Pick of the Week Podcast
Show Notes
We need to have a talk about flippancy on this week’s podcast as Josh Flanagan is joined by Conor Kilpatrick and Ron Richards for yet another chapter in the ongoing tale of the Pick of the Week Podcast, filled with bias. GO SCREW!
Running Time: 01:00:12
Pick of the Week:
00:01:45 – It was destined to be as Josh picks Fury MAX #3, filled with wartime goodness.
Comics:
00:10:21 – Everyone is a little conflicted over Before Watchmen: Minutemen #1, but that doesn’t take away from the greatness of Darwyn Cooke.
00:17:21 – Ron is getting pretty tired of it all with Avengers Vs. X-Men #5 and Uncanny X-Men #13.
00:21:25 – Controversy aside, Conor loves what’s happening in Earth 2 #2.
00:23:54 – AND Conor is loving the return to the t-shirt in Action Comics #10.
00:25:33 – A close runner up for the pick for Josh was Secret #2.
00:29:58 – The curious case of Creator Owned Heroes #1 is discussed.
00:31:46 – Ron thinks that Jeff Parker is hitting a stride with Dark Avengers #175 and Hulk #35.
00:33:36 – The creativity of Dial H#2 makes this book fun for Conor.
00:35:10 – They may have buried the lead, but the guest artist on Sweet Tooth #34 made Ron happy.
User Reviews:
00:36:36 – The Top 5 Community Picks of the Week.
00:37:16 – ejunkerman is getting his Brubaker itch scratched with Winter Soldier #6.
00:39:40 – dix has got mixed opinions about G.I. Combat #2.
E-Mail:
00:41:15 – Eric from California wants to know what Josh thinks of New 52 Constantine.
00:43:20 – Micah (or Jack) is curious about the change to Green Lantern in Earth 2 and what we think of those type of changes to characters.
Voicemail:
00:47:13 – Drew is wondering about behind the scenes of artists who draw digitally.
00:51:05 – Nathan asks about how we balance our bias in our reviews.
Music:
“Adrenaline Nightshift”
Japandroids
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VERY happy to see Japandroids used as the theme. It’s definitely going to be considered one of the best new releases of the year.
im enjoying the hell out of avx and issues are selling more every month. i totally disagree with ron
Hahaha, love how Ron switched mid sentence from saying ‘my store’ to ‘the store where I shop’. Amazing 😀
The reason Nick Fury doesn’t talk in the second half of the comic is cause he’s been seriously concussed by the explosion. So while what he sees IS horrible, he’s reeling from shell shock.
Correct.
I’d just like to apologize to Josh.
Good to see that I wasn’t the only one who cringed at that Parkour line…
Nope, I cringed at it too!
If look close, you can see Rancid Ninja’s head in a panel. And I have a friend who creates music under Control+Alt+Delete, which made that issue extra fun for me.
“So, you don’t want a fish sandwich?”
Just a quick seconding of props for Japandroids. Gonna see ’em in a couple weeks, can’t wait.
Why no mention of the new Valiant books yet? They’ve been fantastic!
Ron is really depressing me with his views on AvX, plus being melodramatic doesn’t help either. But can he stop buying or reviewing the book then? I’m guessing no, since it’s your show.
So I guess I’m gonna have to fast forward when Ron brings up AvX just like last year with Fear Itself…..
Glad to know Ron enjoys paying for books he doesn’t like, but that’s always been his thing so nothing really changes.
More Topcow talk :p
Of course I don’t mean to depress you – but it’s how I’m feeling while reading it – I’d keep listening though since we’re just about half way and there’s always hope for redemption…
(hug) I know you don’t Ron, and hopefully you’ll come around to the series before it ends. But if ya don’t then life goes on 🙂
Hey Josh thanks for answering my question on the podcast.
It looks weird and defies physics but that AvX double panel with Cap’s shield hanging in the middle is like like that because Cyclops is blasting it back. In the page before he’s throwing the shied at Cyclops. I hope that solves the mystery.
I prefer a review that uses “I.” Makes things much more personal. A review without that or completely without bias would be cold and boring.
As a trade-waiter, I had a lot of “what the fuck” moments during this week’s podcast. The Avengers and X-Men are on the Moon!? What is that series even about?!
The problem I have with using personal identifiers in reviews is that it is redundant. You don’t need to preface your opinion by noting that it is an opinion; it should be understood. It often comes across as rather amateurish and “bloggy.” But I realize that when reviewers don’t do this, it leads to pedantic, circular arguments. So… I’m not sure which is preferable.
And unless you’re a robot, there’s definately going to be some bias so I agree with you there.
This reminds me of something we started talking about a couple of years ago, and still debate:
https://ifanboy.com/articles/what-makes-a-review-matter/
@KrelPlat: I can see what you mean, but I think it can also provide context. For example, starting a review about a comic where robots fight dinosaurs with “I’m a sucker for robots and dinosaurs” allows us to frame the rest of the review with that mindset. A professional review would also be able to see the subject matter objectively, but that “warning” admits some bias. I think I’m going in circles here. Hope I made sense.
@Jimski: Great article. I completely agree. Wish I had been on iFanboy back then to discuss it more at the time.
Re: the need for diversity in comics, one thing that hasn’t been mentioned (to my knowledge) is its impact on the film industry. Since most people get their experience of comics through the movies, the message that’s being sent to the larger audience is that superheroes are white men. Sometimes wealthy. Frequently super-intelligent.
They get that message because it’s a true thing.
But it shouldn’t necessarily be.
Star Trek had a pretty great effect on some people by having a multi-cultural crew in space, when the mindset at the time was “That’s so unrealistic.” Nowadays, we’re kind of over it. Media has the opportunity to show the world as it should be versus how it currently is. Of course, there’s a time and a place for that sort of thing. But these are superhero titles we’re talking about. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt, in many cases, to have more diverse ensembles.
OK, I’ll be registering shortly, but I had to say, Josh, I understand what you’re saying about British writers writing Constantine, but one of the most noteworthy writers of HELLBLAZER was Garth Ennis. And he’s not English, he’s Irish. And Grant Morrison is Scottish. The reference to all UK writers in that Anglo-centric way is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Just wanted to say :p.
England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales are all part of Great Britain. The UK is four countries, so technically both Ennis and Morrison are British.
Bingo. And writers from the UK are still going to have a better handle than *most* Americans, because they are actually around those different accents, both in real life and in media. I could write Americans better from different parts of my country than most people in other countries could. It’s cultural.
And I’ve had British friends come at me for exactly the opposite reason, where I wasn’t considering Scots British. Y’all need to make up your mind. They’re both pedantic arguments.
Maybe, but if you were to say that to someone who was Irish or Scottish, you might get a negative answer (or, in the case of some people I’ve heard, a punch in the face). If you went up to a Scotchman or and Irishman or a Welshman and asked them, they probably wouldn’t identify themselves as “English.” There may be some who would, but I think you’d find a fair few who’d be pretty adamant that they weren’t!
In my experience , that would be “all” of them! And you make a good point.
“English” is not the same as “British”, as I understand it.
English means ‘from England’ (one of four countries that make up Britain). British means ”from Britain’ (a collection of four countries.)
You’ll never find a Scotsman (or, presumably, Irishman or Welshman) who identifies themself as “English”, but many will say they are British.
It can get pedantic (there’s certainly a lot of Scotland/England rivalry in Glasgow, where I live,) but them’s the facts. I imagine it’s like Canadians – they are North American (as in the continent,) but I’ve seen some take offense to being lumped in with America.
People keeping using the Star Wars analogy, but so far, Before Watchmen reminds me more of the Godfather Part III. If you consider that movie by itself, it’s not a terrible film. There’s nothing there to make it great, but it does have some good qualities. The problem is, at least in my opinion, that it’s the third part of a trilogy whose two previous films are justly considered some of the greatest films of all time. So the third film is considered terrible. Minutemen #1 is probably a better comic than Godfather III is a movie. On it’s own terms it’s a really great book. But you can’t help yourself from thinking about the original work it’s building upon. I admire the writers for having the guys to try. It would be like someone comissioning a prequel to Animal Farm.
I didn’t read Action Comics #10 as having any time jumps. I thought the issue took place some place after the first arc of Justice League, where Superman still alternates between the ‘on the go’ shirt and jean look, and the battle suit as a formal wear, for his fancy meetings and what-not.
Oh, and Japandroids!!!
Godfather III is a terrible film every single way you look at it. Truly.
i won’t acknowledge that they made more than 2 Godfather movies…nothing more than a slanderous rumor. and neither does AMC whenever they show that remixed “Godfather Saga” on holiday weekends.
C’mon, the helicopter scene was cool. And some of the stuff with the Vatican was interesting… a guy got stabbed with his glasses! Let me clarify that I’m not saying Godfather III is good. I’m saying that it’s unremarkable. But if it wasn’t called Godfather III, it would be remembered like any other post Zoetrop mediocre Coppola movie.
Also that movie gets remembered more fondly if Julia Roberts or Winona Ryder hadn’t dropped out of the Mary Corleone role.
“Phoenix Force Five”. I think I saw that anime.
Sounds like the thing from Pulp Fiction.
That may be, but I personally have known more than a few Scots and Irishman, including family members, who’ve been upset at being mistaken for Brits. My grandfather was off the boat, and he got into his share of fights about it :p. Some of which got him into trouble. It obviously depends on who you ask, but I just thought I’d throw in 2c. It’s much more likely to find a British person who considers the rest of the UK as “British” than the people actually from the respective regions, in my experience (especially given the many documented conflicts between the English and the Scottish/Irish). I’m biased, of course, I’m a whitebread American boy who’s name is O’Connor, but it’s in the family and I’ve heard tales, so beware who you say it to, I’ve offended more than a few people that way. Like I said, maybe it’s just a pet peeve of mine because of my last name :D.
I’m of Irish heritage as well, and I get why a person from Scotland, Wales, and especially Ireland would not wish to be identified primarily as British, it’s a bit silly to make an issue of it. I know the Republic of Ireland objects to the usage, but the islands have been referred to as the British Isles since at least the time of Alexander the Great. It’s only since the association of the term Britain with the United Kingdom that the term became even conceivably objectionable. The whole controversy is a dangerous mixture of politics, nationalism and semantics. I don’t think anyone is trying to show support for Oliver Cromwell by referring to Garth Ennis as British. Thus it’s kind of like objecting over calling a French writer European or a Canadian writer a North American.
Josh and Jim are not the only two people who are unlikely to ever get over The Rawhide Kid.
Say, do you guys have an actual forum proper or just this spool under the articles?
We have no forum.