Prolific manga creator Taiyo Matsumoto’s Ping Pong is, nominally, a sports manga, but it doesn’t stick to the tropes. It presents table tennis matches that take place in a small town, not at a major tournament in Tokyo; often it doesn’t even show the end of a match! In some ways it functions as a parody of the genre. Kumar and Dana discuss this fun and unpredictable manga.
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NK Jemisin and Jamal Campbell‘s Far Sector takes the Green Lantern concept (it’s published by DC) to comment on race relations and the police. Emmet and Kumar discuss the book’s storytelling strategy; whether main character Jo has made a believable choice in becoming a (space) cop; compare novelist Jemisin to other prose writers who have taken on writing comics; and more.
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A story originally conceived as an Incredible Hulk tale in — really — the 1980s, Barry Windsor-Smith‘s Monsters has finally seen the light of day. How is it? Kumar and Dana find it a joy to look at, and containing a number of astonishing scenes and mind-blowing plot points, but also to have some serious drawbacks. Does the good outweigh the bad? Here’s their review.
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In this episode Kumar Sivasubramanian (psst our Eisner nominated member of the Deconstructing Comics team) and Emmet O’Cuana discuss Eleanor Davis‘s comics. Focusing mainly on her collection How To Be Happy and one-shot Libby’s Dad, the comic creator’s use of subtle sadness and surreal humor inspires a wide- ranging conversation (including how to be happy during a plague!).
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It’s debatable whether Garth Ennis’ series Crossed, about a disease that causes people to act in the most reprehensible ways possible, had any redeeming qualities, but when Alan Moore steps in to write the next chapter, you know it’s going to be worth discussing. And so we have Crossed +100 by Moore and Gabriel Andrade. In Moore’s hands, what is it, exactly, that the disease does? Is his attempt at writing future dialects of English annoying or fascinating? Kumar and Jordan settle in for a fascinating, but depressing, sequel.
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In 1998, under the “Marvel Knights” banner, Christopher Priest began the first ongoing Black Panther title in nearly two decades. Panther was a relatively unknown character to many Marvel readers at the time. With the aid of “Emperor of Useless White Boys” Everett K. Ross, and artists like Mark Texeira and Joe Jusko, Priest (a.k.a. Jim Owsley) made Panther a must-read and brought the nature of his character into sharper focus. Kumar and Tim discuss the first 17 issues (the ones included in Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection Volume 1) and see if it still stands up 23 years later.
Michael Hoskin’s 4-part article
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Is it annoying or brilliant? A smart commentary on internet culture? Too trendy for the oldsters who make this podcast? Is it plausible enough to stand alongside the best in science fiction? Emmet and Kumar ask these questions and more in their review of Crowded by Christopher Sebela, Ro Stein, Ted Brandt, Trina Farrell, and Cardinal Rae.
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Comics journalist Joe Sacco is back, with an up-close look at the Dene people, of the western part of Canada’s Northwest Territories. Like many native peoples, their way of life was shattered by contact with colonial Europeans, who made traumatizing efforts to assimilate them into Western culture. What happened in western Canada, and what is the way forward for the Dene? Tim and Kumar discuss Paying the Land.
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The pandemic has caused a variety of entertainment content to go unreleased or even unmade. Unfortunately, that extends to the recent series John Constantine: Hellblazer by Simon Spurrier and Aaron Campbell, canceled after issue 12 when Spurrier had expected to get six more issues. Kumar and Jordan are big fans of the series, and this week they walk through the hilarious and frightening series we got.
Help Tim move away from the apartment he’s allergic to
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We’ve talked about several of Rumiko Takahashi’s manga series over the years, but this time we go back to the beginning with her first big hit, Urusei Yatsura, sometimes known in English as Lum. Tim and Kumar discuss the history of the strip, the gags you wouldn’t get without knowing Japanese, and what’s odd about it for being ostensibly a kids’ comic.
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