May 31, 2009

ABC Podcast, Episode #48 and visual aids

This episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by a special EXCLUSIVE sneak preview of a special upcoming Marvel special Noir special event, and also a shout-out to Iowa Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge. Abnett and Lanning give Aaron a double cosmic nerdgasm, while Joe Kelly continues his inexplicable killer tear by jumping on Amazing Spider-Man, because why the hell not. You'll never guess which new creator team RUNS AWAY with with the gold. Sigh, is it June already?

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Cover(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from Runaways #10, cover by David Lafuente and Christina Strain:


Aaron's pick, from Unknown Soldier #8, cover by Dave Johnson:

Panel(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Amazing Spider-Man #595, by Joe Kelly and Phil Jimenez:


Evie's pick, from Amazing Spider-Man #595 by Joe Kelly and Phil Jimenez:

May 29, 2009

Dream On

This weekend is Book Expo America in New York, which is the largest book publishing trade show in the country—authors, publishers, retailers, librarians, and anyone tangentially interested in those things (such as, according to the program guide, the Embassy of Oman?), are gathering at the Javits convention center to talk and breakfast and panelize and exchange free shit, and it’s not open to the public, which makes it kind of like Comic Con with fewer giant cardboard cutouts and less Swine Flu.

There’s quite a bit of graphic novel-related activity going on there, as rounded up by Calvin and Heidi at Publishers Weekly, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund had a very lovely party last night, which I went to after covering the BEA keynote—a discussion between music/sports writer/novelist Chuck Klosterman and E-Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons, followed by a discussion between Klosterman and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler. Both musicians have autobiographies coming out in October, which is why they were speaking at BEA, and the convention had the bright idea to rock the place up a bit, and it was all very entertaining, except for the part where convention attendees rushed the stage when Tyler came out as if they were freaking FOURTEEN YEARS OLD and wouldn’t sit down even though this was a BOOK CONVENTION DISCUSSION and not an arena show. It was embarrassing. But then Tyler talked about orgasms and the cosmos and how white people clap on the ones and the threes, and 85 percent of the idiots who had rushed the stage were thinking “what does he even mean by that,” so the karma all worked out in the end.

Anyway, after the CBDLF party, I ended up at dinner at an Irish bar/restaurant (lots of U2 on the jukebox, mates!) with a whole pile of comics folk, including Image marketing chief Joe Keatinge, the Beat’s Heidi MacDonald, Top Cow’s Filip Sablik, Marvel assistant editor Alejandro Arbona, Archaia’s Mark Smylie, Stephen Christy and Mel Caylo, Marvel Noir artist extraordinaire Dennis Calero and his wife Kristin Sorra, Entertainment Weekly’s Marc Bernardin, artist Nikki Cook, and others that were either sitting too far away or whose names I didn't catch accurately enough to put here in good conscience, many apologies. Mel apparently uploaded this photo and others here to CBR, right then and there, because of technology—you can’t really see them, but it does look like we were telling ghost stories or something, which is always an impression I’m happy to leave.

May 24, 2009

ABC Podcast, Episode #47 and visual aids

This episode of Awesomed By Comics was brought to you by broccoli, virile alpha king of the cruciferous kingdom. In this indie-heavy week, Four Eyes, Gigantic and Garth Ennis's new shagfest Herogasm shine, while Jeff Parker takes home both top prizes with Mysterius the Unknown and Agents of Atlas. We follow our Star Trek viewing with a trip to Stop & Shop, whose new DIY scan-as-you-shop price guns bring whole new levels to "set your phaser on-" joke potential.

Download/subscribe to the show in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

Cover(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Gigantic #4, cover by Eric Nguyen:


Evie's pick, from The Great Unknown #2, cover by Duncan Rouleau:

Panel(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from Tiny Titans #16 by Baltazar and Franco:

Aaron's picks, from Agents of Atlas #5 by Jeff Parker and Carlo Pagulayan, and from Punisher #5 by Rick Remender and Jerome Opena:



May 21, 2009

Wherefore art thou??


I'm guessing that a decent fraction of you folks are fans of Lost, yes? Seeing as so many comics creators are involved and such. I did a slightly insane thing, which was start to watch the show this season without ever having seen it in the past nor Netflixing past episodes to catch up, a feat that many said was foolish in the extreme. But the thing is, while everyone else has six trillion loose ends that they're frantically killing themselves to tie up, I have, like, eleven. So it's just lovely.

Anyway, that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is to let you know that after the finale last week when (SPOILER) Dr. Juliet heroically fell to her doom and then carried out Daniel's dying deed by banging on the H-bomb core with a rock in hopes of undoing the entirety of this nasty business (I'M SO SURE IT WILL ALL WORK, RIGHT), my dear friend Jessica has taken up the cause of Juliet fans everywhere by opening this Cafe Press store.

I know that not everyone is Juliet's bitch the way that Jess and I am, but look at the name-takin' stud she turned Sawyer into, and compared to Kate she's the empress of the universe. And then there's always this. So show your Juliet love and add to Jessica's son Henry's college fund, or whatever. Henry is really, really cute.

May 18, 2009

ABC Podcast Episode #46 and visual aids

This episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by Talking Backwards, s'taht thgir, sdrawkcaB gniklaT, tsuj ekil annataZ seod. Vertigo introduces a Mugglerific new series, Dracula does a doozy on MI13, and X-Factor by Peter David has some long-awaited kissing (also, we hear that Peter David likes to know when podcasts discuss books by Peter David, so we thought we'd make sure to give Peter David a googleable heads-up). Finally, Gail Simone's Secret Six once again OWNS EVERYTHING, because shut up.

Download/subscribe to the show in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

Cover(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from X-Factor #43 (by Peter David), cover by David Yardin with Nathan Fairbairn:


Aaron's pick, from The Unwritten #1, cover by Peter Gross:


Panel(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Ultimate Spider-Man #132, by Brian Bendis and Stuart Immonen:


Evie's pick, from Booster Gold #20 by Keith Giffen and Pat Olliffe:

May 17, 2009

May is for losers

Yeah yeah yeah, you've heard it all before--I had 8-hour trainings all day yesterday and today, so we just finished the podcast, and now there will be passing out on nighttime cold medicine, so it will be edited and posted tomorrow. But you know I'm good for it.

May 10, 2009

ABC Podcast Episode #45 and visual aids

This episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by photos of local singles who are looking for you, they sure are! Tons of stuff this week, from cosmic warring to divine magic to Brechtian thrills to animals in lingerie. The flatness of Barry Allen's return is made up for by the debut of a new Power Girl series (TA-DOW), and we learn we're not quite nerdy enough for some comic book humor but that's what the googles are for.

Download/subscribe to the show in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

Cover(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Fin Fang Four Return, cover by Roger Langridge:


Evie's pick, from Seaguy #2, cover by Cameron Stewart:

Panel(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from Astro City the Dark Age, Book 3 #1, by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson (click to enlarge):


Aaron's pick, from Deadpool #10 by Daniel Way and Paco Medina:

May 5, 2009

Comic Relics of Yore and Stuff

Last weekend, we made a semi-spontaneous trip to Baltimore to see an Orioles game (they blew it in the ninth, naturally) and visit the Geppi Entertainment Museum next to Camden Yards, which, if you haven't visited, is well worth the $1 game-day admission price (and even worth the $10 on non-game days, if you're in the geek-out zone). It is a veritable children's treasury of comics paraphernalia and WTF delights, so I thought I'd share a few faves in picture format. Do enjoy:

The comics room. Overheard here, by a dad to his toddler son in front of the early issues of Action: "That comic is worth more than your organs!"

So it HAS been done before! Presidential Material 1.0!


And, uh... yeah.

As if there isn't enough grit in Hell's Kitchen.

If I could own any classic #1, it might be this one.


Yeah, that's right Bendis. This is where the first issue of Powers goes in a museum. Deal.

This cover improves my mood every. Single. Time. I. See. It.

Ooo, win my own pony!! Wait what the hell is that?

Guns. For Pez. PEZ GUNS.


Superman, in the pocket of Big Wheat.


GAAAAAHHH! DO NOT WANT.


Funny, this was the theme of my 16th birthday party.


.........


Ok, so there was this amazing display of Barbies in evening gowns, and I have to admit I was kind of in awe and drooling a little at all the pretty pretty dolls in their dresses. And then there was this, one of the limited editions celebrating Barbie's 50th. I want you to just look hard at this, and think about it for a few minutes, until you can't think about it any more.

May 4, 2009

ABC Podcast Episode #44 and EXTRA SWEET visual aids

This episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by why isn't the &%**$@# working again, and also Tide. Nova shines, Doom earns his douche doctorate, and a cheesy (literally! wocka wocka wocka) new issue of Muppet Show warms our hearts. Bonus discussion about the Wolverine movie, because duh. Spoilers: SNIKT, 'Bub'.

Download/subscribe to the show in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

So before we get into the Of the Weeks, I needed to share this, which we were given at our showing of the Wolverine on Saturday, so that we might provide our feedback to the filmmakers, or some such (click to enlarge):

Awwww yeeeaaahhhh. Anyway.

Cover(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from Muppet Show #2, cover (and everything else) by Roger Landridge:


Aaron's pick, from Bird Hurdler, cover by Andrice Arp:

Panel(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Nova #24 by Abnett & Lanning and Andrea Divito:


Evie's pick, from Muppet Show #2 by Roger Landridge:

Ep. 44 ok!

Episode #44 will be up in the right sidebar shortly, or is here... will get to the visual aids and some other fun stuff tonight, but at least you have the mp3. Thank you for your patience, your listening is very important to us!

Just a sec!

I swear this is not turning into a thing. The podcast is done, but we couldn't record it until like 10pm because I had all-day trainings yesterday and today, so Aaron is editing it tonight and maybe some tomorrow morning. He is also perpetrating some crimes against music, but I'd rather not discuss it, you'll know soon enough. Anyway, don't freak out.

May 1, 2009

Imperius Text

I promise a real post before I die, but for the moment I just wanted to let you know that Prince Namor has started microblogging from the deep, so if you have a Twitter feed, you really need to start following @NamorSubMariner immediately.