After years of putting her life on hold to care for her father, her father passes on. How does she react? What about her son, who feels his grandpa’s death may be his fault? R. Kikuo Johnson’s No One Else is a subtly told story of grief with beautiful art and some humor as well. Tim is joined by graphic medicine expert Alice Jaggers to discuss the book and try to unlock some of the deep symbolism in its seemingly simple art.
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Chad Bilyeu, an American living in Amsterdam, has been a favorite of ours over on Critiquing Comics for the past several years. With the sixth issue of his Chad in Amsterdam series, we’ve promoted talk of his comics to the flagship, Deconstructing Comics. You’ve arrived, Chad! Seriously, this issue gives us more interesting storytelling that serves as food for thought. Mulele is even back to discuss the book with Tim!
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Epic Tavern’s Tales from the Fantastical Crimes Unit gives us a noir-type detective on the case of a kidnapped centaur woman. What’s that? You’ve never heard of Epic Tavern? You didn’t know it’s a video game? Then this comic may leave you scratching your head. And that’s just one of a number of reasons that this comic prompts Tim and Ryan Cecil Smith to urge these admittedly talented creators (writer Shawn French, artist Steve Mardo, colorist Steve Lavigne, and letterer Rob Jones) to up their game. Listen for our (hopefully) constructive criticism!
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If you’re not into the drama of the past few decades of DC Comics, come with us back to the 1950s, when the exploits of Batman and Superman in World’s Finest Comics made the ’60s Batman TV show look like The Dark Knight Returns! Superman and the Dynamic Duo’s lives in those days were a constant stream of identity switching, time travel, alien visitors, tricking Lois Lane, and even goofier shenanigans. Tim and Kumar discuss (while frequently bursting into laughter).
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Sometimes comics adaptations of movies can have as much, or more, significance than the films themselves. Marvel‘s 1984 adaptation of David Lynch‘s Dune film, for example, marked Bill Sienkiewicz‘s upgrade from the realistic art he did on Moon Knight, to the mind-blowing, weird work he became known for on New Mutants. It’s also arguable that Ralph Macchio‘s script is better than that of the film.
Likewise, Topps‘ 1992 adaptation of the Francis Ford Coppola film Bram Stoker’s Dracula, written by Roy Thomas, marks a turn for artist Mike Mignola from Batman to more supernatural work, leading straight into his magnum opus, Hellboy.
Kumar and Jordan, patiently awaiting the delayed Australian release of the new Dune film, decided to indulge their obsession by doing this week’s episode, discussing both films.
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Ghosting is about a bus driver in a budding relationship with a woman who suddenly disappears from his life. Has he simply been ghosted? Or is there more to it? Emmet was captivated by the book (winner of the 2020 Best Irish Comic award), and this time he chats with its author (and fellow Ireland native), Debbie Jenkinson about this book and her forthcoming followup, the Dublin comics scene, how being an outsider affects the art one produces, and more.
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Anthologies have traditionally been something of a bear to critique, especially if they’re not very good. Producing the End of the World has solved that problem — both by sending us a media preview with only four of the collection’s stories in it, and by, well, being very good. Tim and Adam discuss a book containing some of the more fun stories about the end times that we’ve seen.
Producing the End of the World on Kickstarter
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Mark Russell & Richard Pace’s Second Coming stirred up controversy before it even came out, because it was a comic book pairing Jesus Christ with a superhero. But once it did hit the stands, the reviews were mainly positive, including on this podcast. Now the second six-issue “season” of the comic has wrapped up, and Will Weaver again joins Tim to consider how Second Coming: Only Begotten Son stacks up against the original.
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David Dye has been one of our favorites here on Critiquing Comics; Tim and Mulele even interviewed him once. He’s back now with Amazing Tales #4, in which he takes a turn toward horror. Jason joins Tim to brave the creepy goings-on.
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San Diego Comicon has always been about more than comics! That’s the contention of producer and journalist Mathew Klickstein, who joins Tim this week to tell us all about his audio documentary podcast “Comic-Con Begins!” Mathew talked with dozens of people who were there at the birth of the con and celebrities who have appeared there over the years, and reaches back decades before SDCC’s birth in 1970, to the earliest rumblings of geekdom. He’ll also give us some idea of what’s in the future for this history project.
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