Quarantined Comics

In honor of MLK day, we're reading KING - Ho Che Anderson's critically acclaimed unauthorized graphic biography of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. But we ALSO decided to read GODHEAD, another book by Anderson, which tells a near future capitalist tale that juxtaposes the white corporate and black urban experience against a sci-fi backdrop of...finding God?

Ho Che Anderson is a London Born, creator of Jamaican heritage living in Toronto, and he brings a pretty unique perspective to the handful of independent comics he's created over the years - likely informed the sensibilities of who his parents named him after - Ho Chi Minh + Che Guevara - so it was no surprise to see such an unusual premise Godhead, and somewhat stark, contrarian and unflinchingly honest take on a civil rights icon like Martin Luther King Junior

While most folks usually only know five words about the Civil Rights movement ("Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King") - the graphic novel KING focuses on not just the larger than life legend, but the man and all his flaws along his journey and how people had a VERY polarized view of him back then. And GODHEAD, well Ryan will have to explain that one to you - but it incorporates the class, race, robots, Babel, espionoage, and ultimately pulls a Rusty Brown....

Hello.

Happy New Year.

This year, we resolve to exercise more so we can outrun our greasy, sodium-packed diets. Fortunately, we've got Alison Bechdel's guidance with her 2021 graphic memoir (Which you probably saw on everyone's best-of lists) "The Secret to Superhuman Strength."

"The Secret to Superhuman Strength" though is more than just Bechdel's "exercise book." It's a book about how we live our lives and how we relate to our bodies — and how those relationships change from year to year, and especially decade to decade. And it's the perfect book to begin a new year.

Put on your tuxedo and and get ready for some snark and spoilers!

To close the year out we decided to recap ALL of the comic book movies + TV shows we coped with in 2021...basically the blatant cash grab that was every major DC + Marvel property we risked life-and-lung for:

WW84

(Bat-shark repellent optional)

While the 1970s stop motion classic "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" answered some questions about Santa's origin, it left so much unsaid.

For instance: How did Santa get the idea to send gifts to children down chimneys? Where did his hearty "Ho Ho Ho" come from? How did he get his magic sleigh? And the magic white wolves to pull it? How did he help quell the civil war on the moon? Can he be killed? What did he use to saw off Krampus' head?

Fortunately, we have legendary writer Grant Morrison to pick up the slack. In 2015, Morrison wrote a violent new origin to Santa Claus called "Klaus." And every holiday season, up through 2019, Morrison left a bloody lump of flesh in our stocking in the form of a new Klaus episode. From sentient snowmen to big name cola brands, Klaus puts a strange, sci-fi spin on all of the familiar iconography of everyone's favorite holiday.

The EXPLOSIVE finale of our epic read-through of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley.

I don't know about you, dear listener, but our brains feel all webbed up by this excessive spider-exposure.

Still, Ultimate Spider-Man is a tremendous achievement — an 11-year run on a beloved character with a distinct beginning, middle, and end.

In the second half of Ultimate Spider-Man, we see the psychological toll it takes on Peter Parker. And while Peter has suffered his fair share of spidey-stress in the mainstream universe (the character is built to suffer after all), it all seems particularly tragic in Bendis' run.

Often exhilarating, often infuriating, and also kinda repetitive, we'll dive into the web-slinger's world and complete our conversation on Bendis' unique take on the Spiderverse.

INSTEAD of talking about the latest Spider MCU movie, we are reading ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, by Brian Michael Bendis' and Mark Bagley

Way back when in the year 2000, Marvel Comics decided to ONCE AGAIN reboot all of their comics into a new parallel continuity, where all of their most popular superheroes would have their origins set in the modern world (VS the swinging 60s when they were invented). Much of this would actually set the stage for, inspire and influence the style of the popular Marvel Cinematic Universe a decade later.

The FIRST comic to launch in this new line of Marvels was Ultimate Spider-Man, re-imagining Peter Parker a modern day, fifteen year old orphan and prodigy living in Queens. With the bite of a genetically modified spider, Peter's all-to-relatable teen trials and tribulation are dialed up to 11, as he navigates a world far to similar to our own, grappling with the introduction of super-powered beings.

Gone are the wheat cakes - as Aunt May is a spry middle-aged soon-to-be-widow, Uncle Ben - Rest in Peace - was a former hippie with a pony tail, and Mary Jane Watson is the nerdy girl-next door. Don't get me started on Gwen Stacy and J. Jonah Jameson. And of course, there is Peter Parker - a modern day, anxiety-ridden, teen prodigy, grappling with the absence of parental figures, and the lunacy of the real world he is thrust upon.

What starts off as a very Dawson's Creek / CW style superhero drama quickly breaks out of classic origin territory and becomes an eleven year storyline that many say is among Spider-Man's greatest runs.

Beyond some trademark disarmingly fun and quippy dialogue - before it became a trope of the MCU - indie crime comics writer Brian Michael Bendis partnered with already established Spidey artist Mark Bagely for a multi-year run - where the stakes were very real from issue to issue, story arc to story arc, something not seen in superhero comics in decades. Over the course of 160+ issues we see Peter interact with a world of growing crazy - and his anxieties stretched to their limits in his very personal and professional super hero lifestyle.

Since Ultimate Spider-Man was an ELEVEN year run, for this episode well only be reading volumes 1-13 which represents the first 78 of 160 issues. Next week we'll get thru the rest, seeing the series thru it's inevitable, ultimate conclusion

In this episode, we'll look at Charles Burns' seminal graphic novel Black Hole, a haunting and creepy graphic novel about loneliness, longing, and body horror. The 12 issue series began in 1995 and concluded ten years later, and is about a group of teenagers afflicted with a veneral disease that creates awful bodily mutations, forcing them out of society.

While it's impossible to overlook the comic's narrative connections to the AIDs epidemic, and the paranoia and panic it engendered, Black Hole is way more than just an allegory. It's a thriller, a horror story, a coming-of-age tale. And like most of Burns' work, its impact reverberates well after you've turned the final page.

Since Ryan's still MIA, and the new HAWKEYE TV show just dropped on Disney+, we thought we'd revisit an oldie but a goodie - our 2020 episode covering Matt Fraction & David Aha's HAWKEYE run from 2015 is a fun - often funny - character-driven romp, with beautiful, minimalist sepia art - and features more than just a LOT of Eastern European gangsters saying BRO. It features not one, but TWO Hawkeyes.

Are there spoilers for the TV show? Who knows, probably / not, but because we read this COMIC way back when and never really talk about things like "plot" or "characters" - you should be good to go on this trip down memory lane. Hell, it's already Black Friday, so you should just go on and buy it already so you can be a cranky old man like us and watch the show comparing it to the comic, which you totally will have finished reading first. You're welcome

SO - you may  know Hawkeye, aka Clint Barton, as the avenging archer from some very popular movies. But while this is just about a guy with a bow and arrows - it's anything BUT the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters. Often described as "Hawkeye's day off" - this series makes it painfully obvious that Clint's just a flawed dude just trying to do the right thing, with varying degrees of success. Basically, his life is a mess.

Clint is joined by his newfound pal Kate Bishop - a young whippersnapper who’s now also assumed the mantle of  Hawkeye - and his newly adopted dog Arrow. He’s also supported by a who’s who of ex-lady friends, a cast of working class neighbors who like their rooftop grill-outs, and more than a few lady frinds (a work-wife AND an ex-wife). Throw in the occasional super-criminals and evil spies, and you’ve got a real FUN romp across Brookyln, Madripoor, and Los Angeles.

This week, we are reading Grafity's Wall, the 2018 graphic novel written by acclaimed creator Ram V, illustrated by Anand Radhakrishnan and colored by Aditya Bidikar. The book follows the follies of aspiring street artist Suresh, aka Grafity... as he watches the transformation of his Mumbai tenements, alongside his hustle-and-flowing pal Jay, portly writer/waiter Chasma, and aspiring actress Saira. The city of Mumbai is actually as much a character as anyone else, and is illustrated in a frenzied, chaotic, fluid and hyper detailed style that could be any inner city, but is uniquely Indian, along with the sites, sounds, and smells that any traveler who goes beyond the sacred sites of Southeast Asia will certainly recognize. Across 4 individual yet interconnected stories, we get a glimpse into hopes and dreams on the cusp of adulthood... in an impossible city, while exploring the daily trials and tribulations of Indian Youth. A commentary on the gentrification and rapid change the culture of the modern-day subcontinent faces...far and away from the India our parents always told us about. This is anything but a Bollywood number.

This week we are doing a double feature about THE ETERNALS. Both the MCU's latest film installment by Chloe Zhao, and also Neil Gaiman's 2006 comics reboot. Both adaptations of Jack "King" Kirby's original work posit the question... what if our species and civilization were not guided by the divine, but simply by space aliens with an ulterior motive, and their really good looking immortal agents?

While the 2006 comic taps a believable, oft-used trope about group amnesia brought on by an adversary, 2021 film not-so-subtly decides to give beings as powerful as The ETERNALS an excuse for taking a back seat to the past 15 years of the MCU. Also quips, DC comics references, a badass deaf lady, Marvel's first sex scene, creepy CGI string monsters,, a loving gay marriage, and a poorly choreographed Bollywood Dance number...All from which one of those has had the film banned in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

So we ask you this, are we are manufactured humanoid super beings sent to this planet thousands of years ago by oversized space gods in sweet helmets — just to bring humanity this very podcast?