Episode 98: The Wang Splash

A long time ago, when we barely had the equipment to record people who weren’t in the same room with us, we interviewed a couple of comic creators who were on the cusp of releasing their first print comic through a proper comic book publisher. It was also our first interview with comic creators, on new and untested equipment, and even though everyone involved was on untrod ground, it was one hell of a lot of fun.

Now, a year later, we have much better and more trusted equipment, and a lot more experience talking to people remotely. In addition, those two creators not only released their comic, but got the greenlight to publish a sequel, a bunch of good press around the book, and visited San Diego Comic-Con. And since they are now on the cusp of releasing the trade paperback of the sequel to their first comic, it seemed like a good time to check back in and see how the last year of relative success in comics affected them.

So in this episode, we talk with Holy F*ck and Holy F*cked creators Nick Marino and Daniel Arruda Massa, ostensibly to talk about the impending release of the trade paperback of Holy F*cked…  but we also get into what it’s like to have some success in a local indie comics community, the pros and cons of variant covers for indie comics, how 90s comics affected Generation X vs. Generation Y, how San Diego Comic-Con arguably isn’t as big a deal for mid-level creators as it is for anyone else, and acting in reality TV. Oh, and we talk about how Crisis On Infinite Midlives might be the cause of one of the more graphic and talked-about panels in Holy F*cked.

Amanda and Rob also discuss:

• Spider-Man / Deadpool #1, written by Joe Kelly with art by Ed McGuinness, and:
• Swamp Thing #1, written by Len Wein with art by Kelley Jones!

And now, the disclaimers:

• We record this show live to tape, with minimal editing (although we edited a tangent out of our interview that made no sense if you weren’t on the live video feed at the time). While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like not just a discussion about man-nipples, but a year-long continuation of a discussion about man-nipples.
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to yell out warnings ahead of time, just assume you will learn which son of a god will be crucified in Holy F*cked (helpful hint: the answer will totally surprise you!).
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. You want to explain to your boss the particular Facts of Life that lead to a baby named “Rad Christ”? Then buy headphones.

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Tree Pulp: Swamp Thing #16 Review

Editor’s Note: And one last quick review of the comics of 1/9/2013 before the comic stores open with this week’s new books…

I’m not gonna lie to you: the Rotworld crossover between Swamp Thing and Animal Man hasn’t really been grabbing me in the way that I’d originally hoped. I’ve found it to be relatively engaging, but at this point, it feels like it’s been going on damn near forever, with one overriding problem that’s been tickling me through the whole thing: where’s the rest of the DC Universe while all of this is going on? We’ve seen the world in ruins, and Superman, Batman and other ancillary superheroes afflicted by the Rot in these titles, and yet over in Detective Comics last week, Batman was happily battling Joker gangs while a new Penguin sets up shop.

So being isolated, the stakes of Rotworld have felt smaller than they should… but I really don’t want to hold that against Rotworld, because I really do want to see more isolated storylines, regardless of a publisher’s greater continuity, if only so I can stop hearing so many sighs from my co-editor Amanda when we walk into our local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop announcing, “Attention, patrons! In a moment, I will be giving myself an event… and then I will become fatigued!”

So on its own, Rotworld has been entertaining, if dragged out a little longer than it probably needed to be… and taken on its own, Swamp Thing #16 is the biggest, pulpiest, most fun piece of it so far.

Guillermo del Toro Working on Dark Universe… Yeah, Basically The 90s Vertigo Comics Movie

Update, 6:40 a.m.: The video after the jump is fixed. What can I say? That Benzedrine’s a hell of a drug.

Guillermo del Toro is finishing up work on Pacific Rim, which will be in theaters in July. And since between movies and books and comics, he seems like a guy who likes to keep busy… you know, in the sense that a methamphetamine addict like to occupy the day by disassembling the television in an attempt to find parts to improve the AK-47 they use to keep the Goddamned bugs away.

Which, as analogies go, certainly is one, but my point is, del Toro probably has another project in mind. And it seems that he does. Is it the adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness that del Toro was working on before the project went tits up? Well, apparently maybe; supposedly he thinks he can get one more bite at that apple, hard R rating and ridiculous budget or no:

“I’m going to try it one more time. Once more into the dark abyss,” he laughed. “We’re gonna do a big presentation of the project again at the start of the year and see if any [studio’s] interested.” And yes, Tom Cruise is still game to be on board if they can find a home for it. “Yeah, Tom is still attached. I think it would be so fantastic to make it with him. He’s been such a great ally of the project.”

Okay, that’s pretty good news… certainly better than the news about the Hulk TV show that del Toro was supposedly working on a few months ago:

“After ‘The Avengers’ there’s been complete radio silence,” he said. “I had one more meeting after ‘Avengers’ with Jeph Loeb from Marvel and he said, ‘We’re working on it, we’re waiting for a writer,’ he gave me the name of the writer and their resume and I said, ‘That sounds great, let’s wait for him’ because we had delivered a teleplay and I haven’t heard since then.”

So yeah, those sound pretty good… but that’s not the good shit. The good shit is that del Toro is apparently working on a project with Warner Bros. A movie including Swamp Thing, John Constantine, Zatanna, Etrigan… pretty much all of the cast of Justice League Dark. And it’s actually in preproduction, with a writer attached and everything.

Biting The Root: Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette Leaving Swamp Thing

Remember yesterday, when Gail Simone got icked off of Batgirl? And I listed all the books from the initial DC New 52 that I could remember (of course, forgetting Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andrea Sorrentino on I, Vampire at the very least) and bemoaned the fact that so many creators and books from that first round of rebooted comics had gone down with all hands? And that I listed Scott Snyder as working on Batman and Swamp Thing?

Yeah, funny story about that…

Hey guys – was going to wait until we got a little closer to announce this, but yes, Swamp Thing #18 will be my (cont) tl.gd/ka763m

— Scott Snyder (@Ssnyder1835) December 10, 2012

Swamp Thing #18 will be your what, Scott? Your manifesto? Your articles of sessecion from the United States of America? Your Goddamned prom date? There’s a term for Tweets that are longer than 140 characters, Scott: it’s called a fucking blog post!

Hey, what’s that link at the end of the Tweet do?

SDCC 2012: DC’s The Edge And The Dark Panel. Oh, and Neil Gaiman’s Returning To Sandman

First of all people of San Diego: it’s a fucking e-cigarette. It emits water vapor. So please stop passive-aggressively giving me shit when I’m using it on a public sidewalk, out of doors and approaching the convention center, by muttering, “Nothing I like better than a faceful of cigarette smoke blowing into my baby’s face…” Let’s clear the air here (ha!): my e-cigarette emits no odor and bothers no one, unlike your little bundle of squalling fecal production. And since my e-cig doesn’t even burn, the San Diego Fire Marshall even considers it less of a fucking fire hazard.

Okay, I feel better now. Now that we’ve got my personal news out of the way, let’s talk about what’s been happening at SDCC 2012 that doesn’t involve self-righteous self-absorbsion.

The actual programming at SDCC started in earnest yesterday, featuring panels on everything from homosexuality in genre fiction to Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part II. (Rob: This may be redundant. Consider editing. -Amanda)

Well, That Looks Green. And, Moist.: Swamp Thing #1 Review

Strange things are afoot – and not just at the Circle K. No, all over the world birds fall dead from the sky; bats plummet from cave ceilings; and, fish take a break from fornicating in the ocean to, well, die.