July 21st, 2008 Stin
http://www.teslacorps.com/graphicdetail/podcasts/content/podcasts/GD_020.mp3
We discuss the Immortal Iron Fist (Fraction/Brubaker/Aja); also, weeklies Booster Gold 1,000,000, Scalped #19, Omega the Unknown #10, and Final Crisis: Requiem.
The Overflowing Mind of Positive Effluence, The Snarky Fist of Five Cabby Caps, and the Drunken High Pitch Anger in Motion all humbly unite to bring you this, our 20th podcast, in which we discuss the great nature of the being that is expressed through “The Immortal Iron Fist”.
And with that my patience at imitating fake Martial Arts movie dubbing is completely used up.
It’s a relatively short series run (16 issues) and we all universally like it, so this episode we mainly discuss our various favorite moments and things we liked, along with some debate over what we think of creators leaving at the top of their game and whether or not they’ve left the series in the middle of an arc.
We also talk about the style of the book, it’s major themes, Danny as a character, when it’s okay for a reader to leave a series, and the gorgeous art found within the book.
Then we go into our weekly picks:
BOOSTER GOLD one million: Randal’s pick and the end of Johns’ run on the series. For Randal it wrapped up well enough that it saved the series, for the rest of us, while it had it’s pacing issues, we all agree the series ended well.
SCALPED #19: My pick, of a comic that everyone should be reading because Jason Aaron is a genius when it comes to writing amazing characters. Naturally the other two aren’t reading it, but Randal (!) is actually convinced (!!) to give it another shot (?)
OMEGA THE UNKNOWN #10: The end of a series that Charles really wanted to be better than it was due to his nostalgic love of the original series. Tune in specifically to hear Charles actually be disappointed in something and (mildly) condemn it for being a shoddy execution of a concept he used to love.
FINAL CRISIS: REQUIEM: Our group pick. Did you guys know Martian Manhunter died in the first issue of Final Crisis? And that it apparently pissed off a bunch of fanboys for some reason? So they decided to completely disregard that issue with another issue and it still sucked?
If you didn’t know that now you do. We also kinda get into our reaction to the events going on these days, including a discussion of FINAL CRISIS: ROGUE’S REVENGE.
And with that, we call it a show, and the trio takes what they learned from our main discussion into our own lives as Charles goes off to spend the next 12 hours meditating on whether a tree falls in the woods and makes a sound if Randal doesn’t care about any trees ever (but thinks that James Robinson could write a kick ass tree) and I drunkenly trip over it and try to punch it to death for not being in black and white and “edgier”.
Oh, and go see Dark Knight.
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July 19th, 2008 admin
We discuss the Immortal Iron Fist (Fraction/Brubaker/Aja); also, weeklies Booster Gold 1,000,000, Scalped #19, Omega the Unknown #10, and Final Crisis: Requiem.
Posted in Graphic Detail, Podcast Updates | Comments Off
July 16th, 2008 Stin
You’ve got to be motherfucking kidding me.
“The New York Times reported yesterday on the imminent launch of “Invincible: The Series,” an animated version of Image Comics’ hugely popular superhero title created by Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker. Developed by MTV New Media and available July 22 on iTunes, Xbox, MTV.com, MTV2 and MTV Mobile, “Invincible: The Series” takes the actual pages of Kirkman and Walker’s comic book and animates them through a process called Bomb-X. The stories are filled with motion, music and vocal performances similar to those of a traditionally produced cartoon.”
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17233
Okay let’s…let’s take a deep breath and start at the beginning.
I LOVE Invincible. Allright? I fucking LOVE it.
I’ve said time and again that it is the single best superhero comic book currently being published
This is doubly amazing because I normally hate the everlasting gobstopper out of comics with teenage characters for a variety of reasons, and yet Invincible takes everything I hate and makes it awesome through the sheer power and talent of Kirkman, Walker, and Ottley. The story is amazing, the characters are heartfelt and honest and the art is beautiful, simple, powerful, and reminiscent of the old school Kirby days in its use of color and sequential storytelling. Invincible has even gone so far as to form a central universe that a large portion of the characters found in Image comics (Brit, Savage Dragon, The Astounding Wolfman) have come to naturally inhabit.
Invincible is almost perfect. The one thing keeping me from calling it perfect outright is that the series isn’t over yet, and I’m a bit of a skeptic.
Then they go and do this
For a brief summary, I hated every single thing I saw, heard, and was physically assaulted in the dark corners of my brain by, in that trailer.
I shall now enumerate the ways in which I hate this:
- MTV new media apparently feels the very best way to express exactly how new media they are is with fucking 8 bit graphics and sound in a variety of 70’s era psychadelic colors, they can therefore go fuck themselves.
- Pay close attention to this voice you first hear, because while it’s theoretically Mark’s Dad? The voice completely changes later. Sadly this is as acceptable as it ever gets.
- And then the trailer introduces us to our hero, in single panels, that they continuously wiggle, and then zoom in upon, and then spin the fuck around, before wiping them of the screen and giving you yet another panel. Why? I suppose static images are boring I guess?
- Also those speech bubbles need to move, they’re also boring when they’re non-wiggling or spinning.
- Also the actual words in those speech bubbles need to pulsate within the wiggling speech bubbles in the spinning images in front of the image of the sky that’s zooming out.
- AND FUCKING WIPE THAT LAST PANEL OFF, ELONGATE HECK, AND HAVE THE TAIL OF THE EPILEPTIC WORD BALLOON FOLLOW HIM DOWN so we can illustrate how he actually HASN’T. MOVED. AT. ALL.
- Whatever boat shoe wearing blowout sporting trust fund coke head marketing douchebag that thought in public (i.e. poor) high school it goes “Girls” then “Acne” then “Homework” needs to choke to death on my fist.
- Wait wait wait wait WAIT WAIT wait. pause it right after that above bit.
Do…do you fucking see that? Those are fucking Saved By the Bell scribbles right there. BEHOLD
Which means now they’re taking two separate things that I love and molesting both of them to make a superhybrid awful thing that I hate. And I can’t even put it in a sack filled with rocks and throw it in a nearby lake like I’ve been practicing.
- See, when the principal (that’s the principal by the way, which you’d never know from this fucking clip since he’s talking to…no one in particular and pointing at something we can’t see since this is yet another single panel with no other information in it), said that in the comic I didn’t really read it as “You’re not………………..INVINCIBLE……..you know?” Wink Wink Nod Nod Point Point
Because that would be absurd and hamfisted and also pretty stupid since the principal doesn’t know that Mark is dotdotdotdot invincible since Mark isn’t blahblahblah invincible yet so shut you’re ffffffucking mouth anonymous voice actor. The next time I’m in the supermarket and a random stranger makes a wink nudge “EH? EH?” joke and I beat them to death with a bag of organic carrots because they just taste better, their death will be on Your Head.
- Okay. The “is this seat taken” sequence of panels now goes one step beyond showing us single panels and we get a whole six! In a row! So to compensate they make them blink like a strobe light and randomly reorganize themselves. That last panel actually moves from being the last one to being the second one.
Saving you some time I guess.
- Much like the next sequence showing his evolution of a costume that blitzes by in the time it takes a fruit fly to prematurely ejaculate. A costume that you barely see mind you, and is one of the Greatest and most Iconic Costumes since Hal Jordan’s Yeah I Fucking Said It.
- Okay this takes the motherfucking cake. And I mean that quite literally. Imagine a cake, that fucks your mother. That is how awful and inconceivable the Doc Seismic extreme zoom in of yet ANOTHER single panel with a pulsing color wash and the squiggly balloon with words that shake and letters within the words that shake the opposite way sequence is. Also I’m so very glad the Doc Seismic voice sounds almost exactly like the Blob from the old xmen cartoons. Because when I think Doc Seismic I think “The Blob”.It’s a pound cake by the way, and it is not pleasant.
- Okay I tried to pause it at least six times during that next “When you’re a teenager” card because when the music, which I can’t even comment on because what the hell do you even say, but when the music goes HUH I’m convinced the card gets bumped by what appears to be Mark’s tits in costume.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but I demand a screen grab and the fastest gunfighter in the west doesn’t have the reaction time to pull this one off.
- Why does Mark’s Mother sound younger than Atom Eve? That should play really well when she starts slugging down bottles of vodka.
- And why does The Immortal sound British and not like, oh I dunno, ABE LINCOLN?
- Here’s the part where Mark’s Dad goes from sounding like someone who’s earned that Mustache to someone who probably has never had the ability to grow facial hair ever.
- IN chung VIN chung CI chung BLE. chung. Really. Way to stick that landing.
So to recap folks, this is not a cartoon, it does not have motion music OR vocals (especially vocals…fucking principal) that are even remotely similar to a “traditionally produced cartoon” because if they had been making cartoons like this long enough for it to become a tradition every cartoon watching person on the planet would have swallowed their tongues in a fit of convulsion and hatred fucking ages ago.
Beyond the fact that it’s not a cartoon, it’s not even a remotely good representation of an amazing comic book, because they’re essentially reading the comic to you, a panel at a time, at an extremely close range that obscures the art with completely over the top enunciation of every word they say.
Which means that they think you and I are complete and utter morons who couldn’t follow the comic book without their shaking wiggling BULLSHIT.
I urge you all, if the actual cartoons are anything like this, to stay away from them as if they had radioactive herpes an all day sucker and a lisp.
Do me, yourself, and the original creators of Invincible a favor: do NOT accept this pale imitation and read the fucking book.
-Stin
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July 4th, 2008 Randal
Our Main Discussion is CAPTAIN AMERICA, with weeklies: Superman #677, New Avengers #42, Astonishing X-Men #25, and Young Avengers Presents: Hawkeye
To celebrate our Nation’s birthday, we bring you our discussion about Ed Brubaker’s CAPTAIN AMERICA, a Charles’ pick that is nearly universally loved by fans and podcast members alike (with the exception of yours truly, who didn’t care for it that much). We also welcome our guest this episode, Chris Decerbo from the “Half Grasshopper Podcast” and our forums.
We talk about why everyone got into this run, The Winter Soldier and how we felt about Bucky coming back, what Cap means in the context of the Marvel U, how the book reads as a “spy” series, the ensemble work between all of the characters within it, who we would have imagined taking up the shield, and where we’d like to see the book going, before wrapping up with Favorite Moments.
Then we go to our ANGRIEST WEEKLY PICKS EVER:
SUPERMAN #677: James Robinson is writing it and there’s a Hal Jordan/Superman scene in space with Krypto that Randal loved so much, he made it his pick.
NEW AVENGERS #42: My “Must Read if Fury is In It” Rule gets me into a ridiculous argument with every other person on the podcast because while I enjoyed them tieing the various event plots together, the various event plots were offensive enough to everyone else that they still hate it.
ASTONISHING X-MEN #25: Charles’ pick, inspired by his exposure to Warren Ellis last weekend at WizWorld Chicago, which Randal hated, and I hadn’t had a chance to read yet, but somehow yet another ridiculous argument begins with regard to the characterization in the book.
And finally after extreme amounts of arguing we relax a bit and enjoy our group pick: YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS: HAWKEYE #6 of 6 the issue penned by Matt Fraction featuring Robin Hood references and our favorite young heroes who aren’t Invincible. We also question if there’s a place for them in the 616 and since Heinberg isn’t coming back any time soon, who should write it?
And that’s it, time to drink american beer, explode chinese fireworks, and eat german food with french’s mustard on it.
HOME: www.teslacorps.com/graphicdetail
FORUMS: www.antifanboypodcast.com/forum
GUEST: http://halfgrasshopper.podomatic.com
NOTE: we lost a bit of the end of the podcast but only as we were giving out these links. Which you now have. See how we take care of you?
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July 3rd, 2008 admin
Our Main Discussion is CAPTAIN AMERICA, with weeklies: Superman #677, New Avengers #42, Astonishing X-Men #25, and Young Avengers Presents: Hawkeye
Posted in Graphic Detail, Podcast Updates | Comments Off
