Episode Sixty-Four - The Mad Titan

From the Death of Captain Marvel. (c) 2017 Marvel Comics.

Just in time for San Diego Comic-Con, an over-stuffed episode about comics, movies, TV and video games. We welcome Craig from the Puzzle Warriors 3 podcast (@PuzzleWarriors3) to talk all that and more.

We start by going over what got Craig back into comics after a couple decades, what we are both enjoying right and looking forward to coming out soon. Plenty of good recommendations here. Also, why does Craig love Dazzler so mych?

From there, we talk about the just completed season of Doctor Who and what we could happen in the Xmas Special as well as thoughts on the new creative team and cast.

And lots of Marvel Puzzle Quest talk, including why he, Ian and Craig started the show, thoughts of some of the more powerful characters in the game, balancing PVE, PVP and DDQ, how much fun the special events have been of late and chat about the special plants for their 100th episode in two weeks time. 

Lots of random stuff at the end, including wrestling and hockey talk. We never got around to all the old TV show and cartoon talk that was on the docket, so hopefully Craig will be back in a future episode.

Note: We had a brief addition to the show for a mention of the passing of George A. Romero and Martlin Landau. As a huge Mission Impossible fan, I am working on lining up a special guest to talk about Landau's career. 

Episode Fifty-One - In Suburbia

Snapshot in the Family Album. From Vision 11 by King, Walta and Bellaire. (c) 2016 Marvel

The podcast returns from holiday/health hiatus for a look at the year in comics for 2016. We're joined in separate segments by (01:33) Joe Sposto (@joesposto) from Longbox Heroes, (40:22) magazine contributor Matt D and (1:11:20) Al Kennedy (@housetoastonish) from House To Astonish. There's chat about DC Rebirth, Civil War 2, the Inhumans' failed babyface push and other news from the past year. Then, it's lots of recommendations about what our favorite books and creators were from the past year. There are so many quality books now, things are bound to be forgotten, so apologies to those we should have mentioned during the show and did not. We still love your work, even if our collective memories are like a new kind of Swiss cheese,

Some of the books we did remember to mention include: The Vision by Tom King, Gabriel H Walta and Jordie Bellaire, Batman by King and multiple artists, Detective Comics by James Tynion IV and multiple artists, Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp, Moon Knight by Jeff Lemire and multiple artists, The Fix by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber, Future Quest by Jeff Parker, Doc Shaner, Steve Rude and other artists, the Batman 66 books by multiple creators, Kaijumax by Zander Cannon, The Black Monday Murders by Jonathan Hickman and Tomm Coker, Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour, Doctor Strange by Aaron and Chris Bachalo, the Thor books by Aaron and multiple artists, Giant Days by John Allison and multiple artists, Limbo by Dan Watters and Caspar Wijngaard, Another Castle by Andrew Wheeler and Paulina Ganucheau and plenty of other great books that you should check out to see if they are for you. It's a great time to be a comics reader, if you tastes run to action-oriented fare, indy slices of life or (hopefully) both. 

We also said goodbye to two amazing books this year that ended after 50 and 60 issues: The Sixth Gun by Collen Bunn and Brian Hurtt and Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory, respectively.

Also, I wanted to give a shout-out to some great collections that came out this year: The return of Blue Monday by Chynna Clugston-Flores, IDW's Artist Edition for the DC War books (featuring Kirby, Kubert, Kanigher and people whose last name didn't start with K) and the Master of Kung Fu omnibuses, books I never thought I would ever see collected.

There's some brief chat throughout the podcast about non-comics stuff, because we just can't stick to one topic for a whole show. We talk Marvel Puzzle Quest with Joe (our alliance leader), NXT wrestling with Matt and Chikara with Al. 

Episode Fifty - Ouroboros

The Devil Doctor. from LXG 1. (c) 2016 Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

Author and academician Jess Nevins (@jessnevins) joins the podcast for big episode fifty. We talk the art of annotating comics, starting with Kingdom Come and most notably The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. We also discuss how his research methods have changed since the start of the internet age in the mid 1990s to the present. We also chat about current comics include the works of Ed Brubaker(@brubaker) and Sean Phillips (@seanpphillips), Bandette by Paul Tobin (@paultobin) and Colleen Coover (@colleencoover),  the new Moon Knight book and Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire (@jefflemire) and various artists, Vision and Batman, both written by Tom King (@tomkingtk), Scarlet Witch by James Robinson jamesdrobinson) and various artists, and other books.  We conclude by telling some stories about role playing Golden Age heroes while we both in grad school at Bowling Green.  You can find information about Jess' books available in print and digitally at jessnevins.com.