Comics commentary from our podcast regulars.
Comics can surely be violent, but can the sheer audacity of the violence make it, intentionally or not, funny? Tim and Adam discuss one of the most over-the-top comics ever critiqued on our show, Kirt Burdick’s Galacto Pit-Fighter!
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Most people have some dreams of fame and fortune. A certain portion of those people make their way to Hollywood in hopes of getting that big break. But how much are you willing to give up to achieve that goal? And what if the fame isn’t as great as you expected? These are the questions arising from the forthcoming graphic novel Everyone is Tulip, by Dave Baker and Nicole Goux. This time, Dave and Nicole tell Tim about their collaboration style, how comics writers are (often unfairly) seen as more important than artists, why rejection doesn’t really exist in the publishing field, and more.
Then, Tim and Jason review Everyone is Tulip!
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Comics, of course, are not just for entertainment. They’re a great medium for educating. This week we feature two examples:
Sequential Potential is a company which helps academics get their points across in comics form. Co-founders Darick and Emily Ritter walk us through the process of conversion from dry, boring text to eye-catching comics.
The town of Minamata is one of several well-known examples of industrial waste leading to a massive tragedy visited on a community in mid-20th century Japan. That is, well-known in Japan. Sean Michael Wilson and Akiko Shimojima have set out to draw more attention from English speakers to the human cost of the Minamata mass mercury poisoning, with their new book The Minamata Story: An Eco Tragedy. Tim and Adam review.
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Three years ago, Tim & Mulele discussed the first issue of Tales from the Interface by Emmanuel Filteau. We thought it was well done, even though we didn’t quite understand what was happening! Emmanuel recently sent us the third issue, by which the situation has become clearer – it’s your basic dystopian future – and it has a somewhat darker tone. How will Tim & Adam feel about this issue? Listen and find out!
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A comics series that’s sadly hard to find these days is Smax by Alan Moore, Zander Cannon, and Andrew Currie. Emmet has been waxing nostalgic for this spinoff of Moore, Cannon, and Gene Ha’s Top Ten, so this week he calls up Cannon to chat about it – the meaning of the handprint on Smax’s chest, how the collaboration on this book (and Top Ten) worked, controversies in the fantasy genre, and more.
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How much Stan can you stand? That’s the question Emmet and Tim are asking as we review an undetermined number of Stan Lee biographies! In episode 692, we covered Spurgeon and Raphael’s 2004 entry; this time, it’s the most recent tome, True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman. While some in the mainstream press may be stunned by this book’s revelations about Stan’s status as “creator” of the Marvel Comics pantheon, this is not news in comics circles. But why is a self-professed fan of Stan delivering so much negativity? Or, is Riesman being, rather than too harsh, not harsh enough?
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Our critique candidate this time is an unusual one: an artist who asks us to critique a comic he drew 26 years ago! The book is Circle 7 issue 1 (story by Joshua Lauber, pencils and inks by Daniel M. Rodriguez), about a superhero team in a world gone rotten – notably, an all-Black team. Tim and Adam dig the art and the concept, but find other aspects of the book that could have been better.
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There’s a history of horror manga featuring cats, especially humans with cat features. What are some of the prominent titles in this genre? Where does this come from? Patrick has been studying this association and is here to tell us about some of the prominent titles, including Shigeru Mizuki’s Mysterious Neko Musume (featuring a character later modified for Mizuki’s Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro) and Kazuo Umezu’s Cat Face, The Girl with Cat Eyes, and Cat-Eyed Boy.
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Part comic, part children’s storybook, Realm of Owls is heavy on world building and a bit light on characters, at least in the early going. How does it stand up as a reading experience? Tim is joined by Adam Pasion to discuss this web comic by Gheralf and Vayandil.
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Tim and Emmet begin a series on Stan Lee biographies with the 2003 book Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book by Jordan Raphael and the late, great Tom Spurgeon. What’s the tone of this book, and how does it portray Stan? How much of the Marvel Universe is he actually responsible for, and what were his motivations for taking more credit than he deserved? We discuss, and then Tim gets some background on the making of the book from co-author Jordan Raphael!
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