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Nov 20

House to Astonish Episode 95

Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2012 by Al in Podcast

It’s an absolute epic of an episode this time round, with two hours of chat for you – we’ve got news on MCM Scotland, the cancellation of Hellblazer and the launch of Constantine, the Marvel Now! radio ads, the Age of Ultron, the latest Marvel teasers and Tony Harris’s cosplayer rant. We’ve also got reviews of Great Pacific and X-Men Legacy, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe gets the chop. On top of that we’ve got interviews with Mark Waid and Kieron Gillen (the latter of which is an epic taking in Uncanny X-Men, Iron Man, Journey Into Mystery, Young Avengers and Death’s Head). All this plus the Valkyrior Territorial Army, the dorkiest state in the US and a special guest comics creator… who’s topless.

The podcast is here, or on Mixcloud here, or accessible via the player below. We’re also available via Stitcher.com or their free iOS and Android apps. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.

 

Bring on the comments

  1. Odessasteps says:

    The way Al described The Great Pacific, it reminded me of The Man in the White Suit.

    I applaud Paul for not going for the easy direction with Hardcore and making a bunch of ECW references, since silly violent weapons and 1990s nostalgia perfectly sums up the bingo hall at the corner at Swanson and Rittner.

  2. TheKidNixon says:

    A bit of DC math.

    In January, DC are launching Threshold but they also cancelled GI Combat the month before, so that keeps us at 52.

    It is true that they don’t have 52 ongoing books for February, but they are counting that Young Romance one-shot as a New 52 book because they can, so that keeps them at 52 for Feb.

    March, we add Constantine and then get back to the 52.

    All that said, they already broke their 52 a month “pledge” when they published 56 books back in September.

  3. So I’ve listened twice, and I still can’t make out the name of the record Keiron Gillen said. Anyone want to help me out?

  4. quizlacey says:

    My understanding is that the 52 doesn’t apply to miniseries, which is how we got 4 minis launching alongside all the issue 2s last year (including The Shade and Huntress). They’re fudging it with that Young Romance for sure.

  5. The one that starts Young Avengers, BringTheNoise? BE MY BABY by THE RONETTES.

  6. Bristol is very much still happening. http://www.bristolexpo.co.uk/

    BICS – the British International Comic Show, or “Brumcon” – has, for now, been retired.

    http://www.comicconventions.co.uk/whatever-happened-to-birminghams-favourite-con/

    There is also the Birmingham Zine Fest, run this year by a committee including Lizz Lunney, which is Comics As F*%*

    http://www.birminghamzinefestival.com/

    MCM Expo has been running as part of the twice-yearly NEC Memorabilia shows for a couple of years. Next one is this weekend. The Comics Village isn’t as big as the one at the London equivalent – or wasn’t in April – but is very much a cross-section of the UK scene.

    http://www.memorabilia.co.uk/birmingham/showfeatures/comicvillage/

    Other MCM Expo shows include Telford (in the very venue I suggested on the V ten years ago which everyone poo-poohed, but they’re four years in now) and Manchester. I think Glasgow has a good chance of being able to support it in addition to the Glasgow Comic-Con, because it is a broader thing by definition, and has the potential to draw in people who just plain can’t afford to go to London. So you’ll have Weegiecon for the die-hards (c.f. ThoBubs), MCM for the diehards and the casuals.

    A crafty comico – oh, look, an accidental pun based on the number of people who go along to sell comics-related prints and assorted memorabilia – can certainly do well at the broader event, though.

    On my darker days, I fear we may be reaching saturation point, and resent the Londoncentricity of the calendar for pricing me out of the circuit, boo hoo hoo, but the more comic shows outside London, the better for everyone.

    //\Oo/\\

  7. Daibhid Ceannaideach says:

    Wait, Hi-Ex! (Highland Comics Expo) isn’t considered a major convention? It takes up two-thirds of a small theatre, and sometimes Alan Grant is there!

    IIRC, Age of Ultron was first foreshadowed as being at the end of a long timeline thing filled with cryptic and interesting-looking events. So presumably, it can’t happen until all the intermediate events have happened.

    Since you recorded a bit more has been revealed about Cornell and Davis’s Wolverine, which I’m sure you know since Cornell was talking about it on Twitter; it’s an additional title, not a replacement, and the most interesting titbit so far is that Cornell’s Wolvie goes by “James Logan”, because why not?

  8. AndyD says:

    Hellblazer ending is kind of bittersweet. The last comic I bought from No 1 on. With its dying sales it comes as no surprise, there is no argument against no sales. And even creatively the series was limping along for a long time.

    The last writers were a disappointment. Diggle’s run was strangely blah and I really came to deeply dislike – to put it politely – Milligan’s run on the book. Constantine himself seemed to have become a tired character and an anachronism whose time was past. In the end nobody cared any longer. Neither the writers nor the readers. Way of the world. 300 issues of what was basically a horror series should be seen as a huge success.

    I can totally understand Paul’s viewpoint of not caring much. But to re-invent the character as a younger, hipper magician so he can mingle with Batman and can fight Eclipso or the Talons or whatever is the flavor of the week in the DCU is just missing the point. In the New52 is no room for how a concept like Constantine was mostly done. Just a lot of dislike from the higher ups. Everything has to underwrite the superhero and the universe, from Jonah Hex to the atrocious new Phantom Stranger. In his best times Constantine was a really mature british horror book, and by mature I don’t mean just added boobs and violence and swearing.

    So this will just be another customized diluted version of the original. Heckblazer indeed. It would have been better if they cancelled the series and the character instead of making him basically a superhero. Ah, well, another 3.99 saved.

  9. sam says:

    John Constantine had a good run. He was written at length by Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Peter Milligan, and Mike Carey. There are stories that feature him by Gaiman and Morrison. He’s been drawn at length by Steve Dillon, Sean Phillips, Leonard Manco, and Marcelo Frusin, not to mention individual stories by the likes of Sean Murphy, Richard Corben, John Higgins, and David Lloyd. Plus many other great creators I’m leaving out. I guess my only regret is that he was allowed to age in more-or-less real time, and the proper final Hellblazer story is John Constantine at the end of his miserable life. Fortunately, this story does already sort of exist: the Bad Blood miniseries, by Jaime Delano and Philip Bond, which is well worth tracking down.

  10. BringTheNoise says:

    Cheers Keiron!

  11. Billy says:

    I used to care about the lack of “big name” writers on smaller/fringe titles.

    But these days, I dread Marvel righting that “wrong” because I don’t like Marvel’s current big name writers.

    Guardians of the Galaxy would normally be a subscription for me. Bendis writing GotG? Immediate turn-off. Kills the whole thing for me, and causes me to dread what he will do to characters.

    Loeb on anything is an immediate turn off.

  12. Reboot says:

    Star-Lord’s origin is a 40 page B&W issue covering his whole life up to becoming Star-Lord.

    And then they retold the whole thing in an issue… Marvel Premiere, I think, incorporating some later additions and retconning the identity of his benefactor.

  13. Reboot says:

    And you missed out London Super Comic Convention, which was also comics-only.

  14. kingderella says:

    am i the only one whos having a real hard time understanding gillen? (whose work i love btw)

  15. “There is also the Birmingham Zine Fest, run this year by a committee including Lizz Lunney, which is Comics As F*%*”

    Yeah, but it’s not very “zine”-y, which has caused some amount of controversy amongst zinesters.

  16. danny says:

    Alabama is our most embarrassing state according to the U.S. Census bureau.

  17. Paul C says:

    Those interviews were terrific. Mark Waid came across as very likeable and humble. It was nice to hear his thoughts on the gamble of doing a bit of a lighter tone for Daredevil. That book has just been fantastic since it started.

    Kieron Gillen’s interview was long, but it didn’t feel like it. When you were discussing his year-on-year rise, it was the sort of thing when you take a minute and pause to fully realise just how large his stock has risen. Fully merited too, as personally his Journey Into Mystery run is probably one of the best I’ve read.

    Why does Age of Ultron need fill-in art whenever it has been in the works for over a year? Marvel are strange like that, when compared to something like Uncanny Avengers – one of their relaunch flagship books – which has horrible delays almost immediately despite Axel Alonso admitting they knew going in that the schedule was “real tight because Cass[aday] had some other commitments”.

    Cornell & Davis are a rock-solid team so I’m a bit optimistic for this Wolverine book. It will clearly be the monthly book as Cho’s will be more of a ‘special’ as it will be a minor miracle if he manages to get more than 4 issues a year done.

    The mentioning of Charles Xavier in Ibiza made me imagine him joining a lads holiday group and going raving until the wee small hours.

  18. Niall says:

    Really enjoyed the podcast!

    I have to say that I feel sorry for Tony Harris. He’s not the first person tow make a mistake and say something stupid through social media.If he’d said it in the pub, with people who understood him, his views and background, he wouldn’t have to defned himself. The people he was speaking to would have read between the lines and understood his comments in a specific context.

    I used to read and comment on BKV’s old message boards. Tony Harris was a regular there and posted frequently. Nothing he ever posted there would have suggested to me that he was misogynistic. In fact, a good deal would have suggested the opposite.

    His comments reminded me of the ads for the college humour website published in some Marvel comics recently. They depict “Nerd Enemies” such as the “Bro” and the “Imposter” – men and women who think of themselves as Nerds but aren’t.

  19. Daibhid Ceannaideach says:

    Thing is, misogynism isn’t binary. I can well believe there are hundreds of issues where Tony Harris’s views aren’t misogynistic at all. But in this case, they are. This isn’t a casual comment, it’s a full blown rant, and it’s clear he’s *really annoyed* that there are women in costume at conventions who don’t pass his strict nerdgirl tests.

    I’m not totally comfortable about those ads, either. Maybe I’m naive, but when I was a kid imagining what it would be like if geek culture went mainstream, it never occured to me that we’d decide it was *our* turn to start excluding people.

  20. Niall says:

    Nerds are human too. Which means that they/we will make the same in-group/out-group attributions that any other group makes.

    If misogyny is supposed to be somehow related to the hatred of women, then it kinda should be binary. I think that tagging any idiotic negative gross generalisation about women as misogynistic trivialises misogyny.

  21. Mike says:

    The voice on Mark Waid! That man needs to get into the announcing business, stat.

  22. kelvingreen says:

    Guardians of the Galaxy would normally be a subscription for me. Bendis writing GotG? Immediate turn-off. Kills the whole thing for me, and causes me to dread what he will do to characters.

    Me too. The idea of him going anywhere near Rocket Raccoon fills me with dread.

  23. Daibhid Ceannaideach says:

    @niall If misogyny is supposed to be somehow related to the hatred of women, then it kinda should be binary. I think that tagging any idiotic negative gross generalisation about women as misogynistic trivialises misogyny.

    Yeah, fair point. What I probably meant was sexism. You can be sexist about one thing and not about others, but misogyny should probably refer to something a bit more deep-rooted, you’re right.

  24. […] this Christmas. Bayou Arcana and Disconnected vol.2 are out now. If you get a chance, go and listen to my friend Alistair Kennedy interview Mark Waid and Kieron Gillen at […]

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