At London Super Comicon last month, Koom got to sit down with Paul Gravett, a comics journalist and exhibition curator. Gravett is currently preparing the touring Asian comics show Mangasia, which will debut in Rome next month. This is a guy who’s read a lot of comics; do they all become a blur after a while? Koom asks him about avoiding burnout, the amount of progress comics have (or haven’t) made toward being accepted by the “art world”, and much more.
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This year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival was held May 13 & 14. Koom was there and brought back interviews with Dave McKean, Jessica Campbell, Rick Geary, and Charlie Adlard!
Continue reading #550 Four TCAF Interviews
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In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, with a result that many found unexpected and disturbing, Emmet and John discuss various comics that have commented on politics and on government gone bad, including V for Vendetta; X-men: God Loves, Man Kills; Ex Machina; Prez; Transmetropolitan; Nemesis the Warlock; American Flagg; Congressman John Lewis’ March; and more.
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Join Kumar and Koom as they discuss Alan Moore’s run on the palladium paragon, the alabaster avenger, the archetypical archetype: Rob Liefeld’s Supreme. Kumar tries not to lose it over the Image era ‘artwork’ while Koom attempts to reconcile supremium with revisionist theory. Supreme was Moore’s last outing with a true blue superhero in the classical mould. Both postmodern and nostalgic for lost comic values at the same time, this run sits Janus-like between Moore’s early work and his modern period.
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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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Artist Stephen Bissette is best-known for his work on Swamp Thing in the ’80s with Alan Moore and John Totleben, as well as 1963 and his solo project Tyrant. Currently he’s teaching at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and this week he joins Tim and Kumar for a wide-ranging discussion, including:
Steve’s list of artists who have taught at CCS
Continue reading #465 Stephen Bissette talks scary comics!
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It’s one thing to have sex with a robot. What if you actually started having feelings for your A.I. S.O.? What if you started preferring the robot to your actual human partner? That’s the situation in Jess Fink‘s sexual, but also romantic and even moving, graphic novel Chester 5000 xyv. Jess discusses the book with Tim in this episode, as well as her sci-fi autobiographical story We Can Fix It, getting a book-jacket blurb from Alan Moore, making comics for kids, and more.
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It’s been over 25 years since DC published the completed story (which had been left hanging several years earlier when the title it appeared in in Britain was cancelled), and (can you believe it?) nearly a decade since the film came out. How does Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta look now? Is there any tension to this story, or does the fact that every step of V’s plan seems to go off without a hitch make it a boring read? Tim and Kumar discuss this, the pivotal prison sequence, the well-developed supporting cast, and much more.
Read articles on V:
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Nearly three months ago, way back before “Tim Across America,” Kumar and Dana discussed Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s classic graphic novel “From Hell.” Now they’re back with a discussion of last year’s From Hell Companion, which includes an annotated script and a lot of other behind-the-scenes information, inspiring our guys’ repeated forehead slaps and exclamations of “How come I never noticed THAT bit of symbolism before?”
DCP InTouch:
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Tim Across America pt 5! In Minneapolis, Tim visits the studio of Zander Cannon, author of Heck (discussed in episode 381) and layout artist for Alan Moore’s Top Ten and Smax. He talks with Tim about developing Heck, working with Alan Moore, whether going to San Diego is all that essential for a newbie to the comics business, and — Hey, Kevin Cannon’s your brother, right?!?
Big Time Attic (Zander and Kevin’s studio)
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