Podcast - Episode 34: An R-rated Batman vs. Superman Movie? Really?

Mere days after Dave and I said that the success of Deadpool would lead to a tidal wave of R-rated superhero movies, Warner Brothers Studios announced that there will be an R-rated cut of Batman vs Superman: The Dawn of Justice for Blu-Ray and such. Seriously. Superman and Batman. R-rated.

So we have a few things to say about that.

This was the first week recording with our fancy new mics and mixing board and, yes, I need to turn Dave's mic up more next week and turn my own mic down. Will do!

We talk a bit about Hail, Caesar! this week because I finally got to see it. I specifically talk about Alden Ehrenreich and how I am now in love with him. Look at this beautiful thing:

Siiiiiiiiigh.

Anyway, great movie.

If you want to read Jennifer Garner's awesome Ben Affleck shade, the Vanity Fair article is here.

And, hey, speaking of Daredevil (?), here is the latest (as of today) trailer that we discuss on this episode:

I forgot to mention this on the podcast, but I was a guest this month on Sean Jordan's Weekend at Burgie's podcast, and it was released this past week. You can listen to that here.

Here are those Paul Renaud preview pages that show the return of young, sexy Steve Rogers. Check it out:

Daaaaaaamn. That's some sexy Steve. A whole pile of hot Captain Americas, really.

Ok, well. Enjoy the episode. Thanks for listening, as always. Follow us on Instagram!

Podcast - Episode 29: The X-Files!!!

Holy smokes, guys! The X-Files is coming back this week! We had to have superfan Hillary Titley (the Scully to Dave's Mulder), on the show to gush for awhile. So this episode ended up being pretty long. Twice as long as a regular episode, actually. And I think Dave says, like, five words.

Here is our guest, Hillary, holding the framed, signed oh-so-90s David Duchovny photo that we mention:

I was going to post a link to the Civil War panel video but I realized that I included it in last week's post. Hmmm. Well, we can look at some pictures of Chris Evans in a tux at the Golden Globes instead:

Oh knock it off, Christopher.

And here is Sebastian Stan at an afterparty, all safe and happy and sockless:

Did they coordinate their navy tuxedos? We can only guess! (Yes. Of course they did).

It's a long episode, guys. You don't have time to read stuff. I'm done.

Podcast - Episode 21: Outsider Comic Writers

I love that review quote on the cover. So much.

So Max Landis wrote a Superman comic last week, and to, um celebrate(?) we decided to talk a bit about "outsiders" who try their hand at writing comics. Actors, musicians, directors, television writers, wrestlers, authors and more!

Still getting the hang of the new mics, but I think we're sounding better. You'll notice the sound gets better after the first couple of minutes (when we start talking about Supergirl) because we paused to fix some of the settings. Now I just have to remember to stay on the mic and we should be good!

It was a REALLY slow week for news, but a big week for comics. There was no Winter Soldier news to speak of, but that doesn't mean I didn't fill a few minutes with Bucky Barnes babbling.

Here's Chris Pine looking all hot as Steve Trevor:

I love me some Pine.

When we were talking about All New All Different Avengers #1 I voiced my concern about Sam Wilson hurling his shield through a car full of passengers. Here is what I was talking about:

And I also mention that Clint and Kate look a whole lot older than 'twenty years later' in Hawkeye #1:

When we are talking about Joss Whedon's run on Runaways, Dave and I both recall our favourite moment, when Molly punched The Punisher in the stomach (or nuts, if you like). Here are the panels:

We forgot to mention this on the podcast, but the comic Dave drew, The Last Paper Route, is now available to buy digitally on Comixology. Check it out!

I honestly can't think of much to write this week. Hopefully next week will be a more exciting comic news week. At least we'll have Jessica Jones to talk about! Thanks for listening! iTunes reviews are appreciated!

Podcast - Episode 19: Supergirl!

Ok, here's the thing, guys. We took a big risk and recorded this episode on Halloween and now it's haunted by ghosts! Ghosts that put a terrible static noise in the background of the entire episode!

We tried to fix it, couldn't, and instead we cut out the worst part, which means some of the 'news' section and all of the weekly comic reviews are gone. We pick it back up at This Week in Winter Soldier, where you will notice the static noise is still pretty bad. It does get better as the episode goes on. We didn't want to scrap the whole episode, but we do apologize for this sound problem. The good news is that we have purchased two brand new directional microphones so this podcast should start sounding a lot more professional soon!

I am going to write out some of the highlights of what was cut, because you don't want to miss any of our sublime off-the-cuff ramblings:

First we talk about the possibility that the Ben Affleck Batman movie, if it even gets made, is going to be a Red Hood movie. So I point out that they just want to make a Winter Soldier movie. Dave admits that he liked a lot of the Judd Winick Red Hood stuff. I concur.

Then we talk about Michael Cho's stunning Marvel variant covers that he's doing for February, 2016. You can see some of them here.

Then I mention that Chris Hemsworth has been crushing it on Instagram and Twitter lately. Even though he needs to not post picture of horrifying spiders. 

We also talk about Cullen Bunn deciding to leave Aquaman, seemingly because he was tired of haters on Twitter. That leads to me offering to write Aquaman, which would involve a lot of shirtless underwater push-ups. Dave gives props to writers like Peter David who take on challenging, potentially boring characters and do crazy things with them. I give a legit pitch for an all-ages book where Arthur is young and is just taking over the throne and is maybe romancing Mera and is talking to sea creatures and is cute as hell.

Then we talk about the comics we read this week. Dave read the Hellboy & BPRD 1953 Phantom Hand & Kelpie (is that seriously what it's called?) and liked it and we get into a thing where we both admit to really liking Hellboy, but neither of us are reading the current series. Even though we know it's a really great comic. Very weird.

We both really liked Captain America Sam Wilson #2 and I think it's very sexy.

I read Squirrel Girl #1 and I love it and I love the addition of Brain Drain to the team. I really love them dressing Brain Drain in human clothes to disguise him. This is Brain Drain, by the way:

I also mention that an issue of Squirrel Girl takes me a good thirty minutes to read, which is nice for a change. You guys miss out of hearing me struggle to say 'Squirrel Girl' a lot.

Dave liked Black Magick #1 and praises Nicola Scott's art. I forgot to pick that one up.

And that brings us to This Week in Winter Soldier, which we left in the podcast in its entirety even though the sound is a little rough. It's just a really important edition because I actually watched that movie this week. For more of our thoughts on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, you can check out this post from earlier this year.

I think I should throw in a sexy gif here:

There we go!

The theme this week is Supergirl! We talk about the pilot episode of the new CBS series, and then we get into our favourite Supergirl comics. I am personally a big fan of Kara Zor-el so I really enjoyed this topic.

I mention some specific issues and series. I have written quite a bit about Supergirl on this blog in past years, and I reference a few of them in this episode. Here are some links:

The Supergirl From Krypton Meets Her Asshole Cousin

Supergirl Plays Cupid

New and Improved Supergirl!

An Open Letter in Response to DC Nation #45

Supergirl is (Finally) Awesome!

Interview with Sterling Gates (2009)

And as for that famous panel where Superman is explaining to Supergirl that, sadly, cousin-marriage is not allowed on Krypton, it's from Action Comics #289 (Superman's Super-Courtship!), which is not the comic I was talking about. But it IS awesome.

I love that Superman slips that little fact in there that it is legal to marry your cousin in some countries on Earth. Just testing the waters. I mean, we could move to one of those countries if you really wanted...

There is still the small matter of her being FIFTEEN YEARS OLD.

Yes...how strange, Supergirl.

The comic I was talking about was Action Comics #260, and I wrote a bit about it way back in 2006 here.

You can check out Dave's weekly Supergirl recaps on the Global TV site here.

So that about wraps it up. I love Supergirl.

Sorry again for the lousy sound quality on this episode. Next week's will sound amazing. Promise.

Podcast - Episode 14: Let's Settle This

Last week on the podcast I had the pleasure of getting Dave all angry when I suggested that Batman should maybe just kill the Joker. That got us thinking about other arguments and conversations that we never want to have again. So that's what the topic is this week. Yeah, it's a weird one, but it ends with Dave and I getting into a fight over Batman: Year Two. You don't want to miss that.

First we talk about some of the announcements that Marvel made about new or renewed ongoing series for 2016. We talk about Wesley Snipes' depressing campaign to make Blade 4 a thing. We talk about the study that showed that 53% of comic book readers are female. AND I finally got to talk about the shocking and delightful true origin of Red Skull. He was almost called HOT FUDGE, you guys! He was almost ICE CREAM-based!!!

Here are those concept sketches I did. I'm a very good artist:

Man, I wish Joe Simon had never noticed that cherry.

We also reveal the name I came up with for Jeremy Renner's possible secret album that he is maybe working on. And Dave made some great artwork. I couldn't choose one so here are all three.

I can't decide. Maybe number three? They all have a great Eddie Money vibe. I'm glad Dave did this because it saved me having to Google image search Jeremy Renner.

I pronounced Ta-Nahisi Coate's name incorrectly. It's actually Ta-Na-HAH-SI. I am trying a new thing, though, where I just give my best attempt at pronouncing names instead of being like "I don't know how to pronounce this!" because I have a weird name and I know what it's like to have people look at it and say "I'm not even gonna TRY with this one!" I hope I'm pronouncing Alti Firmasyah's name right. Honestly, I hope I'm saying Jeff Lemire's name right.

Dave wasn't lying about that Blade television series. 2006 on the Spike network, and it did indeed star Onyx's Sticky Fingaz! I don't know how I missed out on this whole thing. You can read about it here. Geoff Johns was one of the writers! It actually looks pretty fun. Sticky Fingaz looks great! You can watch the first part of the first episode here.

It wouldn't be a podcast blog post without Sebastian Stan content! Here is where you can watch his entire panel from Salt Lake Comic Con:

I do recommend searching Tumblr for all the fan photo op pictures with Sebastian Stan and/or Chris Evans. A lot of lucky people got to pay money to lay their hands on those men.

Oh, and since I was talking about 1872 this week, here's a cool fan thing someone made about 1872 Natasha and Bucky. It was reblogged on Tumblr by 1872 artist, Nik Virella:

If you are interested in reading my 2009 rant defending Wonder Woman, you can find it here. Nothing makes me angrier faster than someone saying that Wonder Woman is lame. You made an enemy for life, Megan Fox.

Here's the thing, guys. Dave is wrong about Batman: Year Two. It sucks. I put forward a very compelling argument against it way back in 2006. I guess that's what I was doing instead of watching the Blade tv series.

Haha! She who controls the blog gets the last word on Batman: Year Two! Eat it, Dave! Eat it forever!

Just kidding Dave. Please don't draw The Reaper in my sketchbook.

Oh and hey, guess what? It looks like next week's episode WILL be the Age of Ultron one after all! Our good friend Tiina Johns will be joining us! We're gonna eat pizza, drink beer, watch the movie, and record the episode immediately after! It will be awesome!

Kitchen Nightmares

You know what? Every comic book blog is going to be talking about Guardians of the Galaxy today (sentences I never thought I would write, say, four years ago), so I am going to go in a different direction and talk about something important.

My two great loves in life are super heroes and food. I like my kids and stuff, but I LOVE super heroes and food. These two interests are combined in the The Official DC Super Hero Cookbook..

Batman knows that Green Lantern green pepper pizza is disgusting.

I have been desperately trying to get my older son, who is four, interested in super heroes. Since he shares my love of food, I thought this cookbook would be a good gateway.

Most of the recipes involve cutting food into super hero shapes (like watermelon W’s in a Wonder Woman themed fruit salad). A lot involve stencils and coloured sugar and other things I am not ever going to do. Some things are just insane. Here are some highlights and lowlights.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...5000% of your daily recommended food colouring intake!

My son REALLY wants me to make this for him. Basically whenever I ask what we should make for any meal, he requests the “tall Superman yogurt thing.”

I’ll be straight: I am not a mother who cares a great deal about my kids eating 100% natural stuff. But it seems like taking yogurt and adding a half pound of food dye is weird. And yogurt is kind of my go-to food for my kid when I don’t want to do anything more than slop some stuff from a container into a bowl (and that’s if I’m being fancy and not just letting him eat it straight from the container). So adding an hour of work to that process is unappealing. Also, I don’t have parfait glasses or long fancy spoons. Or fresh raspberries! What am I, Bruce Wayne?!

However, I would very much like to see Superman eating this dainty thing.

A much more plausible Superman-inspired food is this fun cheeseburger:

Turn it upside down for a Bizarro Burger!

See, now there’s a creative food endeavour that I can get behind! Cut a cheese slice into a Superman symbol, eat the parts I cut off, squiggle a cute little S on there. I love it! I don’t know what that spinach is doing there because that is like Kryptonite to my son, but this burger is definitely something I would consider doing someday.

Also adorable and not too much work, but possibly insane:

"Mom, can I have my hot dog now?" "Quiet! I'm trying to get this knot tied!"

That’s what happens when Krypto is a bad dog.

Some of the recipes aren’t even trying:

Why haven't I been sticking pictures of Superman in ALL of my food?!

Green Arrow has a terrible idea for your kid’s lunch:

Speedy! I get it!

I hate you, Mom.

Oh boy. Sorry, Ollie. Nice try. You are grossly overestimating your popularity with the kids if you think they are going to eat a lettuce leaf full of celery and gooey chicken in your honour.

Aquaman, on the other hand, knows exactly what the kids want:

Who's the lamest super hero NOW?

Yeah! Just throw a handful of Goldfish Crackers in your cereal, kids! Booyah!

Martian Manhunter is desperately trying to get your kid’s love:

"I have an extra X here, if you want to...kids?"

“Kids. May I suggest placing a fondant X on your cupcakes? It will be super fun. Please, kids, come back. It will only take me an hour or so to make and roll out the fondant.”

Batman knows what’s up:

Serving Face.

I have been seriously considering making that my avatar for all social media. I could look at that picture all day. What is this food? Who cares? I think it’s a pita pizza with a custom cut tortilla or something. But that mouth. THAT MOUTH!

Speaking of amazing pictures, I am about to show you the most incredible thing I have ever seen. I warn you that you cannot unsee it. I give you: The Plastic Man cheese toast:

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

Guys.

"Please kill me!"

GUYS.

Also, these instructions:

You know...without the eyeballs it's kinda just cheese toast.

Mmmmmm…I love some edible candy eyeballs on melted cheese. Especially with garlic butter.

I assume you can use your favourite brand of edible candy eyeballs. Try to shop local. I have a guy.

I promise if I ever attempt to make anything in this book I will post pictures. And the book is worth getting, if only to flip through and giggle.