Comics Rot Your Brain!

Steven wades into the murky waters of the bayous of Louisiana where a spaceship has brought some confused aliens into contact with DC’s mopey muck monster in a story that will shatter your heart into a million pieces. SWAMP THING no. 32 was written by Alan Moore and drawn by Shawn McManus.

COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions). In this podcast, screenwriters Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) and Christopher Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.

Become a CRYB! Member on YouTube for only $2.99 a month and unlock awesome bonus videos… Don’t sleep!

Alan Moore’s Best Single Issue Story? | SWAMP THING #32 (DC Comics, 1985)

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©2024  Comics Rot Your Brain!







#comicbooks #comics #graphicnovel

In this episode, Chris gives a eulogy to Archie Goodwin and the final MANHUNTER story, the one Goodwin plotted but never lived to script. Walt Simonson drew it anyway. Every page. Without a single word.  "The Final Chapter" first appeared in 1999's MANHUNTER: THE SPECIAL EDITION, collecting the Goodwin/Simonson run from DETECTIVE COMICS no. 437-443.  

COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions). In this weekly podcast, screenwriters Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) and Christopher Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.  

Join our CRYB! Family for only $2.99 a month on YouTube - once you’re a member, you’ll unlock awesome bonus videos… Don’t sleep!  

SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Cold Open 00:30 - Intro 01:49 - History of Manhunter 06:30 - Simonson's Decision 08:15 - What Happens In The Story 18:13 - Inspiration and Impact 20:05 - Final Thoughts  

#dccomics #dccomicsuniverse #bronzeagecomics

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+ We appreciate your support of the show via Patreon: ComicsRotYourBrain

+ For even more cool shit, read Chris's Substack (cinema, comics, and culture) - THIN ICE




©2024  Comics Rot Your Brain!







#comicbooks #comics #graphicnovel

Drop us a line!

Support the show

+ Check out our YouTube channel to get a look at some of the fantastic art featured in our episodes. Visit ComicsRotYourBrain.com to sign up for our newsletter, Letter Column. You can also find us wherever you stream your favorite podcasts.

+ We appreciate your support of the show via Patreon: ComicsRotYourBrain

+ For even more cool shit, read Chris's Substack (cinema, comics, and culture) - THIN ICE




©2024  Comics Rot Your Brain!







#comicbooks #comics #graphicnovel

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxONuw60a0sJXul6nw7-lmlyjgB-lkn5C&si=nqCc-4aNAl6ZsKid

The legendary Stephen R. Bissette joins Chris and Steven us for a CRYB! interview discussion spanning the breadth of his historic career as a writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Topics covered include SWAMP THING, TABOO, the Kubert School, and countless other things, all on the occasion of the first-ever collection of Bissette’s landmark indie classic, TYRANT (1994, Spiderbaby Grafix). Lighthouse Press and its publisher, Chris Stevens, have just launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring this magnificent work back into print, with the help of design guru extraordinaire, Jim Rugg! Everybody, please go and support this Kickstarter here…

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/comicslighthouse/bissette-tyrant-deluxe-editions

…and enjoy our nearly three-hour discussion with one of the true living legends of the comic book art form!

COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions). In this weekly podcast, screenwriters Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) and Christopher Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.

STEPHEN R. BISSETTE Interview!  Tyrant, Swamp Thing, Taboo, Kubert School, and More!

SHOWNOTES/TIMESTAMPS 🎙️

00:00 - The Trance
01:14 - Theme Song
01:28 - Episode Intro
06:22 - ‘80s American Comics
14:15 - Mainstream Comics Today
21:06 - Jenette Kahn & Paul Levitz
28:26 - How ‘80s Comics Were Made
33:31 - Working with John Totleben
48:21 - Creating TYRANT alone
01:01:54 - TYRANT as VR Experience
01:16:57 - Putting Creators on the “Right Comics” (Joe Kubert, Lee Elias, Russ Heath, Doug Wildey)
01:30:25 - Steve Perry & TIMESPIRITS
01:35:35 - Horror Comics in the ‘70s & ‘80s (CREEPY, EERIE, TWISTED TALES, TABOO)
01:44:37 - Keith Giffen/José Muñoz controversy 
02:05:40 - Teaching at the Center For Cartoon Studies
02:17:10 - The TYRANT Kickstarter!
02:29:34 - The Font Lettering Plague in Modern Comics

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+ Check out our YouTube channel to get a look at some of the fantastic art featured in our episodes. Visit ComicsRotYourBrain.com to sign up for our newsletter, Letter Column. You can also find us wherever you stream your favorite podcasts.

+ We appreciate your support of the show via Patreon: ComicsRotYourBrain

+ For even more cool shit, read Chris's Substack (cinema, comics, and culture) - THIN ICE




©2024  Comics Rot Your Brain!







#comicbooks #comics #graphicnovel

Join Steven as he goes on a ride-along with an odd couple of hyper-violent cops, braving the squalid urban underworld of the futuristic, philosophical crime story that is UNTAMED (Epic Comics, 1993) ; written and drawn by Neil Hansen, this comic is a madly ambitious and profoundly bizarre piece of mainstream comic art that was somehow willed into existence by the passionate vision of one man.

COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions). In this weekly podcast, screenwriters Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) and Christopher Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.

This Artist Made The Most Shocking Marvel Comic Ever, Then Disappeared - UNTAMED (Epic Comics, 1993)

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+ Check out our YouTube channel to get a look at some of the fantastic art featured in our episodes. Visit ComicsRotYourBrain.com to sign up for our newsletter, Letter Column. You can also find us wherever you stream your favorite podcasts.

+ We appreciate your support of the show via Patreon: ComicsRotYourBrain

+ For even more cool shit, read Chris's Substack (cinema, comics, and culture) - THIN ICE




©2024  Comics Rot Your Brain!







#comicbooks #comics #graphicnovel

Uncanny X-Men #186 — “LifeDeath” — remains one of the boldest creative swings in Marvel history. Instead of battles and villains, Chris Claremont and Barry Windsor-Smith deliver a quiet, emotionally devastating story about identity, trauma, and the cost of rebuilding yourself after everything is taken away.

COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions). In this weekly podcast, screenwriters Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) and Christopher Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.

In this video, Chris examines why LifeDeath is such a groundbreaking moment in the X-Men's long, fabled canon — from Storm’s loss of her powers, to Forge’s haunted past, to the painterly visual language Windsor-Smith used to redefine what superhero comics could look like in the 1980s.

If you love the X-Men, Storm, Forge, Claremont’s writing, Windsor-Smith’s art, or deep-dive comics analysis, this issue is essential, and its legacy still echoes today.

#XMen #MarvelComics #comichistory

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+ We appreciate your support of the show via Patreon: ComicsRotYourBrain

+ For even more cool shit, read Chris's Substack (cinema, comics, and culture) - THIN ICE




©2024  Comics Rot Your Brain!







#comicbooks #comics #graphicnovel

Chris and Steven journey to the surreal realm of the undead with the zombie-esque trapeze artist extraordinaire, DEADMAN (DC Comics, 1986), in this four issue mini-series written by Andrew Helfer and drawn by the incomparable Jóse Luis Garcia-López.

COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions). In this weekly podcast, screenwriters Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) and Christopher Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.

You Will Believe A Man Can DIE… Again & Again

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+ We appreciate your support of the show via Patreon: ComicsRotYourBrain

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©2024  Comics Rot Your Brain!







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See how this run reframes Cap’s identity through the lens of a cyborg from the future.

The Deathlok Saga | CAPTAIN AMERICA #286 – 288 (DeMatteis & Zeck). In this first episode of CRYB!  Season 3, Chris dives into one of Marvel’s most haunting time-travel/identity stories.  He examines how J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck transform a sci-fi popcorn thriller into a meditation on what makes a hero human.

COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions). In this weekly podcast, screenwriters Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) and Christopher Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.

👉 Like, comment with your theories about Deathlok, and subscribe for more episodes!

Support Our Patreon -   / comicsrotyourbrain 

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+ We appreciate your support of the show via Patreon: ComicsRotYourBrain

+ For even more cool shit, read Chris's Substack (cinema, comics, and culture) - THIN ICE




©2024  Comics Rot Your Brain!







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https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxONuw60a0sJXul6nw7-lmlyjgB-lkn5C&si=KOQWYJLqYpDi04O2

In this solo episode, Steven excavates the tomb of the ‘80s most obscure proto-influencer/superhero, the weirdo wonder himself, that achingly irreverent NYC hipster super dude… PARADAX! (STRANGE DAYS #1 - 3, Eclipse Comics, 1984).

COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions). In this weekly podcast, screenwriters Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) and Christopher Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.

Support Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/ComicsRotYourBrain

The Most Influential Superhero You've Never Heard Of | Milligan & McCarthy's PARADAX!

🎙️ Show Notes ✨

#comics #comicbooks #bronzeagecomics

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+ Check out our YouTube channel to get a look at some of the fantastic art featured in our episodes. Visit ComicsRotYourBrain.com to sign up for our newsletter, Letter Column. You can also find us wherever you stream your favorite podcasts.

+ We appreciate your support of the show via Patreon: ComicsRotYourBrain

+ For even more cool shit, read Chris's Substack (cinema, comics, and culture) - THIN ICE




©2024  Comics Rot Your Brain!







#comicbooks #comics #graphicnovel

COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions).

In this weekly podcast, screenwriters Chris Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) and Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age of comics.

Steven and Chris enlist in Epic Comics' ALIEN LEGION (1984), created by Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz, and Frank Cirocco. Later issues are drawn by Larry Stroman and Randy Emberlin.

SHOW NOTES 

00:00 - Opening pitch

OO:52 - Theme song

01:06 - Intro to the remarkable ALIEN LEGION

12:10 - How the floppies differ from the collected trade editions, in regard to THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE-style entries provided for the main legionnaires

14:26 - Issue One, "Survival of the Fittest!" Zelenetz and Cirocco’s specific way of approaching this sprawling space opera

28:15 - Issues Two: "Blind Trust!"

40:26 - Allusions to LOST — Did that classic TV series draw inspiration for its “bottle episodes” and their solo character flashback structures from ALIEN LEGION?

51:53 - Torqa Dun & Jugger Grimrod as sketchy legionnaires in the Wolverine and Punisher mold

59:55 - A detour into the challenges of creator-owned comics

1:18:00 - Issue Three, "Last Gamble!” and its Back-up Story

01:31:07 - Era of post-decompressed storytelling and Frank Cirocco’s exquisitely-designed cover art

01:36:27 - Issue Four: "The Killing Zone!” - the big Torie Montroc’s solo issue

01:57:55 - Issue 6: “Operation Nerve Center!” - The character of alien soldier, Dirge, and his all-too-human battle with an addiction to a performance-enhancing drug

01:41:24 - The use of thought balloons as an essential window into the deepest vulnerabilities of our traumatized cosmic battalion. “Soldiers in this insane crucible of battle.” 

02:06:28 - Impostor syndrome in ALIEN LEGION -- the neurotic, inadequate, deeply insecure messes who are our main players, along with the increasingly expansive cast of characters in this world

02:25:18 - Issue 12: “Hollow Harvest!” The arrival of the great Larry Stroman brings a distinctly new visual flair to the book and some awesomely stylized hair!

02:43:21 - Issue 13: “Moonlilies for Cora Cora!” = FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

03:07:22 - Issue 14: “Reprise!” - the devastating next chapter

03:19:51 - Issue 15: “The Official Death of Jugger Grimrod!” The title says it all.

03:34:11 - Issue 16: “Demons!” - Intro of Tamara, the first woman legionnaire

03:48:25 - Travis Charest & Larry Stroman both drawing DARKSTARS for DC! Discussion of Charest’s early work -- WILDCATS w/ Alan Moore and METABARONS

03:59:30 - You can tell every genre of story as a war story.

04:00:45 - ALIEN LEGION as the ultimate, hyper-compressed metaphor for life. “We’re all in the ALIEN LEGION.”

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Support the show

+ Check out our YouTube channel to get a look at some of the fantastic art featured in our episodes. Visit ComicsRotYourBrain.com to sign up for our newsletter, Letter Column. You can also find us wherever you stream your favorite podcasts.

+ We appreciate your support of the show via Patreon: ComicsRotYourBrain

+ For even more cool shit, read Chris's Substack (cinema, comics, and culture) - THIN ICE




©2024  Comics Rot Your Brain!







#comicbooks #comics #graphicnovel