Category: Comics commentary

Comics commentary from our podcast regulars.

#480 (some of) the Best Comics from Kaigai

Best of Kaigai 2015You heard many of the artists who attended Tokyo’s International Comics Festival (Kaigai Manga Festa) back in November. But how are the comics themselves? This week Mulele and Tim read some of the comics they picked up at the festival and discuss some of the best!

Also, a quickie, spoiler-free review of The Force Awakens!

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Critiquing Comics #083: The Shepherd: Apokatastasis

The Shepherd

A man’s son unexpectedly dies of a drug overdose. The father senses that his son’s spirit hasn’t passed over to “the other side” and needs help, and the father goes to great lengths to help him — and also to avenge his death. Does the father — and the comic — go a bit off the rails? Tim and Mulele discuss Andrea Lorenzo Molinari, Roberto Xavier Molinari, Ryan Showers, and Heather Breckel’s The Shepherd: Apokatastasis!

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#098 Craig Thompson’s “Blankets”

BlanketsFLASHBACK! Tim and Brandon cover Craig Thompson’s award-winning Blankets. Also, we got an e-mail from this guy named (ulp) Larry Young…

Originally published October 22, 2007

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“The Peanuts Movie”: So, that happened

peanutsmovie
A couple of years ago, when BOOM!’s imprint for kids, KaBOOM!, announced they would be publishing a Peanuts comic book of new material, I vowed not to touch it with a fifty-foot kite string. Never mind if it was good or not; that wasn’t the point. I just had no more interest in reading Peanuts-not-by-Schulz than I did in reading Watchmen-not-by-Alan-Moore.

This wasn’t just because I assumed that a great creation carried on by someone other than its original creator was just not going to be the same. I also knew that Schulz did not want any more Peanuts strips created when he was gone. (The family agreed to the creation of the KaBOOM! series by splitting hairs: Sparky wanted no one to make further Peanuts STRIPS, but nobody said anything about Peanuts COMIC BOOKS. Um, OK.)

So when The Peanuts Movie was released last year, my first impulse was to go no where near that, either. At first.

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#479 Some of the greatest Superman stories (or not)

Death of Superman

There’s no doubt that Superman is one of the most significant characters in the history of American comics. He ended up setting the template for what would be the dominant genre in American comics after the Comics Code came into effect. Of course, the types of stories told in those comics, and their tone, has varied wildly over the years, which makes it difficult to try to determine which stories are the best of the lot, but naturally people make the attempt, including DC Comics itself.

This week Kumar and Tim look at the 1980s collection “The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told”, as well as Alan Moore’s “Whatever Happened To the Man of Tomorrow”, which is currently being published in a collection with two other Moore Superman stories. Are these actually the greatest Superman stories?

Featuring Batman’s superior party prep skills, swimming the interplanetary water spout, and the symbolism of the ads in the original printing of “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow”! *Choke*

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#477 Craig Thompson reaches for the stars

Space Dumplins

If you read Craig Thompson‘s Blankets and Habibi, you probably weren’t expecting his next book to be an all-ages space comedy with poop jokes — but that’s what Space Dumplins is — along with a message on the environment and class, and a good helping of inside jokes! This week Craig is here to tell us how this work came about, as well as his approach to writing for kids, working with colorist Dave Stewart, what bums him out about the Muppets, and the changing definition of “mainstream comics.”

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#476 Ten Years, Eleven Guests

DCP 10th AnniversaryYes, somehow it’s been ten whole years since Tim, Brandon, and Mulele sat down together and recorded the first episode of Deconstructing Comics! Rather than get the gang back together again, this time we present eleven past DCP interviewees all answering the same question: “Name an important development you see happening in comics now, good or bad, and say why you think it’s important.” Tim gets answers to this question from Stephen Bissette, Shaenon Garrity, Dan Jurgens, Chris Bachalo, Natalie Nourigat, and many more! (see entire list below)

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#471 “Crumb” and “Punk Rock Jesus”

Crumb
Punk Rock Jesus

Tim and Kumar meet in person for the first time! This calls for a podcast, but… what to review? We discuss the movie Crumb, which features not only the expected discussion of R. Crumb’s work (including an objective look at the question of whether some of the … discomfiting subjects of his work should really have been published as “art”), but also a fascinating portrait of the dysfunctional family he grew up in.

Then, Tim and Brandon clash over Sean Murphy’s Punk Rock Jesus, in which a former Irish Republican Army member acts as a bodyguard in a reality show claiming to be creating the clone of Jesus Christ. Is it objective and well-written, or a promo brochure for atheism?

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#468 Harvey Kurtzman’s MAD

MADWhile early 1950s anti-comics hysteria eventually resulted in the cancellation of nearly all their books, EC Comics still had one thing going for them: MAD! Written by Harvey Kurtzman and drawn by some of the best comics artists of the age, this parody comic set the template for much that came after it. But can the humor still be appreciated today? What are we to think of some of the attitudes on display toward, say, women or certain ethnic groups? Tim and Kumar discuss.

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