Podcast - Episode 57: Cosmic Odyssey

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DCAF is over and Dave and I had a nice time! We recorded via Skype this week because I have somehow injured my neck and cannot drive. I think I'm really getting the hang of this Skype recording stuff, though. Sounds good!

It's week 7 of our summer book club and we read the 1988 DC space adventure, Cosmic Odyssey, by Jim Starlin and Mike Mignola. It really is great. We poke fun at it a lot in this episode, but we sincerely both love it.

Here is that article in the Washington Post I was talking about that talks about fan entitlement and the importance of submitting to the vision of the artist.

Here's the birthday tweet Chris Evans posted for Sebastian Stan that made news headlines (for some reason):

Here is the sketch that Michael Cho did for me of Captain America (dreaming about Bucky):

And here's the Plastic Man sketch he did for Mitchell:

Both totally excellent. We're very happy.

Speaking of happy, I was very excited to receive a package in the mail this week from our pal J.Bone! It included this ADORABLE little sketch of The Summer Soldier:

@originaljbone gives me the best presents. 💕 #wintersoldier

A photo posted by Living Between Wednesdays (@livingbetweenwednesdays) on

The Stucky fanzine by Jess Fink and Yuko Ota is, I believe, no longer available. But you can check out their awesome Tumblr sites, which will lead you to other great stuff you can read or buy: Jess Fink and Yuko Ota

Anyway, it's full of cute stuff like this:

I did buy a Winter Soldier dinky car, because obviously. On the Instagram post, Dave asked Steve Epting if he knew about this thing. He replied! He owns one himself. I like to think he means a full-size version. Like, that car is Steve Epting's ride.

JUST LIKE IN THE COMICS!!!! #wintersoldier

A photo posted by Living Between Wednesdays (@livingbetweenwednesdays) on

What a weird thing.

And, of course, I also got a hot Wal-Mart exclusive Winter Soldier figure.

Got a new boyfriend. Wal-Mart exclusive. #wintersoldier

A photo posted by Living Between Wednesdays (@livingbetweenwednesdays) on

And I am totally not putting him in weird, somewhat sexy scenes with my Captain America figure. 

Valium is a really good drug.

Here's the panel from Cosmic Odyssey that really cracks me up:

"What? Oh, I don't care about that anymore. Look at this computer thing I did..."

Next week we're reading and discussing Batgirl: Year One/Robin: Year One! 

Podcast - Episode 56: Suicide Squad and Copra

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Dave and I saw Suicide Squad and it was not painless!

Quite the opposite.

We laughed a lot, though. Not at the jokes. At other parts. And we fell in love with Slipknot, the lovable scamp who can climb ANYTHING! With a grappling gun. Um...and he actually can't even do that.

To wash the taste of that movie out of our mouths (tastes like one of the weird extreme Mountain Dew flavours), we read Michel Fiffe's Copra: Round One for the latest instalment of our summer book club. It was a much better "Suicide Squad" story.

I have been looking but I could not verify what Diablo spells with fire, so Dave and I will have to agree to disagree until we get a gif. Or until we forget all about it.

So, to recap, here is the line-up that I think the Suicide Squad movie should have had:

Deadshot
Captain Boomerang
Harley Quinn (but NO JOKER. POST JOKER!)
Poison Ivy
Clayface
Dr. Light

Better, right? And much smaller, which is important.

Also, I forgot to mention this, but the whole point of the Suicide Squad is to do jobs that super heroes can't/won't do. This particular "mission" was something that normal super heroes totally could have done. A Suicide Squad movie should be like Ocean's 11 with comic book villains. It should have been a heist, like having to break into the Batcave to steal something for Waller. Or something. This movie made no goddamn sense.

And it needed way more Slipknot. WAY MORE.

We hardly knew ye, rope guy.

Some photos have hit the internet since we recorded of Sebastian Stan filming his mystery movie in Ireland. Still nothing on his IMDB page, but the working title at least seems to be We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Which is clearly code for 1960s-era Star Wars Sequel:

Nah. It's actually a thriller based on a Shirley Jackson story. I hope it's not too scary for meeeeeee!!!!

This is my favourite image from the set so far:

What's he going to do with that hammer?! What's in that bag?! A head??!! A GHOST??!! Eeeeeek!!!!

Here's that Super Hero Beat Down: Nightwing vs Winter Soldier video. It's...something else.

If you want to read my live tweeting of the Captain America gay porn parody, you can read them here. Nothing too explicit, I promise:

And if you're in the Halifax/Dartmouth area this weekend, definitely come check out DCAF! It's going to be awesome! Check it out:

Podcast - Episode 55: SDCC and Doctor Strange: The Oath

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Dave went to San Diego Comic Con! He's back to talk all about the things he saw, the people he met, the awards he won, and the things he bought! We also cover as much of the news that came out of SDCC as possible, including our thoughts on about a hundred movie trailers.

It's also another instalment of our summer book club, and this week we are talking about Doctor Strange: The Oath by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin.

PLUS we have a lot of comics to talk about! Steve Rogers Captain America #3 came out this week and it was awesome and nuts! And in This Week in Winter Soldier, I talk all about Thunderbolts #3 and tell Dave a story about fans going absolutely bananas on Sebastian Stan's Instagram when he cancelled his Wizard World Chicago appearance.

You can't watch Arty, the short film directed by Nathan Boone that Dave acts in, online yet, but here is the trailer:

Dave got me a present at SDCC! It's an amazing print by Marvel Studios' Head of Visual Development, Ryan Meinerding! 

Man, so pretty.

Ryan Meinerding has like the best job in the world.

Thanks Dave! 

Here are those Iron Fist/Power Man Bill Sienkiewicz Marvel ads Dave was talking about:

Alright! I hope you enjoyed, or will enjoy, Doctor Strange: The Oath! It's really, really good!!!!

Podcast - Episode 54: Batman: Hush

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Oh man. It's the one you've been waiting for. Or, the one we've been waiting for anyway. The 12-issue Jeph Loeb/Jim Lee hot mess that you can't help but love, Batman: Hush!

Just a couple of things real quick before I post some helpful Hush images.

Here is the link to the interview where Sebastian Stan talks about over-doing it on the bulking up for Civil War. It's from the GQ Style interview that I posted a few weeks ago. Here's that specific part of that Q&A:

He's wrong about the fitted jeans not looking good anymore.

Here's a Nicola Scott tweet, acknowledging that Beefcake Steve Trevor is the best Steve Trevor:

Ok, all aboard the crazy train to Hush station!

First, this is that double page spread I was trying to describe where Batman is looking, um, pretty busy but still has a hard time staying focused (based on his rambling interior monologue). 

And this is a great example of what Jim Lee thinks appropriate business attire for women is:

Poor, poor Lois.

And here is Bruce Wayne using his excellent detective skills, first noticing the subtle changes in the opera performance he's attending with Selina:

And here he is determining that the man in his arms with a hole in his forehead is DEAD:

Oh, Batman: Hush. You are the best.

I am sure I forgot to mention many things in our conversation about this. I mean, I know for sure that I forgot to mention the fact that Bruce Wayne borrows Lois Lane's work computer to OPEN UP A CHAT ROOM TO TALK SECRETLY TO ORACLE!!!!

This comic, you guys.

Ok, so Dave and I are taking a week off while he goes to SDCC, and then we'll be back to talk about Doctor Strange: The Oath.

Podcast - Episode 53: Wilson

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Week three of the book club and we are talking about Wilson by Daniel Clowes! Because we can't talk about super heroes all the time!

We do talk about super heroes a lot in this episode, though. We read a whole lot of comics that we discuss, including Sam Wilson Captain America #11, Batman #2, Superman #1, Justice League #1, The Fix #4, Green Arrow #2, Green Lanterns #2 and more!

We also talk about the statue of (Steve Rogers) Captain America that is going to be installed in Brooklyn to commemorate the character's 75th anniversary (and, um, 5th year of being from Brooklyn). You can read more about that here. Here is the image of the concept for the statue:

"I'm just a kid from Brooklyn." Alright. Whatever. Fine.

But just imagine a statue based on Kirby's art in the Lower East Side. Right? Right?

Anyway.

Here's that hilarious "candid" photo of true, real, authentic, unstaged love from Taylor Swift's Fouth of July party:

Ryan Reynolds in that photo is my favourite thing.

And here's that Tom Holland selfie from the set of Spider-Man:

I'm gonna keep this post short because I am writing it way in advance before I leave for NYC.  I recommend listening to the Daniel Clowes interview on the WTF podcast with Marc Maron. And please do read (or re-read) Batman: Hush for next week because we have so much to say about it. We are very excited to talk about this one.

Podcast - Episode 52: Spider-Man - The Original Clone Saga

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It's week two of our book club! This week I read about 500 pages of Spider-Man. Dave had an earlier collection of this story that was under 200 pages. We should have communicated better.

This week we discuss Gerry Conway and Ross Andru's Clone Saga Spider-Man story from the mid-1970s. It's one of Dave's favourites and I had never read it before!

Before that we talk about how great Steve Rogers Captain America #2 is (and about how insane all the hate that's being hurled at Nick Spencer is). 

Speaking of insane, you can read the absolutely bonkers article about this comic that was posted on Paste Magazine's site here. As I say in the podcast, it's not only crazy because it STATES AS FACT that Marvel did something that would be impossible (completely change and re-write/draw/print a comic in like three weeks), it's also crazy because it suggests that Marvel, a very large entertainment company, would change a comic that QUICKLY SOLD OUT because a loud minority on the internet completely misunderstood it. It also ignores the content of this second issue, which is basically a very detailed outline showing how everything that has happened in all of the comics Spencer has been writing for most of a year now had led to this moment. It's just nuts.

Paste did post an apology, sort of, but man. Too little too late.

Anyway. I am so tired of defending this clearly awesome comic.

You can purchase and download that Year of Marvels Infinite comic about Winter Solider by Chuck Wendig and Juanan Ramirez here. I've seen the whole thing screen grabbed on Tumblr as well, because Tumblr is a lawless hellscape.

The comic is full of good stuff, like, um, this:

And this very hot WWII flashback version of Steve Rogers:

And who wants to see some creepy Captain America and Winter Soldier plush toys?

I think it's really funny that Steve's nose is so much larger than Bucky's. Attention to detail!

Here are some of the panels of the Clone Saga that we discuss. I apologize for the poor quality of these images. You're just gonna have to buy the book to see the beautiful art in all it's glory!

Here's that quiet scene on campus that Dave was talking about:

And here is the scene of J.J.J. clicking his heels together and then falling down:

Here's what Dave was talking about when he said Ross Andru draws crazy so well:

I forgot to mention this in the episode, but I was really impressed with Scorpion's costume-packing skills:

So cute!

And speaking of costumes, here's the one I became completely obsessed with: The Jackal!

Here is Prof Warren tearing his mask off:

Like...come on. That costume is insane.

Anyway. Ross Andru's art is amazing.

That's it for this week! Next week Dave and I talk about Wilspn, by Daniel Clowes! Not as many super villains in that one, if I remember correctly. Less clones, probably?