Roger Casement is known in the UK and Ireland as a British diplomat who joined the Irish Nationalists and, in 1916, was convicted of treason and executed. But the rest of the world is less familiar with his name. Enter Fionnuala Doran, who has released a graphic novel about him called The Trial of Roger Casement. In this episode, she talks with Emmet about the book, its protagonist, and the issues surrounding him, as well as some chat about Preacher and the new status quo in the X-men books.

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Jorge Munoz has been a favorite of ours for a while. Recently he sent in several recent works (Longdog, Quin Reyes and Hao Delivery, a sketchbook, Yon Kuma, Sea), and this episode we sit down and take a look at them.

Also, Mulele recounts his visit to a New York exhibit called Illustrating Batman. (switch to grid view to browse)

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In the manga world. Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira has Watchmen-like status. But, as with Alan Moore, the work that caused a sensation overshadows the creator’s excellent previous work. In this case, that’s Domu: A Child’s Dream, originally published in Japanese in 1980-81, and (criminally) out of print in English for nearly two decades now. In this episode, Alberto Melendez (co-creator of the recently-critiqued AntFarm) joins Tim to discuss this forgotten gem.

Review by Seth T. Hanhe on goodokbad.com

Review by Evan Krell on anigamers.com

Reviews on Goodreads

Read Domu on super-cheesy site Kissmanga

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Critiquing Comics returns to discuss the following comics:

• Gabriel Dunston’s Purgatory Pub presents an angel and a devil having a philosophical discussion. Tim and Mulele have very different levels of tolerance for that concept, and yet come to the same conclusion about this story.
• David Dye’s Amazing Tales gives us “stories of an Australian nature,” as the cover warns (his word, not ours!). While we might not understand every word of this, we’d sure like to see more of the art.

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Daniel Clowes’ 1990s series Ghost World became a movie in 2001. Will Weaver, a professor at John Carroll University, says that each version of the story was what it needed to be for that medium. Why did those choices, such as adding Seymour, make sense for the movie? Could a film version have worked without Seymour? And what’s the deal with that bus, anyway? Will joins Tim to discuss these questions and more.

Comic Journal review of the movie, by Michael Dean

Daniel Clowes interview in Salon

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In part two of Tim’s interview with longtime comics writer Dan Mishkin, Dan talks about writing Warren Commission Report: A Graphic Investigation into the Kennedy Assassination with artists Ernie Colon and Jerzy Drozd; explores the reasons for Marvel’s breakout success in the 1960s, and compares working for DC vs working for Marvel; explains the concept of his web comic with Jerzy Drozd, Amazon Academy; and remembers working with the late Ernie Colon.

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Spider-Man is back in the MCU! Is it a coincidence that this announcement came out just days after it was revealed that MCU mastermind Kevin Feige has been named the producer of an upcoming Star Wars movie? Mulele tells Tim about his theory of the case.

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Dan Mishkin has worked on many different superhero properties, especially for DC — big names such as Batman and Wonder Woman, as well as characters that he helped to create, such as Blue Devil and Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld. Tim has been reading the original 1983 Amethyst series, and in part one of his talk with Dan, we get some of the background on the series: the development of the idea, the intended audience, death in the series, why the second series came to be, Amy Winston’s unpublished Jewish backstory, and, if Dan could do Amethyst again, would he do anything differently?

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In this episode, Tim and Mulele critique:

• Collapse v 1: “Isolation,” in which a group of people emerge from an underground bunker 19 years after an apocalyptic war. By RP Foster, Russ Pirozek, Pablo Lordi, Jake Isenberg, and Eduardo Camacho.
  Buy issues of Collapse
• Evil Witch Allie v 2: We revisit this series about a little girl who, apparently, really is a witch, and find that creator Kristin Tipping has upped her game since we read v 1 a couple of years ago.
  Evil Witch Allie site

Plus, when it comes to Spider-Man in the MCU, we just… have to… let go. And, an update on Mulele’s comics career.

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Last July, with issue 193, Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard and company abruptly ended The Walking Dead. In this episode, Emmet is joined by Bobsy (of the podcasts Shadow Trap and Diane, and an occasional guest on Silence) to examine the series and how it ended. What is the deeper meaning of the series, and was that meaning put there intentionally, or subconsciously? How did the success of the Walking Dead TV show affect the comic? Should Kirkman have gone with his original idea for the ending?

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