What’s it like to be trans AND have Dissociative Identity Disorder? What’s it like to have a therapist who doesn’t have enough training to really help you? Emma Grove has experienced this and has produced an engaging memoir graphic novel, The Third Person, which exhibits an amazing memory for detail and a sharp understanding of the comics medium. Tim and Kumar review.
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What happens when a group of people must work in the middle of nowhere, with virtually no supervision or accountability? Generally it’s not a good situation, as Kate Beaton, now well-known as the creator of the web comic Hark! A Vagrant, found in her younger years when she got a job on Alberta’s oil sands. This week, Kumar and Dana discuss her memoir of the experience, entitled Ducks: Two Years on the Oil Sands.
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If you’re at all aware of Tokyo Rose, it’s most likely simply as a woman heard over a radio in a movie set in World War II. But who was she, how did she end up in that situation, and what was the result for the war effort and for her? Tokyo Rose- Zero Hour is a new graphic novel by Andre Frattino and Kate Kasenow that fills us in on Iva Toguri, a Japanese-American woman who, under very odd circumstances, found herself working at Radio Tokyo during the war. Tim and Kumar review.
Iva Toguri demonstrates a sample broadcast
Toguri shooting some kind of a scripted scene
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FLASHBACK! While this podcast has covered the odd League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book here and there, no one has dared think of trying to discuss all of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill‘s series in one episode… until now! Kumar and Dana take on the task, with special attention paid to Black Dossier (and the record that was recorded for it), the Century trilogy, and the injustice that Kumar feels was done to Volume 2 way back in 2006, episode 21!
(Originally published June 24, 2013. Re-presented in observance of the passing of League artist Kevin O’Neill.)
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EC Comics, a name that brings to mind Fredric Wertham and the coming of the Comics Code, also brings to mind some very well-done comics by the likes of Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Williamson, and more. IDW has just released an Artist’s Edition of original EC art by Wood, Kurtzman, Williamson, Jack Davis, and Graham Ingels. Longtime EC fan Kumar is joined by the EC-curious Dana to discuss.
Read Squa Tront interview with Bernie Krigstein
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Charles Schulz’s Peanuts is a master class in how to do a comic strip. This week Kumar and Tim are focusing on a five-year period of Schulz’s career, 1957 to 1961, and 25 Sunday strips that demonstrate Schulz’s skill at dialog-free comics. You might want to read the strips before listening; see below!
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Continue reading #754 “Peanuts”: Schulz’s Silent Sundays 1957-1961
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In the mid-’90s, Grant Morrison’s innovative run on Doom Patrol was followed by that of Rachel Pollack, who took advantage of Morrison’s legacy, the greatest variety of sexual minority characters of any mainstream comic at the time, to express her feelings about being trans and a lesbian herself. Her run also examines a number of standard comic book tropes. This run, which was far ahead of its time, has been unavailable in a collection for some time, but these issues (64 to 87) are finally to be made available this month in an omnibus. Kumar and Emmet discuss this gender-bending run.
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Judge Dredd, created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, first appeared in 1977 and is as mainstream in the UK as Marvel and DC are considered to be in the US. Until recently, Kumar had read very little of it, but after reading a sizable chunk of the series, including such classic storylines as The Day the Law Died and Apocalypse War, he talks in this episode with longtime Dredd reader Matt E (who last appeared on this podcast way back in 2015!) and compares notes on the comic’s astronomical body count, whether Dredd is a hero or a villain, and more.
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While Kumar read Swamp Thing by Alan Moore and other ’70s and ’80s versions of the character well after they were published, his first “real time” reading of swampy was the early ’90s run written by novelist Nancy Collins. With Scot Eaton, Tom Mandrake, Kim DeMulder, and Tatjana Wood on art, Collins took the plant-man in some interesting directions. This time Kumar shares his thoughts on re-reading the run, and Emmet chimes in on his impressions after reading it for the first time.
Looking Back on Nancy Collins’ Swamp Thing (syfy.com)
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There were several landmark comics titles in the 1980s (do we really need to name them?), but unfortunately they tend to overshadow much of the other interesting work of the decade. Brannon Costello and Brian Cremins have edited a collection of essays on some of these overlooked works, called The Other 1980s. This time, Kumar and Emmet discuss some of the book’s essays, including chapters on Neil the Horse, Doug Moench, Trina Robbins, Elfquest, and more.
“R.U. a Cyberpunk?” ‘Mondo 2000’ magazine, no. 10, 1993
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