99th Episode

We talk about Top Ten items! What does that mean? Tune in and see! Also, our top ten comic runs!

No more fancy descriptions than that, just a lot of talking about things we think are good.

Paul read the first big volume of Berzerk! Sean read Hickman's X-Men! Now it is time for us to discuss.

Berzerk is a particular type of story. If you are in the mood for a silent loner to wreck violent havok on demons, this is the book for you. But you need to be in that mood...

X-Men is fantastic right now, as it exceeds the bounds of the typical superhero stories and becomes somethign bigger and greater than that.

As always, we meander and take tangents as we discuss these two stories.

PLUS! 20th Century Boys is a Highest Recommendation.

Do you ever find your shelves overflowing with books? We do, so we discuss some of our strategies to prune the collection of the fruit that may not be as ripe as it used to be. (The fruit is a metaphor for comic books)

Also, we recount our adventures in listening to Audiobooks. Does it work for you? When, and when not? We discuss the types of audiobooks that work for us and the types that don't.

Also:
- Parenting tips in the morning
- How to make Marvel Unlimited worth it 
- Nobody cares about Hawkeye!
- Selling regrets! Selling triumphs!
- We never take breaks
- The circle of giving is a beautiful thing
- Great courses are great 
- Vegan eatin' is good
- The "genre" of anime, and how we approach that
- Nausicaa finds the cracks in the definitions! 
- 20th Century Boys is GOOD
- Fourth World vs Jonathan Hickman

And one very noisy blue jay!

Sean has some loose ends to follow up on, particularly Age of Apocalypse, Mind MGMT, and Fear Agent. For the meat of this episode we discuss the first Sandman volume, Preludes & Nocturnes, and why it is so great. 

Also:
- Mike Tyson makes a lot of sense in the Age of Apocalypse
- The Summers brothers, "naw, but actually"
- Claremont's X-Men makes us love the characters, and you can't go wrong
- Mind MGMT follows the rules and pulls it all together
- Fear Agent belongs in the dictionary for "Stick The Landing"
- Harbinger doesn't live up to the memories, for one of us
- Ranking the adult animated comedy shows!
- We need a James Joyce moment comparing Ulysses to Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
- Maybe Watchmen IS a good starting point for comics...

Welcome to the physically middle aged, mentally adolescent podcast! We relive our virtual glory and dig into the remaster of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 & 2. We are having a ton of fun.

Also:
- Physically - middle aged; mentally - adolescent
- A Black Panther heads up 
- Who doesn't remember Bonk!?
- Is the guilt of betraying your video game system loyalties real?
- Simulation vs just simple skins on the gameplay, we like one more than the other
- We recount our video game system history
- The old days of hard wired Xbox leads to the best video game experience ever
- The good old days when video game fun took EFFORT.
- Do YOU remember the first time you saw The Matrix?
- What does all this have to do with Biggie and Tupac?

We have a lot of books in our pile to read, so we discuss what is upcoming for the both of us. What have we read recently, and what are we going to read next? We discuss.

Sean's List:
- Fear Agent
- Transmetropolitan
- Jack Kirby's Fourth World
- Starman
- East Of West

Paul's List:
- IDW G.I. Joe
- Deadly Class
- The Sixth Gun
- Sandman
- The Girl From The Other Side

Also:
- Limitation breeds creativity!
- We preview our upcoming read through of Sandman
- Also, that audio book is sometimes good, sometimes... falls a little short 
- Our favorite Audiobooks, and... Faulkner?
- What is Hoopla and why is it great?
- Ty Cobb is a terrible person
- Derailed... by Bill Cosby (no!!!) 
- Paul has never read the King! Where to start? 
- We've been working too much 
- Paul triggers Sean with his Comixology habits
- Stack those code sales!

Mind MGMT by Matt Kindt is an exceptional comic in many ways. We discuss those many ways in this episode. We take a pit stop at the Mignolaverse on the way, with some Hellboy and BPRD discussion.

- Do you remember the first time you started following a comics creator, rather than a comic title? Sean and Paul's experiences are drastically different, because of the decade they each started reading
- Hellboy vs B.P.R.D., which is which? We talk about which stories are great, and the best way to read it.
- Rumble is a great John Arcudi book you may have never heard of
- How best to read a book like Mind MGMT, and take in all the extra bits
- Sometimes burning books is awesome
- Deadly Class is pretty crazy, and a good read
- Shout out to Brave New World!
- Matt Kindt delivers the map, which is a symbol
- We remember when Valiant was the Bruce Lee of Comics 

Paul read Uzumaki, and Sean read Tomie, both by Japanese comics creator Junji Ito. It is horror in the strange, disturbing sense of the genre, so we rave about his work.

Before that, however, Sean talks about his Target adventure to find the new Cobra Island G.I. Joe Classified figures. It is an "old men being sad about toys" story, but with a happy ending. Also, Paul shares his love of the Technodrome with his son.

- Mushroom coffee vs smoothie
- Non-Licensed means more articulation
- A Saturday Night Live skit came to life
- Waiting in Target is something nobody ever wants to do
- Poor Roadblock gets to hang from the pegs
- Micro Machines return! Were you in that micro toy generation? 
- Paul is a serious collector, but mostly out of laziness
- We've got a grocery list of recent comic pick ups
- What does horror have to do with professional wrestling? We know...
- How a slower pace is a better pace 
- The horror of Junji Ito is like Concrete by Paul Chadwick in a particular way
- Age Of Apocalypse illustrates the danger of binging
- The build up to Avengers Vs. X-Men left a lot to be desired when the main event rolled around
- We have some gripes with Marvel, and we share them
- We also have a lot of good things to say about HoXPoX and the new X-Men line at Marvel
- Plus, one more positive thing to say at the end 

We discuss Bad Idea's Button, G.I. Joe Classified and the fear of missing out, and the Drifting Dragons manga. Plus, we pack a whole lot more into the nooks and crannies of this episode. Tastes like it's got butter inside.

Some Highlights:
- The Button: We discuss the new click-demanding overlord
- Ramon Villalobos was announced, and it was almost missed -- we didn't miss it
- We detour into cancel-ville, and try to delicately navigate those roads
- We relish in the art of some of our favorite Bad Idea illustrators: Lewis, Ramon, Juan... now give us Mico!
- Our reading habits are smeared all over the place, do you have this problem?
- The difficulty of getting G.I. Joe Classified figures, and the NES Classic
- How do we handle that fear of missing out?
- Paul is better at avoiding the Pokemon effect -- he doesn't have to get them all
- Sean's Transformers/Wolverine rule for movies, and how it applies to G.I. Joe
- How not to tell people what to enjoy
- Umbrella Academy is some good stuff -- and strange
- Drifting Dragons aren't your hobbit's typical dragon
- Finding that New Thing is very exciting: we have recent examples

Sean attends ComicCon@Home! Paul builds his own Manga con! It has been a week of building appreciation for this hobby for the both of us! Also, Sean read Berserk. Paul played Resident Evil.

Also:
- ComicCon@Home is much like the rest of life these days, and Maine is a dearth for cons 
- Panels, panels, everywhere, that make Sean appreciate Jack Kirby
- Panels are the Yoga of information gathering
- The crazy adventure of the neighbor's dog and the 4-wheeler
- Kingyo's used books is a primer on other Manga, and other stories
- Garage sale dollar bills pay for the goods! Same with the trade-ins!
- Junji Ito gets introduced to your intrepid heroes
- Sean goes Berserk!
- Strategies to make the most digital for your dollar  
- Sean's inception-style reading habits, and why it is goods
- Inception-style doesn't work for video games though

Plus, Paul's neighbor's get in an expletive-ridden yelling fit over a dog or something. It is exciting.