Pick of the Week Podcast
Show Notes
With Ron Richards away for the weekend, iFanboy staff writer Sonia Harris steps up to the microphone. Long Island accent out, London accent in.
Running Time: 01:05:30
Pick of the Week:
00:02:38 – Echo #6 was the Pick of the Week, and Conor is now loving Terry Moore. Sonia, not so much.
Comics:
00:11:13 – Josh was sure that Scalped #21 would take the Pick of the Week title this week.
00:13:40 – Conor and Sonia discuss the wonder that was All Star Superman #12.
00:17:57 – The Amazing Spider-Man #572 brings back a scary super villain.
00:20:03 – The only one not reading Captain Britain and MI:13 #5 is the Brit.
00:23:48 – The floodgates open when Josh finds himself with someone to talk Hellblazer #247.
00:31:24 – A surprise traitor made Josh love Guardians of the Galaxy #5.
00:32:57 – Conor picked up The Flash #244… and then promptly dropped it again.
00:34:52 – Sonia says that Dead Space #6 was a bit of a let-down ending to a great mini-series.
00:38:08 – A delayed “Batman R.I.P.” means Robin #178 and Batman and The Outsiders #11 are ahead of the story.
00:40:13 – War Heroes #2 is all about a certain part of the male anatomy.
User Reviews:
00:42:32 – Mart is not going to cast his vote for DC Universe: Decision #1.
00:44:11 – Tork found Action Comics #869 to be nearly cinematic.
00:45:52 – ron is absolutely giddy about Uncanny X-Men #502.
E-Mail:
00:48:15 – C.G. R. is a fangirl with fanboy problems.
00:51:51 – Jon H. wants to know why Barbara Gordon is still in her chair.
00:54:45 – Justin (aka Nuclearman) asks about Green Lanterns and Firestorm.
Announcements:
00:59:46 – The Everything News Team Podcast is helping to fight cancer.
Music:
“Song For Clay (Disappear Here)”
Bloc Party
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love the music selection. intresting guest speaker…this was a good one
Thank god Sonia was there to speak for the Terry Moore detractors. Solidarity.
If I had a spaceship (and I hope to, some day) I would like Sonia to record the voice for the onboard AI. "Life support systems at 48.7%." Her voice is quite lovely and would probably be comforting during some perilous missions, deep in Romulan territory. Or even just on the On Star system in a Chevy Silverado.
i wish sonia would have said more. i love her posts here and she was a bit silent during the middle bit. perhaps she didn’t read the comics talked about at that point.
also, why don’t brits get angry about ppl doing bad accents? i share a house with a brit and he never gets peeved by ppl doing bad accents. if i were to move to england and have ppl doing bad american accents i would get a little peeved after the fifth time.
overall, i love the podcasts and listen to them while making dinner. i find it makes my food taste better.
@bird – Sonia’s pull list for this week.
It was good to finally hear Sonia’s voice actually. I always enjoyed her articles.
Great show — it’s cool to hear Sonia’s voice. And, while I’m a Terry Moore fan myself, I did appreciate hearing the lone fangirl say, "Who cares about boring relationship stories, let’s have more comics where people get chopped up!" Generalizations are tiresome.
HARRIS VS. RICHARDS 2008 STRANGERS IN PARADISE SLUGFEST!
Loved the addition of Sonia this week. I must have missed the article where she mentioned she was British. I expected her to be a hip New Yorker for some reason. Not that it’s a bad thing she isn’t;)
Who was doing a bad brit accent? My accents have mostly all been vetted by Brits, and the approval is through the roof.
They’re passable.
@Josh- your british accent kind of sounds like Ewan McGregor in the Star Wars prequels to me. Minus the Jedi mullet of course.
Lives, sorry.
whoa… i’m not even gonna get into the many ways in which I disagree with Sonia on SiP. that’s mainly because I’m speechless :O
there has been one bit that really pissed me off in SiP so far, and I mean pissed me off so much that it was difficult for me to continue reading – and it was the bit where Katchoo (the LESBIAN) falls for DAVID and then comes out with the line about how she’s only gay because she’s never met a decent guy (til now).
that almost ruined the whole fucking series for me. it pissed me off that much.
but other than that, I think Terry Moore does a fantastic job of writing those female characters. i saw parts of myself in both Francine and Katchoo at times and that’s part of why I love it so much – being able to identify with some of the actions or some things that were said, or even just the expressions that Terry drew that conveyed the emotions so well. Josh was spot on about how well Terry Moore draws expressions. absolutely incredible.
to me, the book is about friendship and if you only wanna read about superheroes and monsters then that’s not going to interest you no matter how well it’s written.
i had much more of a problem with how BKV portrayed women than Terry Moore.
and sorry to pick on Sonia again (sorry) but… you knew how Dead Space was going to end from the first page of the first issue. i’m really not sure how else this could’ve ended. i mean.. it’s a game prequel… they couldn’t get off the space station, they couldn’t be rescued, there couldn’t be a happy ending.
anyway, i thought it was awesome. not that my name gives it away or anything 😀
one other thing: Josh, your mark millar impression needs a little work :p but yes that was one great big cock.
Yay, my review was picked again!
Sonia is brilliant. Even the books she likes, she doesn’t like. I knew I liked you for a reason!
I’m glad you all mentioned War Heroes’ gigantic wang before I bought it. At the risk of oversimplifying, I feel Mark Millar + gigantic wangs = everything I needed to know.
Somebody showed me a copy of War Heroes. I was more annoyed with how bloody obvious the scene was built just to show the guy’s crank. The guy’s clothing doesn’t even burn away beyond the area around it. Had everything –gear, clothing, hair– been burned off, it’d make more sense. It was just shock for the sake of shock without a care to advancing the story with it and that ticked me off more than anything.
The fact that the guy’s name was "Brick Sh-thouse" was kind of annoying, too.
@Tork: *claps slowly and stares* Oh you will get yours someday….I’m like a tiger, watch out!
Great show as always, and Sonia you were fabulous! Love to hear more from you in the future. I’m getting confused on Robin as well, and I wonder if this story would still be good if RIP wasnt delayed. I mean should Drake be the next Batman if that is the case? Isnt he a bit young to be a scary big man in a bat suit? Hell he kicks ass as Robin, but I dont see him as a powerful figure or a scary one at that.
Oh and Ron giving Uncanny a 5/5 and 4/5 this week….Does anyone else just think we need an intervention with Ron with his X-Men OCD? He needs help, and the doctor is in! 🙂
You don’t usually get guys complaining whenever there are tits for the sake of tits 😉
The giant penis was completely pointless but it made me laugh… mainly because it was completely pointless. It’s almost as though Mark Millar sat down and went "ok, the average comic reader is a 20 something male… what would the average comic reader really not want to see? i know! a penis! an enormous penis! an enormous penis that has no point whatsoever in the story. and i want this monster cock to be shown from 2 angles, again for no reason other than to show off the giant dangling balls from behind. YES! that’s what i shall do. and i will also name the guy Brick Shithouse"
Between this and Kick Ass, this guy obviously doesn’t give a flying fuck. I find that funny.
And of all the comics that were released this week, a big cockshot sure has got a lot of attention. My LCS guy even mentioned it to me as I bought my comics. I find that funny too 🙂
I complain about tits for the sake of tits, but that’s just me. It doesn’t bother when I see wang in Powers or Y or Misery’s fun bags in Sleeper because it’s relevant to the story but it’s just a guy’s wang out of nowhere or seeing bouncing boobs in Ultimates 3 (albeit in shadow) just so Joe Mad could draw it, t’ain’t right.
@TheNextChampion You know, I’ll defend a good Uncanny X-men review because I think the writing on that book has been really excellent. That said, even I thought 4/5 for art Ron said he didn’t like was funny. Ron *wants* to believe.
Wow! Some of the divergence of opinion was very refreshing!
Easily the best guest episode! Nice work, guys!
Another great show! Having Sonia as a guest really "classed up the joint," no disrepect to the ifanboys 🙂 !
I am glad that the subject of Barbara Gordon’s role as Oracle came up. I tend to agree about her current place in the DCU.
no disrespect – but i like my guest hosts named "katers."
Ah, what a nice surprise to find Sonia on this broadcast – great voice, rather Alex Kingston-ish. On the accent issue, I get bored if I’m with Americans and they start on the twang cos a) oh how funny, it’s not like there’s more than one accent in the US and b) they’re usually tin-eared. Josh isn’t too bad though, certainly better than your average James Marsters.
I agree that Sonia might be surprised if she tried the new Captain Britain (recreated, yes, but not actually created by Moore and Davis) book again. Now we’re away from the crossover (and Blade had a great line on that) we’ll see where Cornell and co go. Just seeing a British character who doesn’t live in a medieval hamlet is enough for me (anone else remember ‘Charing Cross’ in Seventies Marvel Two-In One?).
Anyway, jolly good show, chaps!
Goodness, that Sonia gal sure can snark. And we like that. Finally, a voice crush I can really get into.
Wow, and I thought I hated Katchoo…!
I, like Sonia, also saw the cock pencils when Millar and Harris were in SF during their War Heroes tour stop. I was wondering "huh, what issue will that be in?" Well I found out last week.
Fun podcast guys (and gal). Who is telling Ron he’s been replaced?
at the risk of sounding gay; gigantic wangs and mark millar in a book made me want to read it more. I shall hold out til the collected edition.
Thank you for the kind words everyone, it’s a pleasure to be a part of this incredible community. I very much appreciate the opportunity to (finally) talk comics with knowledgable and articulate people.
@bird: Yes, American’s doing terrible British accents is just as annoying as Brits doing US accents.
@scseelig: Thanks for the recommendation, I’ve put The Tunnel at the top of my netflix queue.
@deadspace: I said that I wanted a more unexpected ending. Much more horrible would have worked, but this ending was very much what we’ve seen in so many scifi horror films.
@Mart: I will pick up Captain Britain and take a look. Can’t hurt eh?
"I will pick up Captain Britain and take a look. Can’t hurt eh?"
Or can it…
@jing7wei: at the risk of sounding gay . . .
Oi, nowt wrong with that! 🙂
Nice one sis! English super heroes are wusses… (except Desperate Dan!)
Josh sounds like a proper radio personality… maybe he should think about a full time DJ job!
Re: Fangirl with fanboy problems – I’ve got to disagree with Sonia a bit. It is a problem. I worked in a comic book store in high school – I got the job because a) between myself and my father we bought every book in the store and b) I was able to correct the owner on a random bit of trivia.
I had problems the entire time I worked there with the older male customers not believing that I knew what I was talking about. They usually got over it after the first month or so – but they would still test me. "How many Robins are there?" "Oh, I’m reading Green Lantern – who are all the ones from Earth?" It got really annoying after a while. Because it wasn’t in fun – it was more of ‘oh, you’re a girl are you sure you know this?’ Since comics is something I enjoy a lot, it really can hurt to be constantly treated as an outsider.
And while I’m being chatty – Babs is my favorite and I have to agree – she is way better as Oracle then she ever was as Batgirl.
Good episode. I had no idea that Sharon Osbourne liked comics.
I think Josh does a great impression of John Sinuatris’ (sp?) Mark Millar impression.
Top Notch Show!
I Vote for the guys to use their Teleportation Machine that they wont tell us about, that gets Ron back and forth for the video show and get Sonia to do a video show sometime.
Now now peeps, Firestorm is not on fire – the original look came out of Ronnie’s imagination, as a comics fan, hence the Starlin/Kirby flourishes provided by co-creator Al Milgrom. The fire is an illusion, and when comics show otherwise, they’re getting it wrong. Tut.
And Firestorm can’t turn anything into anything easily – if he tries to alter something organic, there’s painful feedback. Hence, no marshmallow fists.
For the record, that wasn’t a Mark Millar impersonation, because I know it sounds nothing like him. It was a random bad scottish accent.
Yeah, yeah – well you might hide, young fella me lad.
I believe The Lives of Others pulled the upset over Pan’s Labyrinth for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars a couple of years ago.
If this were truly a just and awesome world there would be a comic starring Jesus Venom.
Thank you, Sonia, for giving voice to my un-realized opinion of SIP. I wasn’t all that big a fan of yours up until now, but that scored major points in my book.
That said, I am currently enjoying T. Moore on Runaways and SM loves MJ, so maybe, … maybe I’ll check out Echo.
yea! more sonia please! i’m also glad to heear that i’m not the only one who dislikes terry moore–i don’t get his appeal at all.
if you ever want rotating guests, and need one of your ifanboy gays, i’m your man!
Josh, you do a really good British accent compared to most Americans who try it but don’t use Sonia as a model since…shh…her accent is now 50% American (and you’d sound a bit girly). The 50% that does sound English is also quite posh so maybe her hating upper class English characters is an example of that self-loathing that we English do so well.
I vote for more Sonia too.
I never noticed any US accent but thought there was a spot of the The High Rising Terminal so beloved of young people with too much exposure to Oz-soaps. Whatever, nice voice, with a good brain behind it.
Sonia, did you say you think all women in SIP look alike? I may have misheard.
Bean
Damn, that was refreshing! Hearing a new and agressive voice in the ‘cast was really invigorating. Sonia came up all aces as far as i can tell and the rip on the early Delano Hellblazers was great. Find a way to get her on more please!!
@TheSecondBatgirl: Those customers sound like total douchebags! I’m sorry that you had to put up with that, I have experienced similar situations, and I’m perfectly happy to be rejected by such hostile trainspotters. I really don’t care to spend time with them.
@lobo: It’s true, I sound really american to brits. That’s not so much the 12 years living in america, as it is having grown up with an american mum.
@bean6344: Yes. In the first couple of compilations of SIP, I thought that all of the characters (male and female, old and young) had extremely similar facial structures, button noses, etc. If not for their different hair and clothes, their doll-like faces would have been indistinguishable to me.
Just wonderful to hear a female and English voice on a comics podcast. And with a potty mouth too – perfect!
As for the accent – it seems all English girls in the states absorb some strange phrasing I don’t know about you but Jane Leeves developed quite the strangest accent – but I guess all the Frasier fans assumed that was a true Mancunian accent
oh and another thing – we have had Sonia, Paul and Gordon guesting (and I think I have forgotten another regular – and there were episodes with Augie and Tom K) – do we now have a chance that one day a podcast will be hosted by a legion of substitute fanboys? Or is there an unwritten rule that 2 of the 3 must remain?
Don’t forget Jonathan London. I think I’m the only one who liked that episode.
@ThingsFallApart – I did the Gotham Knight special edition with Jimski and Conor. So there’s been at least one show with guests outnumbering core iFanboys.
@ultimatehoratio – Quite right – how did I forget. I though he was fabulous
@PaulMontgomery – well that’s a precedent set then! But will there be a non-corefanboy episode before #200???
@Sonia
Point taken. I was more focused on body types than faces (sorry, I’m a guy).
You made an off handed remark about Maggie and Hopey that went over Josh’s head. Are you a Jaime fan/ Gilbert fan/ both or neither? I am a pretty fanatical Maggie supporter, so it was nice to hear them get named on the podcast. I think L&R is off their radar. Its funny because I could see both Ron and Josh liking the book for different reason, but I think they may be scared off by the 20 plus years of history.
Bean
@bean6344 – We’ve talked about LOVE & ROCKETS once or twice. I got one of those new compilations – MAGGIE THE MECHANIC – two years ago but didn’t really like it (except fot he art, which was fantastic). I think Ron has the same one.
@ThingFallApart: Don’t forget Mike Romo, the staff writer who did a podcast not so long ago. He is the only acting professional amongst us.
@bean: couldn’t agree more. I ADORE L&R, both Jaime and Gilbert’s work has enthralled me throughout their careers. After the podcast I talked about it with Josh and Conor, but since they’ve only skimmed Maggie the Mechanic, they’re not into it. Personally I think it needs to be read in it’s original context, where you get stories about everyone, and by both brothers, and see the true evolution over time of the characters and their environment.
Whoa, whoa! Not skimmed! I read the whole thing!
@ Sonia,
Its great to have another L&R fan around. Have you read the new issue? I’m waiting for mine from DCBS and getting a little impatient. I have all of the mag size issues, the hardcover "omnibus style" trades and the post magizine size mothlies. I am a bigger fan of the Jamie/Locas stories but appriciate Glibert’s work also. Maybe one day I’ll bore you with the story of my Maggie tatoos.
One of my fanboy highlights was stting in on the L&R panel a few years ago at Megacon and asking Jamie about his descision to portray Maggie as a real woman visually and her change from the Mechanics look to the later (heavy) look.
@Conor
No harm no foul. I understand it’s not your thing and that’s OK. For some reason, I thought L&R would be more up Josh or Ron’s alley. Ultimately, I’m just a bit of a mid 80’s indy snob (Mage, American Flag, TMNT, Love & Rockets, Nexus, etc.). It mirror’s my musical tastes (The Replacements, Dinosaur Jr., Naked Raygun, Mission of Burma,etc.). The great thing about this community is a willingness to try new things and a lack of judgement if other’s views don’t equal yours.
Greatest website ever!
bean
loved the alternative opinions and varied views. Wonderful guest! Keep her in the mix whenever you can!! Disagree with her completely, but love hearing her and yelling at the iPod.
Been a bit behind on the podcasts. Only heard this one last night.
As a fellow Brit I can understand Sonia’s dislike of the general way British characters are often portrayed in comics (And Marvel in particular). If you read those early Captain Britain issues by Claremont, Trimpe and later Gary Friedrich there really is a fundamental lack of understanding over what Britain is like. This kind of carried through to when Claremont was writing Excalibur. I believe in your Paul Cornell interview he described them as being like "a warm hug". He really propagated this daft tea drinking, bowler-hatted, crumpet-eating stereotype. Which considering he was born over here is also pretty odd.
Although I would disagree with you over the Alan Moore/Jamie Delano Captain Britain stories, Sonia. There were some seriously nasty moments in those. Superheroes being slaughtered by a living machine, random tramps mutating in puss-filled monster who can’t communicate that they need help (So get killed under the assumption they mean harm), Captain Britain smashing Slaymaster’s head in with a big rock after he tore his sister’s eyes out. Heck you have an alternate universe Brian trying to rape Psylocke in one issue. Some of them were quite messed up ;D
If you hated the cod Britishness that Excalibur built up I’d seriously give Captain Britain and MI:13 a go. Paul Cornell is trying to break some of that stereotype. And I can’t believe you’ve never heard of Pete Wisdom. If you like Constantine then your sure to find Wisdom a little more balanced a British character for Marvel.