Episode 45: Captain Lawn Dart

It’s a jam-packed episode this week! We start off by briefly discussing the recent Internet kerfuffles over (some) creators vs. cosplayers at comic conventions, and the complaints that Marc Andreyko’s current storyline in Batwoman depicts the practical rape of protagonist Kathy Kane.

But then we move on to lighter topics. Specifically, this week’s crossover between The Flash and Arrow on their respective television shows. We talk about what worked, what was fun (God help us, that includes the Man Who Will Be Vibe), and what didn’t (Hi, Iris West!).

Then we move to week four of DC’s Convergence storyline, comprising mostly pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths alternate universe characters and teams. Meaning that these are stories that will appeal mostly to elderly readers. And Geoff Johns!

And finally, we discuss:

• Crossed One Hundred #1, written by Alan Moore with art by Gabriel Andrade, and:
• Escape From New York #1, written by Christopher Sebela with art by Diego Barreto!

And now the legalese:

• We record this show live to tape. While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are normally accustomed to, it also means that anything can happen. Like the classification of Iris West as a common “cape climber.”
• This show contains spoilers.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. So unless you want your boss to know that you’re listening to programming about a “Disco Epilepsy Ray,” get some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:01:17 — 109.7MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers!

No Extinction: Avatar Press SDCC 2013 Panel

And here we are: our final article covering San Diego Comic-Con 2013 (except for a bunch of video that my high-toned, dedicated video camera seems to have mangled, unless my actual computer here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office can do anything to salvage them), five days after the convention ended and more than a week after the actual panel occurred. But what the hell; given my crippling hangover and intestinal issues born from the fried chicken sandwich and fries I washed down with five black IPAs at a bar last night, it feels like I’m still at SDCC. So let’s just plow ahead, shall we?

The Avatar Press panel on Thursday morning, July 18th, with Avatar Founder and Editor-In-Chief William Christensen and World War Z and Extinction Parade writer Max Brooks, was the first panel we hit during SDCC 2013, and in some ways it set the tone for the whole convention. The room wasn’t full, but there was a healthy crowd for a comic book related panel on the most off day of the convention. Not that there are any off days at SDCC anymore, but if there is a day that qualifies, it’s this mid-week opening to the full-blown festivities. Unlike Preview Night, the whole convention center is open, and cosplayers are more plentiful, all of which draws people off the floor and makes it at least tolerable to move around; there’s nothing like a set of jugs in a spandex Power Girl suit to peel off the rubes so you can get where you’re going.

But where we were going was a panel, and we were going there later than we should. Which meant we could get a seat up front and to the side… right in front of the projector many panels use to put up new art for display. Which meant that, as a six foot tall gentleman, I spent the panel hunched over like Frankenstein’s delivery boy to stay out of the projector light, scribbling notes almost on my side as if trying to write “I am having a stroke” for the paramedics, just in case Christensen and Brooks put some new art up on the screen.

Which they did not. Every table at every panel at Comic-Con has a posted sign for presenters, reminding them that members of the crowd might be younger than 18. And every fan of Avatar comics knows that there is very little art that they could project that would be appropriate for children. There is very little Avatar art that would not make children long for the sweet release of death, or at least blindness, to tell you the truth. Avatar books are for adults, and that is on purpose.

“I just do books I want to read,” Christensen said. “It will always be intense work for adults.”

Our America – Review Of Crossed: Badlands #4

What are the Crossed? Zombies? Infected, delusional maniacs? Cleveland Cavaliers fans? Who are these creatures and why do they want to violate various orifices in my body while they eat my face? The latest entry in Avatar’s own, never-ending man vs. monster in a post apocalyptic setting, Crossed: Badlands #4, kicks off a new story arc written by Jamie Delano with art by Leandro Rizzo.

Delano’s new arc follows a very brief one by series creator Garth Ennis. That one, set in Scotland, went in perhaps the most predictable direction of any story in Crossed thus far – after 3 issues, everyone was dead or turned Crossed. Pretty much what you’d figure would happen if the world was actually over run by contagious monsters. This new story moves the action back to the United States, somewhere in the swamp lands of the South. Delano showcases a new cast of characters, most of which illustrate the way some of us worry that we Americans come across to the rest of the world: the meth head trailer trash, the disgruntled, water boarding Islamophobe, the degenerate, bored offspring of cocaine cowboys. About the only broad stereotypes that seemed to be missing were The Situation and Snooki – but this is just the first issue. We may still have time to shoehorn them in, yet.

But, is it a worthwhile read? That and infectious spoilers, after the jump!

…In The First Act – Wait, That’s Not A Gun: Crossed: Badlands #1 Review

In an entertainment market glutted with zombie stories, Crossed has historically distinguished itself more in its methods than in its themes. Under the hood, it’s the same as any half-decent zombie apocalypse tale: we follow small bands of survivors as they struggle to survive in a landscape populated by monsters that feel no fear and are only motivated to kill, with the story focus more on how the experience shapes – or warps – the survivors. However, it performs these standard tasks under a paint job of making those monsters less mindless flesh-eaters and more clever and gleeful rape-you-to-death-with-a-pipe-wrench…ers. Yeah, that’s a word. Or at least, it is now. And if you don’t agree, I have this pipe wrench… but I’m veering off track already.

In Crossed’s initial incarnation by writer Garth Ennis and artist Jacen Burrows a few years ago, that gave Ennis a chance to do a pretty pedestrian zombie tale, only propelled by Burrows’s over-the-top visuals illustrating Ennis’s jet-black sense of humor… provided your idea of larfs includes zombies jacking off on their bullets to make them infectious, or another zombie whipping dudes to death with a horse penis. Later arcs, such as David Lapham’s recent Psychopath, toned down the humor to focus, more conventionally if not any less graphically, on the idea of human monsters in a world overrun by more conventional ones.

This week brought us Crossed: Badlands, the return of the original creative team of Ennis and Burrows, so one would assume a return of the book to an exaggerated, almost darkly slapstick story reminiscent of the original arc. However, while it’s still too early in his miniseries to judge how it will end up, instead we seem to be getting a much more character-driven and subdued story. It feels strange to call a story that includes a zombie using an infant as a blunt projectile weapon “more subdued,” but when it comes to Crossed, these things are relative.