen.  My terrifying longbox filled nightmare.

After the jump: very quick shownotes because I am running behind, and I have a tummy ache! (And I am apparently eight!)

(Oh, and check out those John K(UK) posts below, would you?  They're very good -- I'm not even a father but I felt a special paternal glow from having all those 2001 covers and splash pages reprinted.  The perfect gift!

So, yes.  I may punk out shownotes-wise, but the podcast itself does not--Two hours! No intermission!  As many exclamation points as a Steve Englehart comic!

0:00-11:48: Opening comments; the longbox project; steampunk; the search for comic book cockery. 11:48-28:23: Kick-Ass 2 Prelude: Hit-Girl.  One of us read it.  Who? And, more importantly: Why? 28:23-45:58: Also discussed:  Superman: The Secrets of the Fortress of Solitude trade paperback, with a discussion of Superman and his fortress through the years; Superman painting; Superman's friendships; Superman's robot; Superman's thong; and more. 45:58-51:48: Graeme has read Action Comics #21, and Superman #20, and has things to say about both. 51:48-1:04:48: And we both picked up Superman Unchained #1 by Scott Snyder and Jim Lee, so there's some talk about that, too. 1:04:48-1:11:28: Pleased with his experience reading 2000AD digitally, Jeff has subscribed to Judge Dredd Megazine digitally.  Sadly, there's a whole weird intermission where Jeff goes off to find out what the digital graphic novel packed in with the Megazine is…and fails.  Enjoy, everybody!  (Turns out it was Downlode Tales Vol. 3 for 335 Black Light Vol. 1 for 336). 1:11:28-1:32:48: Batman: Zero Year (or Batman #21 as it's known in the colonies) by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo--also read by both Graeme and Jeff! We squabble, we tussle, we disagree about The Riddler. Sadly, Jeff brings up a potentially great topic--our five favorite Batman villains--and derails it just seconds later due to his befuddlement about Forever Evil.  Oh, Jeff. 1:32:48-end: Graeme has reread Brightest Day (because apparently this is our DC books from the library week).  We talk about whether or not the New 52 helped or hindered Johns' Aquaman pitch, whether the New 52 is stabilizing or destabilizing, and other delightful topics.  Also discussed:  Suicide Squad #21 by Ales Kot and Patrick Zircher; Supermag by Jim Rugg; Empowered Animal Style by Adam Warren and John Staton; Relish by Lucy Knisley; Jennifer Blood #28 by Mike Carroll & Kewber Baal ; Star Wars #6 by Brian Wood and Carlos D'Anda; the saddest afterword in the world; and more.  And then it is done!

Choosy mothers who choose Jif know that four out of five dentists listen to Wait, What? on iTunes, but the podcast is certainly available for you right here and  right now right below:

Wait, What? Ep. 127: Capers

As always, we hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening!

Bustin' on the ones -- Hibbs duz 6/12/2013

ON New Comics Day? What? Well, don't get used to it, but I felt bad about skipping last week, that I thought I'd get way ahead on this one.  Below the jump, and all.

A1 #1 (of 6): I'm certain I have mentioned this before, but anthologies are a wicked hard sell for American audiences -- despite being essentially the "default" option for other comics markets internationally (UK and Japan in particular) -- and I suspect someone much cleverer than I could figure out something about the Essential National Character of each culture based upon their comic markets. But that isn't me.

I will note that I think we don't like anthologies in the US because I believe we judge the entire package by the WEAKEST contribution, and that we want comics to Get To The Point a little more than others. a1 is a British production -- and, in fact, is the second go 'round at least for the name, as there was a pretty nice set of thick squarebound black & white comics also from packager Dave Elliot.

THAT set was a solid mix of "big names" with people I'd never heard of (back then), and, if you can find those original six, you might be surprised how much formative work there was on display there.

In this batch, however, I don't think we're going to look back at in two decades later with a "Wow!", because, if anything, this is kind of merely a comics-formatted 2000 AD, without the "boy's action!" angle. Plus? 2 of the three serials are written by Elliot.

The problem with those two is that (and this is often a problem with both anthologies AND, I would argue, UK creators specifically) that their premises are not explicit in the first chapter. "The Weirding Willows" seems like some sort of semi-LOEG literary mash-up, but there's no real reason to be interested in the protagonist, Alice,  other than "cute blonde" -- she walks through a bunch of supporting characters, but engages with virtually none of them and there's no narrative thrust on display. You can't spend your page count "world building" in 8 page installments until AFTER you've earned your audience's interest.

Elliot's  second serial, "Odyssey", doesn't even bother trying to provide a protagonist, just showing us a bunch of scientists and dire results in its WW2 milieu. Ugh, not THAT hoary chestnut again. Maybe maybe maybe I could deal with it if there was a single sympathetic character on display, but, literally, every character in this opening is loathsome.

In the hammock is "carpediem" by W.H. Rauf and Rhoald Marcellius which is much more palatable, introducing 7+ new characters AND giving them a complete adventure at the same time, while really having some very nice cartoony art attached to it, but too much of the heavy lifting is done by punning and British humor. Still, it's the one serial in the book I'd actually be willing to read more of.

So, overall, that's a pretty textbook EH.

SIX-GUN GORILLA #1 (of 6): See, you have a comic book called "Six-gun Gorilla" that stars a pistol-wielding gorilla, I am of the mind that you start and finish every damn page with the ape, and you don't wait until the last page or three to have the critter show up. It's that UK  world-building thing again (the world in question is, hm, a reality show of an eternal war, and it's rich enough) -- any 'murican should be able to tell ya you start with the explosion, and only ramp it up from there. In media res, byee-otch!

The shame of it is, I really did like this adequately, but who wants to wait for the second issue until the title character is a real presence? that makes this just OK.

SUPERMAN UNCHAINED #1: I wanted to like this, but I think that the reason I'm merely ambivalent is the Jim Lee art. He's simply not a Superman artist. That's not to say he can't draw Superman -- he does just fine -- but his line-style just really doesn't work on an ongoing Superman comic.  Oh, and the coloring? Too too too dark for the character (that cover, especially, doesn't scream "buy me!")

This also also features a fold out poster (though that's not cover-blurbed, go figure), which raises the price to a massive $4.99, but it's so awkward and stops the story cold (on page 5, to boot!) and it's not something that I see anyone hanging on their wall (Wow, Superman is fighting some wires!), so I really don't get the point (other than, y'know, market share games)

I liked Scott Snyder's story just fine (and that's the majority of the basis of my final grade), but, I just feel like the art is working against the story in every place. I sort of hope, kind of, that Jim stays on for just the first arc, and then they hand it off to someone with a REALLY clean style.

Anyway, I liked the writing enough to give a very low GOOD.

(Joe Hill's) THUMBPRINT #1 (of  3): Liked this.  Based on a novella by Hill (which I've never read), and it does a good job presenting a sympathetic protagonist, who could be an antagonist as well. The art by Vic Malhotra has a nice Aja / Samnee thing going on and was much of the drawing point for me (because at just three issues, this seems like it will read better in collection).  I really don't have much more to say, but I was trying to hit all of the #1s this week, so.... GOOD.

THE TRUE LIVES OF THE FABULOUS KILLJOYS #1 (of 6): Gerard Way's new comic (co-written with Shaun Simon) is pretty pants-shittingly terrific. This is a rich sci-fi world -- and one that I'm not entirely sure that I followed with each and every jump. But it didn't really matter, because I look forward to finding out the details.  It has backstory text pages and everything. I liked the characters, I liked the setup, and I especially liked some of the poetry of the writing ("One day... our bodies will only belong to each other, and the streets will be for shopping, not working" says one sex android to the other).

There is a crazy density to the world, which is so supremely helped by the fabulous artwork of Beck Cloonan. This is awesome comic which probably couldn't have been done in any other media, and my only regret about it is that it is only 6 issues. EXCELLENT.

A USERS GUIDE TO NEGLECTFUL PARENTING GN: I think Guy Delisle is a splendid cartoonist -- he's got a strong line, and his timing is perfect and impeccable. The stories in this book are hysterical and universal and absolutely heart-felt and True. And yet, for all of that, I'm ultimately going to pan this book. Why?

Format.

This is presented as a paperback sized package with two panels per page. 192 pages, with a $12.95 cover price (which is much much better than the original solicited $16.95 cover price -- it has a sticker over the original price, yikes, so I don't know whether it was an exchange rate thing, or that someone got it in their hand, and realized they couldn't possibly charge that much). And I, no shit, TORE through this on a single bus ride home. Under 13 minutes from cover to cover, even stopping and going back a few times to admire his pacing on the jokes. Ow.  That makes the $5 SUPERMAN UNCHAINED look like a friggin' bargain.  It is simply 2-3 times what this should cost for the actual density of the content.

Again: that content is GREAT, and would rate a VERY GOOD, at least, on its own (I only wish that the [few] "Shit" and "Fuck"s had been dropped, otherwise this would be a GREAT all-ages title.. my 9 year old woulda loved reading these, and laughing at old dad commonalities), but the package is so criminally egregious that I have to drag it all the way down to EH. *sad panda*

Right, that's me for today at least.... what did YOU think?

-B