We continue our discussion of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's original X-Men comics with issue #5. Picking up directly after the events of the previous issue, this comic boasts lots of action with a crowded busy plot. Despite the messy and sometimes confusing events, Issue #5 continues to lay the foundation for what will become standard tropes and themes in future X-Men comics. We see the first appearance of Magneto's Asteroid M and Stan and Jack also start to lean into the Civil Rights allegory that the X-Men have come to embody and represent throughout the years.

Aaron and Alex discuss Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's X-men #02, featuring the forgettable villain The Vanisher!  The discussion revolves around Kirby's unique ability to provide exciting, fantastic art and weird, bizarre design choices.  We also discuss Lee's characterization of the X-men and continue our retroactive observation of continuity or character quirks that would later become the basis for larger stories and plot twists.

Aaron is joined by Alex Harner to discuss a little comic published by Marvel in 1963 called the X-men #1.  We discuss the historical significance of the issue as well as some of the current events going on at the time that led to the style and tone of the story.  We also look at the issue with our modern perspective to see how well it holds up compared to the vast history and mythos that has become a multi million dollar franchise in the decades since its creation.

Fellow comic creator Thom Hotka joins me to talk about his webcomic, Nextuus. We also talk shop about some of the differences in writing for webcomics compared to print comics, and we discuss this year's Planet Comic Con and how to deal with a convention that doesn't go well.

Read Nextuus here:
515comics.com

Check out Thom's Channel here:
www.youtube.com/user/NyQuilDreamer

This is the first episode in a new style where we break from the traditional Comic DNA format and instead just hang out with a creator and do general interviews. In this episode, my old friend Alex Harner joins me to discuss our favorite topic... X-men comics. We announce our intent to read the original Stan Lee/Jack Kirby issues which will be discussed on future episodes of this podcast.
We also discuss the X-men's place in American pop culture, as well as talk about the challenge of being a fan of something without being a dreaded "fanboy".

Aaron is joined by Gabriel Dunston to discuss The Eltingville Club by Evan Dorkin. The dark satire of fanboy culture hits a little too close to home for Aaron and Gabe as they discuss some of the psychological underpinnings of the collectors hobby, whether or not they identify with the unlikable characters presented in the book, and Dorkin's unique and intense art style.