A story about a pot-smoking superhero taking on a villain whose henchmen wear KKK robes. Is this OK?! Tim is joined by Ryan C. to discuss Ben Perone and Jer Gordon’s FingerBang #4.
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Category: Making comics
#683 COVID comics and graphic medicine
There have been plenty of comics made about the current COVID-19 pandemic, both instructional and autobiographical ones. In this episode Tim talks about about some of these with graphic medicine expert Alice Jaggers, a contributor to graphicmedicine.org, as well as other comics on health issues… one of which is none other than Fullmetal Alchemist!
The Lancet on COVID-19 and comics
Then, a talk with comics journalist Josh Neufeld, who recently did a piece called A Tale of Two Pandemics, exploring the myth that black people are immune to many illnesses. This idea popped up during both the 1918 flu pandemic and the current pandemic. Josh also talks about his comics journalism career and the experience of working with Harvey Pekar!
Josh’s story Supply Chain Superhero
We first met Josh at MOCCA 2016!
Help Tim move away from the apartment he’s allergic to
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Critiquing Comics #187: “Bear With Me”
A retro-style daily strip about a talking bear! This time Tim is joined by comics colorist Jeremy Kahn to discuss Bob Scott‘s strip Bear With Me.
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Critiquing Comics #186: “Holy Diver”
If you’re an American who grew up in a certain era, you may have a story about that time you ended up at a presentation about how “backmasking” was being used in your favorite music to subliminally deliver satanic messages. Artist Rachelle Meyer, whose work we’ve encountered once before in Chad in Amsterdam #4, presents her own story about such an incident in her short comic Holy Diver , a story which you might expect to be eye-rolly and cynical, but it’s not. Mulele pops in to join Tim to discuss this cool comic.
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Critiquing Comics #184: “R.U.N.” volume 2
Way back in 2014, Tim and Mulele discussed the first volume of R.u.N. (Remember Ur Nature), a comic in shonen manga style about the sport of parkour. Now, at last, volume two is available, and Tim is joined by a new voice, Ryan Carey of SOLRAD, to discuss the book (by Kariofillis Chris Hatzopoulos, Rafail Voutsidis, Luis Figueiredo, Roberto Fernandes De Oliveira, and Vasilis Fotsinos). The comic is a spot-on imitation of shonen manga made in Japan — but is it good?
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#679 Mark Russell
Mark Russell has been one of the standout comics writers of the past five years, in part because he’s possibly the only mainstream comics writer doing satire (or, he would argue, fables). Since he burst on the scene with Prez and The Flintstones, he’s written a number of comics for several publishers that aren’t just comedy or action, they express his views and have deeper meanings.
This time, Tim’s interview with Mark. How did he get into comics, and start out in a Big Two book? Why did he use ’60s Hanna-Barbera character Snagglepuss to tell a story of gays in the 1950s? How do you “punch someone in the beef”? What inspired his latest, Billionaire Island
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Critiquing Comics #182: “After the Fall” and “Organic But Not Mental”
Telling a story without dialogue can be difficult. Telling your story entirely with pictures takes excellent storytelling skills. What are the stakes? What are the characters’ motivations? What, exactly, is going on here?! Tim and Mulele discuss two submitted comics which partially or entirely rely on wordless sequences: After the Fall, by Jacqueline Goldfinger, Keni Thomas, and Taylor Esposito; and Organic But Not Mental, by Pier Dola.
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Critiquing Comics #181: “Chad in Amsterdam 4”
The latest installment of our beloved Chad in Amsterdam is here! As always, Chad combines some incisive but casual observational and philosophical discussion with the work of his great artist friends, but this time the focus is less on Amsterdam and more on Chad himself. Where is he from? What makes you “from” a place? Will Tim and Mulele like this issue as much as the others? (Well, what do you think!?)
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Critiquing Comics #179: “The Solar Grid”
In a flooded New York City of the future, a corporate whistleblower is in a hurry to skip town. Tim and Mulele wish they understood more about the plot of The Solar Grid issue 1, by Gazeer, but this issue is more concerned with the comic’s world than its plot. So we critique what’s there!
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#674 Introducing Zoe Thorogood!
Zoe Thorogood is a young British woman whose first graphic novel, The Impending Blindness Of Billie Scott
In this episode, Tim talks to Zoe about the ins and outs of making the book, and then discusses the book itself with Emmet.
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