Sequential Fiction

Episode 40 – One Year Anniversary

This week Sequential Fiction celebrates our one year anniversary.  It’s been a year since Brian saw Kevin Smith at the Windsor Comicon and took up the challenge to create a podcast.  One year after we went live with our first Sequential Fiction, how have things changed?

In this show we tease Fan Expo Canada, talk about our first year, our favourite episodes, and then we get to our cover story. Brian and Liam debate their five favourite comics writers.

Show notes for this and every episode can be found here at our website

This week Sequential Fiction is brought to you by Manage Comics.

Does your local comics shop have an easy to use online subscription tool that lets you manage your own subscriptions, that tells you what’s been pulled, and gives you info about what is coming up? If not, tell them to check out Manage Comics at managecomics.com. It’s easy to use for them, and gives you a better idea of exactly what you’re collecting.

Manage Comics makes comic collecting better.

We’ve been doing this a year now, we’ll do an entire episode on our favourite episodes, but I was just wondering what are some of your highlights from the last year?

Brian’s Pick – Teen Titans #2

“THE RETURN OF WALLY WEST” part two! As the Titans prepare to do the unthinkable in order to defeat the intergalactic demon that stole time itself from the DC Universe, enter the Fearsome Five! But are the sinister quintet acting of their own accord…or are greater forces at work?

Liam’s Pick – The Smurfs Anthology Volume 1

Episode 39 – Gamescom

This week on Sequential Fiction, we’re debuting a new regular gaming feature as Brian talks with his friend and Canadian Press writer – Curtis Withers about all things gaming.  Up first this week is a chat about Gamescom, the gaming convention held annually in Cologne Germany where over 340,000 people from countries all over the world show up to celebrate video games.

But first, it’s our regular feature, Brian and Liam’s comic picks of the week!

Teen Titans: Earth One Volume 2

Picking right up after the cliffhanger ending to the first volume, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Terra and Aqualad are in desperate straits–they’re homeless, destitute, and on the run from Cadmus, the project that created them. Unfortunately, Cadmus has more surprises up its sleeve… and a whole new set of teenage weapons, with none of the bothersome morals of the originals!

From writer Jeff Lemire (SWEET TOOTH, ANIMAL MAN) and illustrator Andy McDonald comes the highly anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed original graphic novel in TEEN TITANS: EARTH ONE VOL. 2!

Curtis and Brian talked about some of the news coming out of GamesCom 2016.  The guys talked about Star Wars Battlefront, Overwatch, and new features coming to Destiny.

Links from the Episode:

Suicide Squad – Episode 38

This week on our show we’re talking about comics, and we go deep on the most divisive movie of the summer, that’s right folks, we’re talking Suicide Squad.

Make sure you check out last week’s episode, which had an interview with Fan Expo Canada’s Kevin Boyd.  Fan Expo Canada runs September 1 – 4, and you can see Peter and the entire All New Comics gang at the All New Comics booth.

Liam’s Pick of the Week – Chew TPB 1 on Overdrive

Collects Chew Vol. 1 #1-5!

Tony Chu is a detective with a secret. A weird secret. Tony Chu is Cibopathic, which means he gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. It also means he’s a hell of a detective, as long as he doesn’t mind nibbling on the corpse of a murder victim to figure out whodunit, and why. He’s been brought on by the Special Crimes Division of the FDA, the most powerful law enforcement agency on the planet, to investigate their strangest, sickest, and most bizarre cases.

Brian’s Pick of the Week – Legends

The dark god Darkseid wages war on the DC Universe! Sending his minion Glorious Godfrey to Earth along with the destructive Brimstone, Darkseid seeks to turn humanity against its heroes–but he will soon discover what the world and its people are truly made of: Legends!

Brian and Liam both aren’t sure which movie critics saw and how that compares with the film that they both saw.  Both agree that while flawed, Suicide Squad was a fun, popcorn movie that had more awesome moments than it had bad moments.

Episode 37 – Fan Expo Canada

This week on Sequential Fiction, Brian talks to Kevin Boyd,the comics co-ordinate at Fan Expo Canada about this year’s show, the guests, the venue, and lots more.

Plus, Brian and Kevin talk about the final big comics related movie release of the summer, Suicide Squad.

Suicide Squad broke August box office records with a $135million opening weekend, besting the previous record holder Guardians of the Galaxy which stood at $94million.  This, despite largely negative critical reviews from the press.  Interestingly while Suicide Squad holds a 26% review score among critics, it’s audience score is holding at 72%. Over on Metacritic, the movie has a 40% critical score, and a 68% audience score.

In any case, both Brian and Kevin enjoyed the movie and recommend it as “Fine popcorn summer action movie fare.” While it doesn’t do anything particularly new, the things it does are well executed and entertaining.

Brian and Kevin then discussed Fan Expo Canada, among the things they talked about included the phenomenal guest list this year, the activities and vendors, the spectacle of the show, and of course the comics guests.

Kevin and Brian also gave some recommendations to first timers to the show, and talked about how the show has evolved over the last couple of decades.

Episode 36 – The Ultimate Captains

This week on Sequential Fiction, Brian and Liam talk about their favourite starship captains of all time. From Admiral Adama to Grand Nagus Zek, they pick the best of the best.

All this, plus Brian and Liam’s comic picks of the week!

Brian’s Pick – The Vision – Marvel Unlimited

The Vision wants to be human, and what’s more human than family? He goes to the laboratory where he was created, where Ultron molded him into a weapon, where he first rebelled against his given destiny, where he first imagined that he could be more, that he could be good, that he could be a man, a normal, ordinary man. And he builds them. A wife, Virginia. Two teenage twins, Viv and Vin. They look like him. They have his powers. They share his grandest ambition or perhaps obsession: the unrelenting need to be ordinary. Behold The Visions! They’re the family next door, and they have the power to kill us all. What could possibly go wrong?

Liam’s Pick – Obi Wan and Anakin – Marvel Unlimited

Before their military heroism in the Clone Wars, before their tragic battle on Mustafar, and many decades before their final confrontation on the Death Star…they were Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Padawan learner, Anakin Skywalker. It’s been a few years since Obi-Wan pledged to train the young “chosen one,” but even as they have grown closer through training, it has been a difficult road. Now, called to a remote planet for assistance, Master and Padawan may be pushed to the breaking point. Writer Charles Soule (Lando, She-Hulk, Daredevil) and artist Marco Checchetto (Star Wars: Shattered Empire, Avengers World, Punisher) bring us a tale of the Jedi at the height of their power.

Episode 35 – San Diego Comic Con News

San Diego Comic Con was held July 21–24 at the San Diego Convention Center, it’s the show every year that sees every major comics player, as well as most of the major Hollywood players converge. There is so much news that comes out of San Diego every year, and this year was no exception. This week Sequential Fiction summarizes the big news from the biggest show of the year in comics, movies, and pop culture.

Snotgirl #1 – Bryan Lee O’Malley and Leslie Hung

Episode 34 Cover Photo

This week on Sequential Fiction, we’re going back 30 years to Big Trouble in Little China, and we finally talk about Batman v Superman.  All this, and we’ve got Brian and Liam’s Comic Picks of the Week!

Liam’s Pick – Swamp Thing

September Previews

This week we talk new comics shipping September 2016, a drop in digital sales, what a fantastic month June 2016 was for new comics sales (the largest increase since December 1997), and much more!

This episode is brought to you by All New Comics. All New Comics has Canada’s best comics subscription service, they use the amazing Manage Comics platform.  This allows you to add comics to a pull list, and get notified when they’re ready to be shipped to you.  It’s a great way to collect comics and make sure you never miss an issue.

So do me a personal favour and visit All New Comics / Subscribe to learn more about how to subscribe to your favourite comics!

Trinity #1 – regular price: 2.99, special All New Comics price? Only $2.00 USD.

Doom Patrol

Episode 32 – Marvel Unlimited

In this week’s episode we talk comics, movie news, comic picks of the week, the Brexit, and we get a little political as we discuss the rise of “Post-Factual Democracy”, and we look at our favourite picks from Marvel’s absolutely incredible Marvel Unlimited

We got a little bit political this week, with Brian and Liam discussing the massive repercussions of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

Our political conversation veered into the rise of post factual democracy, and how politics are being overrun with anecdotal evidence in the face of facts…how a lack of facts led to the Brexit vote, and a personal story about the Syrian refugees in London Ontario, and how Brian thinks exposing our entitled generation of children to true strife will make them better people.

Justice League Set Visits

Suicide Squad Run Time

@FiImFeed not true

— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) June 24, 2016

Warcraft Box Office Grosses

Brian saw Warcraft, and was underwhelmed. The domestic box office sits at $42million, while international grosses are at $340million.

Parmount issues new rules on Fan Films for Star Trek

CBS and Paramount Pictures are big believers in reasonable fan fiction and fan creativity, and, in particular, want amateur fan filmmakers to showcase their passion for Star Trek.  Therefore, CBS and Paramount Pictures will not object to, or take legal action against, Star Trek fan productions that are non-professional and amateur and meet the following guidelines. Official CBS / Paramount guidelines.

Brian’s Comic Pick of the Week:

31 episodes in, and it had to happen. Brian forgot to turn his microphone on, so this entire episode was recorded off the mic on his laptop. We apologize for the crappy sound of this audio, we did as much to “sweeten” it as we could, but the original file was pretty terrible.  As a result we have clipped out a lot of Brian’s reaction audio.

This week we are talking comic news, video games, movies, the Niagara Falls Comicon, and DC Rebirth!

Niagara Falls Comicon

I went to the Niagara Falls Comicon on June 4th, the show was a massive celebration of comics and pop culture with a great line-up of guests including Nick Bradshaw whom Jay D’ici and I spoke about last weekend, Gail Simone, Ken Lashley, Leonard Kirk, and celebrities like Walter Koening, Carol Spinney, Henry Winkler, and Jay Mews and Kevin Smith.

I had a brief chat with Tom Payne who plays Jesus on the Walking Dead, and I commented on how epic his beard is right now.

I also ran in to Mike Thomas of Auric fame, and got to say hi in person to him.

I spoke to a few dealers, and different dealers had different experiences.  Comics seemed to be brisk movers, as a number of comics dealers were seeing a lot of business, and DC Rebirth comics were in short supply on Saturday.  The celebrities had good line ups, Jake the Snake Roberts and Ricky the Dragon Steamboat in particular had healthy lines…although Howard Finkel’s line was nonexistent when I was there.

There was a good mix of dealers at the show, with comics dealers, merchandise dealers, and a decent sized artists alley.

Liam: Flashpoint

Brian: DC Rebirth – Titans

Friends. Teammates. Titans. Donna Troy, Arsenal, Garth, Lilith and Nightwing were all that and more until a mysterious force erased their memories, forcing them to forget what they could accomplish