Podcast – Page 29 – Deconstructing Comics

#657 “Berlin”

Berlin

Jason Lutes’ Berlin shows us scenes from the lives of many characters in Berlin as the Weimar Republic disintegrated and the Nazis rose to power. Historical events (including the fallout of World War I) affect the characters while the characters continue trying to control their own lives, or each other’s, and they cross paths in ways that are sometimes easy to miss. And the art is detailed and spellbinding. Tim and Kumar dig into this 542-page masterwork, more than twenty years in the making.

Jason Lutes’ presentation

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#656 “My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness”

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness

Kabi Nagai’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, while it does include lesbian sex scenes of a sort, is less about sex than you might expect. It’s more about mental health, and asserting the right to go against other people’s expectations. Tim and Mulele review, and find that, in spite of our being two straight guys, the story still resonates with us.

Also, could Diamond Comics’ COVID-19-related shutdown mean a simple pause in business as usual? A new era of non-monopolistic comics distribution? Or… the end of weekly “floppies” altogether?

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#655 “The Incal”

The Incal

The Incal, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius’ classic ’80s series (originally published in French magazine Métal Hurlant), was very influential on movies as well as comics. In fact, it contains a number of the elements Jodorowsky had intended to put in a Dune film “adaptation” (which bore little resemblance to Frank Herbert’s novel) that never got made. Tim and Kumar discuss this insane, unconventional story.

Louie Hlad review on ComicsBeat

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#654 “Akira”

Considering how much Mulele talked up Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira back in the early days of the podcast, it’s strange that it’s taken us more than 14 years to actually discuss it here. Perhaps because the story sounded heavy and off-putting to Tim — but is that a fair assessment? On the other hand, as great as it is, is it Otomo’s best work? This week Tim, Mulele, Chris, and Oscar discuss this classic manga.

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#653 An Age of Dragons, and a Book of Magic

dragonage

Dragon Age has been a successful video game series for over a decade, and the title has moved into a number of other media — including comics, most recently from Dark Horse. Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir have written a number of these, including the current series Dragon Age: Blue Wraith. In this episode, Emmet talks to them about pitching Dragon Age ideas, watching their Academy X students get missiled out of existence, and more.

Embarrassment of Witches

Also in this episode, Tim and Kumar appear as two oldsters reviewing a book aimed at college students who love Harry Potter, Sophie Goldstein and and Jenn Jordan’s An Embarrassment of Witches. OK, Gen Xers.

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#652 “Uzumaki”

Uzumaki

Uzumaki is a 1998 horror manga by Junji Ito, unique in its capacity to make the reader simultaneously laugh out loud at its audacity and feel profoundly disturbed. In this episode, Kumar and Dana recount some of the more bizarre stories in this book, and answer the question, “Is it a compelling read?”

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Critiquing Comics #169: “Zener: Master of the Mind”

Zener: Master of the Mind

A happy couple’s date is interrupted by a superhero’s fight with a purple monster. The boy is critically injured, and taken by the superhero to lab where he’ll be (painfully, of course) transformed into, presumably, another superhero. Wait, where’s the girl? And, beyond that, where’s the hook? Tim and Mulele critique Zener: Master of the Mind.

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#651 “Shazam!”: the movie

Shazam film

David F. Sandberg’s 2019 movie Shazam!, starring Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, and Mark Strong, was a a break from the relentless grimness of many recent DC movies, and yet, it did have horroresque scenes. Of course, Sandberg has a lot of horror on his resume, but is there any comics precedent for horror in Shazam!? Emmet is joined once again by Shazam! expert Brian Cremins to discuss the film, and why Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson should play Captain Marvel… if he hasn’t already.

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#650 Our favorite comics of the 2010s

Our favorite comics

This week, Emmet, Patrick, Tim, and Chuck Coletta talk about their favorite comics of the past decade! If you’re looking for good comics that you might have missed from the 2010s — from superhero to comedy, historical to horror — we’ll give you plenty of titles to look up!

(All titles below are linked to Amazon – to help support the show, pick up any titles you’re interested in through these links!)

EMMET

Finder: Talisman HC by Carla Speed McNeil

Love In Vain: Robert Johnson 1911-1938, The Graphic Novel by Jean-Michel Dupont and Mezzo

I Love This Part: Hardcover Edition by Tillie Walden

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris (DCP 613)

Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui

Gast by Carol Swain

Giant Days and Steeple by John Allison

Providence by Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows

Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing and Joe Bennett

Julio’s Day by Gilbert Hernandez

Orc Stain Volume 1 by James Stokoe

Sally Heathcote, Suffragette by Mary M. Talbot, Bryan Talbot, Kate Charlesworth

The Abaddon by Koren Shadmi

The Experts by Sophie Franz

Surface Tension by Jay Gunn

Special Exits by Joyce Farmer

SNARKED: Forks and Hope by Roger Langridge

Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt by Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard

Henni by Miss Lasko-Gross

PATRICK

Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga by Jiro Kuwata, translated by Sheldon Drzka (To the Batpoles! 64)

Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics Of The 1950s edited by Greg Sadowski and John Benson

Rover Red Charlie by Garth Ennis and Michael Dipascale

Dungeon Quest: Book One by Joe Daly

The Bulletproof Coffin by David Hyne and Shaky Kane

My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris

Fatale by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour

Richard Stark’s Parker series by Darwyn Cooke

Hawkeye by Matt Fraction and David Aja

Moon Knight by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey

Madman In Your Face 3D Special by Michael Allred & Laura Allred

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (DCP 222)

H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories by Go Tanabe (Tanabe’s take on Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness is discussed in DCP 641)

Providence by Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows

Rachel Rising by Terry Moore

Afterlife with Archie by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Francesco Francavilla, and Jack Morelli

Harrow County by Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook

Frontier #6 by Emily Carroll

TIM AND CHUCK

Gotham Academy by Becky Cloonan and Karl Kerschl

Daredevil by Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, and Marcos Martin (Brief mention!) (audio version of issue 1 discussed in DCP 313)

Scooby-Doo Team-Up by Sholly Fisch and Dario Brizuela

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (DCP 609)

Life With Archie: The Married Life by Paul Kupperberg, Michael Uslan, Norm Breyfogle, Andrew Pepoy, and Joe Rubenstein (Archie in general is discussed in DCP 338)

Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang (DCP 596)

Seconds by Brian Lee O’Malley (DCP 419)

The Superior Spider-Man by Dan Slott and various artists (Dan Slott’s earlier Spider-Man work is discussed in DCP 275)

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#649 Wandering “Through the Woods”

Through the Woods

Emily Carroll’s Through the Woods (2014) collects a number of her horror web comics. Kumar and Emmet review the book in this episode, and now they believe: a comic can be scary. And they wonder: Is the task of making a comic scary better suited to women?

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