Episode 85: Fear The Walking Tropes

After a long week of hunting for possible new locations for the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, we were finally able to sit down and watch the premiere episode of the new AMC spinoff to The Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead.

We had reservations about the show going in, such as fears that this might be where we discover what caused The Walking Dead‘s walkers to start walking, or that a show about the beginning of a zombie apocalypse would be nothing but a new take on a story we’ve seen in Night of The Living Dead, Dawn of The Dead, and about two dozen different video games, or that a show about the beginning of the end would inevitably become a story about what happens after the end… and we already have that show.

Thankfully, none of those failure were evident. Unfortunately, many others, including inconsistent direction and writing, and a reliance on horror movie tropes of the kind you see on Netflix at 3 a.m. when you’re drunk and bored. And we talk about all of them… as well as the stuff that we liked, and gave us hope that there’s more to this show than the flaws in its pilot.

We also discuss:

• Lando #3, written by Charles Soule with art by Alex Maleev, and:
• Hank Johnson: Agent of Hydra, written by David Mandel with art by Michael Walsh!

And, as always, the disclaimers:

• We record this show live to tape, with minimal editing. While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like learning the secret ingredient in Amanda’s hummus, and why it would offend Cthulhu.
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings ahead of time, consider this your alert that Lando Calrissian was not eaten to death by a space vagina.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. Once your mom hears the Sarlacc described as a space vagina, she will never be able to unsee it. So get some headphones.

Editors’ Note: We are currently not planning to release a new episode on Sunday, September 6th (although if our schedule changes for the better, we may). Regardless, we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming on Sunday, September 13th.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:41:08 — 93.0MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 84: Doom Is My Power Beard

It has been a hectic week at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, and combining that with a dearth of substantial comics news we’d be interested in discussing, it means that we’re going old school this week.

That’s right: on this week’s episode of our comics podcast, we’re going to discuss a bunch of this week’s comics!

Here’s what we’ve got in the pipeline:

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 10 #18, written by Christos Gage with art by Rebekah Issacs,
• Secret Six #5, written by Gail Simone with art by Dale Eaglesham and Tom Derenick,
• The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #4, written by Dan Slott with art by Adam Kubert and Scott Hanna,
• 1872, written by Gerry Duggan with art by Nik Virella, and:
• Loki: Agent of Asgard #17, written by Al Ewing with art by Lee Garbett!

And, the usual disclaimers:

• We record this show with minimal editing. While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like learning why a “grunt” is poor open house etiquette.
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings ahead of time, just assume that you will learn whether or not Spider-Man actually renews his vows (Not yet. Sorry.).
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. Seriously, you don’t want your supervisor hearing that “grunt” thing. Get headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:35:47 — 87.6MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 83: Mopey Dick

What with the search for a new Home Office thanks to continual incursions by vermin (It’s like Secret Wars, only with ants!), we’re a little scatterbrained and fried this week, but we don’t let that get in the way of putting together a great show for you! Or at least a show of roughly professional-ish quality!

Disney’s D23 Expo was this weekend, and since Marvel Studios was bough by Chairman Mouse, that means that the first real footage from Captain America: Civil War has been shown. Not released, and not leaked in any fashion we’ve been able to locate, but descriptions abound, so we discuss what we’ve heard, what was announced about Doctor Strange, and whether we will be allowed to openly carry liquor and firearms at the Mos Eisley Cantina Disney will be building at Disneyland.

And while we weren’t able to see the Civil War trailer, we have been able to see the pilot to Fox’s upcoming adaptation of Vertigo Comics’s Lucifer. We are big fans of Mike Carey’s Lucifer series (and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman that introduced the character in that form), so we have strong opinions as to how the original comic series, about a fallen angel exploring what it means to have free will through the creation of literal universes, jibes with this new series about a Devil who solves crimes with a former actress cop.

We also discuss:

• The Walking Dead #135, written by Robert Kirkman with art by Charlie Adlard, and:
• Starfire #3, written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, with art by Emanuela Lupacchino!

And now the disclaimers:

• We record this show live to tape, with minimal editing. While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like a sudden tangent over which character in The Strain we want to kill with a pipe wrench (it’s totally Zach).
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings ahead of time, be forewarned that we will reveal that people talk a lot in The Walking Dead.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. Unless you think your employer is interested in the continuity ramifications of perverse Wookie sex, get yourself some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:39:11 — 91.7MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 82: Boston Comic Con 2015 – On Drugs And Putting Puppies In Microwaves

We conclude our coverage of Boston Comic Con 2015 first by bemoaning the nearly literal biblical weather and plagues that prevented us from releasing it on Thursday as we originally planned.

Once we get that out of our system, we discuss the panels that we were able to attend at this year’s Boston Comic Con: Spider-Verse, Marvel Universe, IDW Comics, and the DC Comics panel. And not only do we talk about them, but we share a load of audio we recorded at those panels, from creators like Brian Azzarello, Scott Snyder, Jimmy Palmiotti, Jason Latour, Ming Doyle, Annie Wu, Sara Richard, Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodriguez, and a bunch of others!

We also talk about the differences between the panel delivery styles of each publisher, why you seem to get more hard information from DC Comics than you do Marvel, and why the IDW panel gave us the best explanations of why publishers pursue licensed comics, and why colorists are more important than most of us think, than we’ve heard in 40 years of reading comics.

And, as always, the disclaimers:

• We record this show live to tape, with minimal editing. While this might make this a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like learning why Rob’s childhood memories include armpits bleeding goo.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. Convention panelists try to keep things clean. They are better people than we are. Get some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:04:46 — 116.7MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 81: Boston Comic Con 2015 – Four Seconds With Stan

The ninth annual Boston Comic Con – and the first one where Saturday sold out by Friday evening – concluded just a few hours ago. And despite being arguably the biggest Boston Comic Con to date, it also was one of the smoothest, with issues surrounding getting into the venue and into panels, that plagued the convention in prior years, all mercifully absent and apparently solved.

But the one problem that no convention of any size has been able to solve is exhaustion – after three days on the floor, we are wiped out. So despite the fact that our door-to-door travel time was twenty minutes, we are weakly sipping drinks, surrounded by loot from the convention and God knows how many hours of raw, uncut panel recordings, racing against fatigue hysteria.

But we wanted to take a few minutes to hook up our mobile recording studio one more time to put together a quick show to discuss the convention, what parts of it worked, which parts need improvement, why smaller regional conventions can be better than the megacons… and one completely new experience. That experience being that, after ten years of attending conventions of all sizes, this was the first time that we stood in a paid autograph line. To meet Stan Lee. And how the experience was pretty much what we expected, and why we will probably never, ever do it again.

Note: We currently plan to have a more detailed convention report, including panel audio, by Thursday, August 6th.

And now the disclaimers:

• This show was recorded live to tape. While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen.
• Due to limitations in our content delivery system, this show was recorded at a lower-than-normal bitrate. So you might notice minor differences in sound quality than other episodes.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. You want your employer to hear what kind of filthy animals who might buy Rob’s Stan Lee autograph? Trust us: you do not. Get some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:36 — 22.4MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 80: Lee Van Cleef In A Gimp Suit

We’re joined this week by Eisner Award nominated writer Christopher Sebela, who was gracious enough to spend well over an hour talking to us about his upcoming Boom! Studios comic We(l)come Back (with art by Jonathan Brandon Sawyer), as well as his work on High Crimes, Dead Letters, and Escape From New York.

Christopher talked with us about not only about the books themselves, but about some of the personal experiences he brought to the characters in them, some of the storytelling methods he favors in some books (and why he doesn’t use them in others), and how he feels lucky to have worked with the artists he has. He also explained to us why it’s so expensive to get vomiting drunk in Chicago, why we were suckers to get vomiting drunk in Chicago, and why he favors writing about damaged people like the kind who like to get vomiting drunk in Chicago. It was an interesting and wide-ranging conversation, and we’re pleased to bring it to you.

(And by the way: the first issue of We(l)come Back is excellent, and you should really add it to your pulls. Trust us on this. The Diamond order code is JUN151070).

Amanda and Rob also discuss:

• Star Lord And Kitty Pryde #1 by written by Sam Humphries with art by and Alti Firmansyah, and:
• The Punisher #20, written by Nathan Edmondson with art by Mitch Gerads!

And, the usual disclaimers:

• We record this show live to tape, with minimal editing (Although in this case, we recorded and edited the interview before the rest of the show). While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like a discussion of the phrase “sentient fedora.”
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out a warning ahead of time, be aware that a book titled The Punisher: Final Punishment might feature the Punisher’s final punishment.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. If you’ve read Christopher Sebela’s work, you know that he knows some swear words. If you’ve listened to our show, you know that we arguably know a few more. Get some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:53:22 — 102.3MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 79: Wattle Throttle

Marvel Studios’s Ant-Man opened in the United States this weekend, marking the first Marvel movie in years where non-geeks said, “Who?”

So we decided to mark the occasion by bringing in comedians Tim McIntire and Benari Poulten (who guested on our Avengers: Age of Ultron episode), as well as comedian Ross Garmil, to talk about the movie. Spoiler alert: we liked it because of the characters, and in spite of the fact that Edgar Wright didn’t direct it, and that it had more holes than a Guadalupe Yambiter ant hill.

But being geeks, the conversation meandered a bit, to also include some Batman V Superman and Star Wars: The Force Awakens talk. With a few unexpected detours and interruptions. This is a wild one, but a fun one, kids…

And now, the disclaimers:

• While we normally record this show live to tape, this week our guests called in remote from their homes, where two of them also store children. This means that we had to do more editing than usual, but nothing was added or moved.
• This show contains spoilers. If you were hoping to learn that Ant-Man’s power involves ants at the theater, maybe save this episode for later.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. If you think your boss would be creeped out by Rob asking a child to check a video feed for possible infections, it means that your boss is a well-adjusted human being, and that you should listen with headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:14:27 — 72.1MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 78: Hotboxing Hall H

San Diego Comic-Con was this week, and for the first time in nine years, we were not there. And not being at SDCC is a weird experience for us, so we spend a little time talking about how technology like Twitter and YouTube have made it possible to learn most of the big, important news from the show floor, while not in any way reproducing the little experiences that you can only get straight from the scene. Like being accosted by evangelicals, or getting intoxicated on local beers. Sometimes at the same time.

However, we did have our own personal lifeline to the show floor: Los Angeles comedian Gariana Abeyta, who guested on our favorite SDCC 2014 episode, and who managed to snag four-day passes to this year’s convention. Gariana was good enough to call into the show this morning, and it is a short glimpse not only into some hard news about some Hall H events, but into how the mind starts to go after four days of non-stop spectacle.

One of the big items to come from Comic-Con was the first full Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer, which was officially released just hours after the Warner Bros. panel. And Amanda and I spend some time breaking it down, discussing the implied backstory of Batman (including the fate of at least one Robin), Superman’s questionable upbringing, and Lex Luthor’s terrible, terrible Kip Winger-pelt toupee.

We also discuss: Civil War #1, written by Charles Soule, with art by Leinil Francis Yu!

And, as usual, the disclaimers:

• We record this show live to tape, with minimal editing (although this episode, we cut Gariana’s call in from an earlier recording). While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like figuring out where Superman likes to whip out his Codex.
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings ahead of time, you should assume that we will ruin the fact that in Civil War, what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. Unless you want your employer to learn the word that we’ve decided will keep us from mainstream fame and fortune, you should get some headphones.

And, in case you missed it, here’s that SDCC 2015 Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:04:01 — 113.0MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 77: The Moist Knight

It’s the final day of a long holiday weekend in the United States. We celebrated Independence Day in the ways of our forefathers: by getting drunk, listening to stuff blow up, and spending hours and hours playing Batman: Arkham Knight on our brand new XBox One. So we spend a little time talking about the new game, the new game system, our relationship to gaming, and how, no matter which next generation console you choose, you are now doomed to live with that company’s games until they, or you, die.

But this is a comics show, and there was big comics news this week: Marvel announced a huge chunk of the books that they will be releasing in October to follow the universe-rebooting Secret Wars. It’s up to 45 books, which means we don’t have time to talk about all of them, but we spend a little time with Amazing Spider-Man, The Ultimates, Captain Marvel, Karnak, Old Man Logan, and Doctor Strange. We discuss how we think they’ll work, how Amazing Spider-Man could be the answer to the prayers of both fans and haters of One More Day, and how the creative team behind Doctor Strange has Rob as excited about a comic book as he’s been in years.

We also discuss:

• Secret Wars #4, written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Esad Ribic,
• We Stand On Guard #1, written by Brian K. Vaughan with art by Steve Skroce,
• Groot #2, written by Jeff Loveness with art by Brian Kesinger, and:
• Little AvX Marvel #2, written and drawn by Skottie Young!

And now the disclaimers:

• We record this show live to tape, with minimal editing. While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you’re used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like learning about Immaculately Manscaped Galactus.
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings ahead of time, be aware that you will learn which X-Man takes balls to the face in Little AvX Marvel.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. You want your boss to know the etymology of the word “crotchal”? Then get some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:00:29 — 111.4MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 76: The Hiro Nakamura Experience

We’re a couple of weeks out of San Diego Comic-Con, and, even though we can hardly believe it, it turns out that one of the panels we’ll be missing the most? The Heroes Reborn panel on Sunday in Hall H.

I think we can all agree that Heroes kinda went sideways in its later seasons, but we’ve always had a soft spot for the show, ever since seeing the pilot at our very first San Diego Comic-Con. And all these years later, it’s easy to forget just how exciting the show was in its first season. So we discuss what was so exciting about the show in its first season, what went wrong as time went on, what we know about Heroes Reborn, and what we want to see from this miniseries.

We also discuss the Miles Morales-starring Spider-Man book announced by Marvel last week, including what this might mean for Peter Parker, why it was a foregone conclusion that Miles would not only get his own post-Secret Wars book, but keep the name Spider-Man, and what the timing of this announcement might have to do with recent Marvel Studios activity.

We also discuss:

• We Are Robin #1, written by Lee Bermejo with art by Jorge Corona, and:
• Gotham by Midnight #6, written by Ray Fawkes with art by Juan Ferreyra!

And, the usual legalese:

• We record this show live to tape, with minimal editing. While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like learning why D-Man is to beautiful and ephemeral a character to ever be put on film.
• This show has a lot of spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings ahead of time, if you want to find out for yourself if they ever Saved The Cheerleader? Be forewarned.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. You want your employer to learn the finer points of performing a Spider-Mohinder? Get yourself some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:42:23 — 93.4MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers!