Pick of the Week Podcast
Show Notes
It’s a post-Thanksgiving celebration, as Conor Kilpatrick and Ron Richards are joined by Ron’s sister’s dog. Who knows where Josh Flanagan is. If you hear from him, can you tell him to call us? We’re thankful for comics and excited for the holidays despite Josh going missing.
Running Time: 01:03:47
Pick of the Week:
00:02:00 – Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #9
Comics:
00:10:46 – A.D.: After Death, Book One
00:15:30 – Death of X #4
00:22:08 – Civil War II #7
00:24:53 – Captain Marvel #10
00:28:08 – The Ultimates 2 #1
00:34:08 – Chew #60
00:35:05 – The Flash #11
00:36:39 – Empress #7
00:37:38 – Cage! #2
00:38:42 – Six Pack and Dog Welder: Hard Travelin’ Heroez #4
Star Wars Corner:
00:40:55 – Star Wars: Han Solo #5
00:41:55 – Star Wars #25
Patrons’ Choice:
00:42:40 – Super Powers #1
Patron Thanks:
00:46:34 – Terrence Ferguson
00:47:47 – Shawn Patton
00:48:47 – Alex Howard
00:49:31 – Andrew Marshall
Audience Question:
00:52:49 – Brian K. from Minneapolis, MN is getting frustrated with Black Mask Studios.
Brought To You By:
• Harry’s – Get a limited edition holiday shave set while supplies last, Free shipping ends on December 9th, so ACT NOW. Go to Harrys.com enter code iFANBOY at checkout for $5 off. That’s Harrys.com, code iFANBOY
• iFanboy Patrons – Become one today for as little as $3/month! Or make a one time donation of any amount!
Music:
“Christmas Time is Here”
Au Revoir Simone
Subscribe
Get Involved
Doing the podcast is fun and all, but let's be honest, listening to the 2 of us talk to each other can get repetitive, so we look to you, the iFanboy listeners to participate in the podcast! "How can I get in on the fun?" you may ask yourself, well here's how:
- E-Mail us at contact@ifanboy.com with any questions, comments or anything that may be on your mind.
Please don't forget to leave your name and where you're writing from and each week, we'll pick the best e-mails to include on the podcast!
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Some rights reserved.
Thanks for the two Jamokes show in the middle of the holiday, guys.
Regarding the F-Sharp Bell Green Lantern, he is another one of Alan Moores’s ideas introduced in a short story that endures to this day.
Here’s some info on him:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Green_Lanterns#Rot_Lop_Fan
Interesting. I wonder if there’ll be more of him in the future.
He was a fun addition to the story. 🙂
Yes! I remember reading this story in a GL Annual when I was a kid. It is such a great little story that I have not forgotten it. The central question is how does one explain the GL corps (which is based upon a metaphor of light and lanterns) to a species that doesn’t see and doesn’t understand light. It is really classic.
Great podcast as usual, and great pick of the week with Hal/Green Lanterns. Oh and yes, I’m really really digging the art by Rafa Sandoval. Right now both Green Lantern books are great reads, and I don’t think I can ask for anything more 🙂
As for Marvel and its events… well, let’s just say the fact that the editors at Marvel Comics picked the golden age of Marvel branding in general to wipe-out its most popular line of characters will forever remain baffling. And we’re not just talking Cyclops and the X-Men, but others including Bruce Banner, Tony Stark etc… (even Steve Rogers/Captain America and Thor amongst others).
How they’re choosing not to capitalize on characters who are immensely popular at this moment in time is just so illogical. They’ve got movies generating half a billion dollars at a minimum each, they’ve got a mobile app (Contest of Champions) which brought in $200 million in one year. A mobile app!… And now as I type this even a mere rumor mentioning a possible Marvel vs Capcom 4 title is generating enough buzz to blow up gaming sites around the net.
Again, the name Marvel is an immensely popular brand… and yet the comic books are kind of the weak link in this bigger picture. /sigh
Anyway, despite misgivings, I’m still holding out hope for the ResurreXion series reviving some of my interest in Marvel sometime in 2017. Maybe they can’t retcon the last 5 unfortunate years of X-history, but I guess there’s a glimmer of hope attitudes at Marvel may be changing due to recent news of dealings with Fox.
I remain… cautiously optimistic.
That said, keep the great holiday episodes coming.
1) They’ll all be back, most likely in time for the Avengers movie in 2018.
2) Converse theory: Marvel looked at the numbers and, despite the mass popularity of their brand in other media, the comics numbers weren’t moving. So, why be so worried about the comic image lining up with the movie image? Despite having recognizable characters in the books, it didn’t seem like moviegoers were migrating to print. Why bother, then?
3) As I’ve said before, Marvel always does best when it’s hungry and desperate. It isn’t hungry and desperate anymore, and for the foreseeable future it won’t be. Uncle Walt’s coffers don’t even notice the minuscule revenue that the print division adds, the movies and TV shows are financially and (mostly) critically successful, so there’s no motivation to go for broke, except for the lower tier books that no one’s looking at.
DC has the inverse scenario. TV is going well, but the movies are failing. The comics are the only saving grace, and they were noticeably falling, so again, go for broke and don’t care about the fallout. So far, it’s working.
@BC1: I agree with most of what you stated. Good assessment.
The only dissent I have is that I think DC actually ‘went for broke’ and did whatever it wished during the era of the New 52. And now the comics have come back home and gone back to catering vigorously to fan service.
Inversely, Marvel ‘went for broke’ during the 2000s, especially the mid-to-late 2000s when the Ultimate Universe was running concurrently to 616… and Marvel cosmic saw a tremendous revival.
Now, it appears they’re mostly catering to laying some groundwork to potential cinematic titles 5-10 years down the line while completely ignoring the will and/or misgivings of its longtime fans.
The only concern I have is that Marvel’s current cinematic era owes a lot to those eras where Marvel both went for broke and was catering heavily to its fans. I wonder what people will think when it comes time for this new/current era of Marvel to make it to the big screen.
Anyway, in terms of Marvel, I mostly care about the X-titles overall at this point. I still hold out hope that ResurreXion will cater to fan service. Please, Marvel editors, don’t fail me now, haha.
And… like I said, I remain optimistic despite everything.
Iron Man – a teenage black girl Tony Stark dead
Hulk- Asian teenage male – Bruce Banner dead
Thor- a woman The actual Thor by name is ‘unworthy’
Steve Rogers is a nazi now.
Cyclops is – well we know….
If you are a white male in the marvel universe you are either a villain or a giant fuck up that needs to be replaced by a ‘diversity’ character that is smarter(Moon Girl is the smartest character in the Marvel Universe now- Axel Alonzo at least will tell you that Every chance he gets) or more worthy-literally.
It’s obvious and thirsty and it’s compromising Marvel as a whole.
Do I want diversity – Absolutely.
But not like this. Not by this editorial design.
Give me-
Black Panther- Luke Cage- Miles Morales- Kamalah Khan- Captain Marvel(before civil war II)
Do it organically and empower these characters to stand on their own.
I don’t think this era of Marvel creators is capable of creating a Black Panther, a Storm, a Blade, or a Luke Cage.
I’m not even sure if they’re interested in actually making epic characters. I feel like most of the design for new characters focuses heavily on imagining people cosplaying at conventions rather conceiving characters larger than life.
And so it goes with the mantle-piece football game currently going on. Right now it’s Iron Man’s turn to get fragmented.
Only a matter of time before we have re-imagined Daredevils and Punishers (two popular characters off the top of my head who have yet to have their mantles passed on or expanded to half a dozen characters like Spider-Man or Wolverine).
I think it’s less that this generation of creators isn’t capable of coming up with epic characters, more that those characters tend to get saved for their indie efforts. And I honestly can’t blame them. If I’m choosing between pouring my heart and soul into personal characters that a Corporation is going to make money off of and I don’t get a dime beyond a page rate or I use them to tell my own stories in an independent work, that’s an easy choice.
My big fear for the Han Solo film is that they will try to make him into a great pilot.
Part of the core of Han’s character is that you don’t really know if he actually IS or IS NOT a great pilot. HE says he is. But he’s full of ego and bravado. He’s rarely right about things, so I feel like fans have done a disservice to the story by taking him at his word that the Millenium Falcon really IS a great ship and he really IS a great pilot. I think it’s much more interesting if they both fail and succeed in equal measure.
Hi Jamokes. This was an entertaining episode as usual. I want to add some thoughts with respect to Brian K’s question regarding Black Mask.
There are certain Image creators who currently have erratic publication dates for their books:
Kelly Sue Deconnick – Pretty Deadly and Bitch Planet
Jason Aaron/R.M. Guera – The Goddamned
Matt Fraction – Sex Criminals and ODY-C
I was surprised when the recent issue for The Goddamned dropped because I had forgotten that it was even being published. This really kills both momentum and interest in a book. There are too many quality books on the shelves that come out regularly to really care about books that ship irregularly.
I wonder about the Aaron/Guera team particularly. They did not have problems maintaining a regular publication schedule with Scalped, but The Goddamned comes out once in a blue moon. I wonder if the fact that Vertigo had editorial oversight enabled the book to come out more regularly because an editor was managing the schedules. At Image most creators are left to their own devices. There might be an argument to be made that creator owned comics can benefit from having a third party ensuring that publication dates are met. It certainly would benefit the readers. I have dropped off a number of the Image titles that I listed above because of the erratic publication schedules.
It is the Aaron/Guera team up that interests me
Speaking of great titles that stop mid-stream…Can we pour one out for long lost Orcstain?
While it’s certainly possible that editorial oversight plays some role, I think that more likely the reason that THE GODDAMNED does not come out on schedule like SCALPED is economic.
At Vertigo, the creative team gets paid a page rate just like any creator on a Big Two book. So there is monthly income that is generated, even before the book hits the stands. At Image, all of the work is done on spec and the creators don’t make any money until the book is sold to stores, if they make any money at all. That would mean, I would guess, that paying work will sometimes take priority over non-paying work, causing the non-paying work to come out erratically.
But who knows, there could be all kinds of reasons why a book does not come out on a regular basis.
Point Break quotes:
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0012025/quotes