Podcast - Episode 105: The Project Pegasus Saga (Marvel) with guest Sean Jordan aka The Wordburglar

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We have another very special guest this week: Sean Jordan, aka The Wordburglar! We're all very excited to talk about Marvel's Project Pegasus Saga, starring The Thing and like a dozen C-list characters. 

Sean is joining us in person, so we recorded at Dave's kitchen table with a room mic, so it sounds a little different. You can hear occasional traffic/car alarms/cat meows. But it's like YOU'RE at the party, right! A fully submersive experience.

Here's a little Jude the Entropic Man for you. Sean describes him as "Gargamel cosplaying as He-Man". I think that's accurate:

If you haven't watched the (awesome) new Wordburglar video yet, here it is:

You can find all of Sean's stuff at the Wordburglar website!

And you can buy the first two issues of The Last Paper Route on Comixology here, and the third issue is available now at Strange Adventures and will be available soon in other places!

Enjoy the episode! We will be back next week to talk about Who is Wonder Woman? by Allan Heinberg and the Dodsons!

Podcast - Episode 93: The Original Secret Empire (1974)

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This week we decided to re-read Marvel's original Secret Empire story line from 1974. It seemed timely, for a few reasons.

Here's something we forgot to mention on this week's episode: the East Coast Comic Expo is happening this weekend in Moncton and we will both be there! Dave will be there in an official capacity, moderating panels and Q&A sessions with some great artists, including Nick Bradshaw, Tony Moore and Daniel Way! I'm just gonna be hanging out, hoping not to see the Pennywise cosplayer I saw there last year.

Here are some of our favourite panels from Secret Empire:

On the very first page, we see Sam Wilson, smiling and strolling through the surprisingly quiet streets of Harlem with his bird friend. Not a care in the world! 

Here is Sam telling his girlfriend that he would rather show Steve his new costume than have sex with her:

Here's Steve and Sam's excellent undercover "bum" disguises:

We forgot to mention this one, but Cyclumph! is my new favourite word:

Here's Steve dopily waking up after being stunned:

Here's Steve being less than thrilled to see Thor:

And here is pre-serum Steve VERY enthusiastically agreeing to be a military experiment:

Next week we will be reading the next Captain America story following Secret Empire (the one where he becomes Nomad). We encourage you to read along! It's a very fun story.

Podcast - Episode 91: Free Comic Book Day Previews

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Sorry this is late, guys. I was having trouble with the Squarespace login page yesterday and I was also too busy to deal with it.

So this week we run down some of the titles that will be available at Free Comic Book Day this Saturday. You can see them all here.

Also this week we discussed the Eisner Award nominees, which you can see here.

And here is that little 1978 documentary The World of Comic Books:

This week we introduced Rating the Super Hunks as a podcast segment. I think it worked ok. I'll let you decide. I think I should probably write out a blog post for each one, just for posterity. Please send us your requests for future hunk ratings!

See you next week! Read Secret Empire #1!!! It's so good!!!!

Podcast - Episode 32: Captain America (1979)

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Dave and I spent Valentine's Day watching the 1979 Captain America TV movie together. It was...not a good movie. But it WAS a good time.

We switched up how we do our recording this week and now I am in charge of mixing and editing and such and I think it sounds pretty good for my first kick at the can! Next week it will sound even better! Full disclosure: I do a fade-in at the beginning because there was something weird happening with the headphones so I am full-on yelling into the microphone for the first few seconds. Then I mellow out.

So, yes, the 1979 Captain America movie is amazing. But before we get to that, we talk about some other fun things, like the whole Rob Liefeld NY Times fiasco. If you haven't read it yet, here it is. He seems like a real sweetheart.

And if you want to read about Todd McFarlane's HARD R HORROR Spawn movie, you can check that article out here.

By the way, if you aren't familiar with what Dave and I are talking about when we mention the DC Super Hero Girls line, this is what we mean:

You can watch little cartoons on the site. I can't make a decision on this stuff. If I had a daughter, is this something I would be excited for her to watch. I honestly don't know! Tell me what to think!

Here's that awesome looking Dr. Strange Pop Vinyl toy we talk about:

And here are the new toys that I am saving up to buy, because do my kids really need shoes?

More info on those toys here.

There was a new Civil War trailer this week. It aired during the Super Bowl and was definitely the highlight of the game (well, this and Beyonce). It's about 40 seconds of awesomeness, including a lot of new Bucky footage!

I am so excited I can barely function. I mean, LOOK!!!!!:

THIS IS A REAL MOVIE!!!!!

I mention the hilarious (and heartbreaking) Winter Soldier memories mission in the Lego Marvel's Avengers video game. You can see that mission in this helpful gamer's video:

Here's a little taste of that Civil War Prelude comic, which you can only buy digitally for now. You can find it on Comixology here. Here's a little taste of Bucky in his Romanian hide-out, remembering the bad times:

Ok, so this Captain America movie. As you may recall, I bought the DVD that collects both of the 1979 movies for Dave for Christmas. Here is the trailer for the first one:

From that trailer you might think this movie is a reasonably fast paced. It is not. It is the slowest movie ever. Like, when an oil truck is dumping crude onto the road as part of a (bad) plot to kill Steve Rogers, they show ALL of the oil dumping out of the truck. They paid for that oil, and we're gonna watch every last drop of it hit the pavement.

This movie did not leave much on the cutting room floor, I'm guessing.

There's a clip reel that has highlights from both movies. Based on it, the second movie (any clip where he's wearing the more classic looking Captain America suit) looks a lot more action packed:

Here's the thing about the costume in the first movie: the shorts are WAY too tight for ol' Reb Brown:

And this is how he looks as Steve Rogers:

I forgot to mention on the show that his eyebrows were such a mess. I was obsessed with fixing them.

We get very few sexy moments. This beach scene was one, I guess:

That's Steve Rogers doing what Steve likes doing best: lounging around.

I didn't even catch that he's an ex-Marine in this movie. I have no idea when they mentioned that. Because I say on the show that they should have at least made him a soldier or a former soldier. I guess they did. But now he just wants to drive his sweet van and look at the ocean. His sweet van, by the way:

But, man, that scene where Steve is given his shield for the first time? I wish I could find a clip because I couldn't breathe I was laughing so hard. Here's a still:

So, yes. Amazing. And so boring. It's hard to believe this was ever made. Good job, 1970s.

That's it for this week. I hope you find this episode sounds better than usual. We are going to start using a mixing board and XLR mics next week, so that should sound even better! Thanks for listening!

This Might Be My Favourite Series of Posts

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You may or may not remember my special report on some alternate, reader-suggested costumes for Robin a while back, and Rachelle's post on some terrible costumes that Batman was retconned into having considered even further back. Well, guess what? I have more! Evidently the suggestions just kept on rolling in, and in Batman No. 259 they printed up another batch.

 

Of course the fact that the costume on the lower right is very similar to the modern Red Robin grab is interesting and worth noting and nodding thoughtfully while stroking your chin, but the tunic/hairdo/moustache combo on the upper left is simply breathtaking. If only this had become the official Robin costume of the 70s - what an amazing cultural artifact that would have been! what mileage the comic bloggers of today would be getting out of it! Mourn, mourn for what might have been.

 

Oh, and that one at the top looks like a red version of the Nightwing costume. That's cool.