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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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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This time, two books by Neil Gaiman: Black Orchid
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Many of us have dreamed of getting paid to make comics. Except in rare cases, working in American comics means being a freelancer. While a creative career can be rewarding, there are plenty of downsides, too.
First, there are the day-to-day problems. Tim talks to Howard Simpson, a freelancer in Los Angeles, about time management, letting friends and family know you’re not ALWAYS free, dealing with lack of health insurance, and more.
Then, Asher Elbein talks about his recent article in The Daily Beast about how the recent allegations of top freelancers abusing their power to seduce young women, or certain publisher staff members outright abusing freelancers and others, are of a piece with the well-documented problems of freelancers like Alan Moore or Siegel and Schuster, who were vastly undercompensated for making wildly successful comics like Watchmen and Superman!
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Grant Morrison‘s DC Comics debut in 1988 was a run on Animal Man. Originally meant to be a four-issue mini, the series became an ongoing, prompting Morrison to turn it into a discussion of spirituality and the nature of reality — which, if you’re a comics character, means that you live your life enclosed in panels while watched by thousands of people.
Tim is joined by Matthew Brake, series editor of the Theology and Pop Culture book series, to examine the philosophy of this classic late-’80s run.
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This week we take a look back at the career of Denny O’Neil, the longtime comics writer and editor who passed away June 11. Emmet discusses O’Neil’s legacy with Professor Jonathan W. Gray, author of such books as Civil Rights in the White Literary Imagination, and the founding editor of the Journal of Comics and Culture.
O’Neil was a force in the move to turn DC’s iconic but silly characters in a more serious direction — having substance, not only violence. What shaped his worldview? How much of his personal story was in evidence on the page? Was his editing a crucial component of Frank Miller’s best work? And more.
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This week, Emmet, Patrick, Tim, and Chuck Coletta talk about their favorite comics of the past decade! If you’re looking for good comics that you might have missed from the 2010s — from superhero to comedy, historical to horror — we’ll give you plenty of titles to look up!
(All titles below are linked to Amazon – to help support the show, pick up any titles you’re interested in through these links!)
EMMET
Finder: Talisman HC
Love In Vain: Robert Johnson 1911-1938, The Graphic Novel
I Love This Part: Hardcover Edition
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters
Delicious in Dungeon
Gast
Giant Days
Providence
Immortal Hulk
Julio’s Day
Orc Stain Volume 1
Sally Heathcote, Suffragette
The Abaddon
The Experts
Surface Tension
Special Exits
SNARKED: Forks and Hope
Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt
Henni
PATRICK
Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga
Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics Of The 1950s
Rover Red Charlie
Dungeon Quest: Book One
The Bulletproof Coffin
My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris
Fatale
Southern Bastards
Richard Stark’s Parker
Hawkeye
Moon Knight
Madman In Your Face 3D Special
Hark! A Vagrant
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories
Providence by Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows
Rachel Rising
Afterlife with Archie
Harrow County
Frontier
TIM AND CHUCK
Gotham Academy by Becky Cloonan and Karl Kerschl
Daredevil
Scooby-Doo Team-Up
Saga
Life With Archie: The Married Life
Paper Girls
Seconds
The Superior Spider-Man
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While Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s New Teen Titans (1980-1988) goes over the top with purple-prose narration and unsubtle plot points, it represents a turning point for DC Comics in a number of ways: it introduced many heroes and villains who are still around today; it was set in New York City, rather than some fictional burg; it was a major step toward getting DC to care as much about continuity as Marvel had for nearly 20 years. Patreon supporter Dylan joins Tim to discuss the first two years of this milestone series.
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Klaus Janson has a long and storied career, working for both Marvel and DC as a writer, penciller, and inker, including some famous collaborations with Frank Miller and John Romita Jr. His latest series, Sacred Creatures, is a creator-owned collaboration with artist Pablo Raimondi. In this extended-length episode, he tells Koom about the ideas explored in the new series, and shares musings on the artistic process.
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In part two of Tim’s interview with longtime comics writer Dan Mishkin, Dan talks about writing Warren Commission Report: A Graphic Investigation into the Kennedy Assassination
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