House to Astonish Episode 122
We’ve got a whole load of great chat for you this time round, with discussion of DC’s top brass moving to California, Oni press’s upcoming projects, the Harley Quinn SDCC one-shot and the new Star-Spangled War Stories series, as well as the June solicitations. We’ve also got reviews of Daredevil, Sovereign and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe goes to Hell’s kitchen. All this plus fakeaunches, Paper and Staples magazine and kicking Hitler in the nuts.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
We’ve also got a big announcement, but that’s for its own post…
Jan Duursema IS indeed a woman — she’s actually Tom Mandrake’s wife, partly explaining why those two go back and forth as John Ostrander’s artist-of-choice so regularly! 😉
(I agree, BTW, that GI ZOMBIE is such a better name for a book in today’s market than STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES)
WAIT!
You just completely completely skipped over the best “Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe” idea yet in an aside: Satan’s Midlife Crisis!
Eleanor & Park is a great book.
I liked Daredevil #1, price increase aside. Is the digital series set between the volumes any good?
Iron Man Legacy was a good example of a disposable second series. Fred Van Lente doing fairly interesting, self-contained arcs set in the past, making decent collections (none of which is branded Iron Man Legacy). Didn’t set the world alight and didn’t last too long, but it was a second Iron Man title around when a film was coming out and it didn’t try to be too ambitious.
I’ve been wanting a Not Brand Ecch MW for a while now. I quite liked the Surfer parody in his MW. Unfortunately, I get the paperback MWs, which is about 15 years behind the HC line.
Brian beat me on the Jan Duursema gender-check. I’ll just add that I always imagined that John Ostrander sent his scripts to the Duursema/Mandrake household addressed “Occupant”, and whichever one checked the mail that day got the job.
The WATCHMEN “Artifact Edition” isn’t the full story, it’s a selection of original pages and other production material. Basically “anything Gibbons didn’t sell or that we can track down and the owners let us make good copies of”.
“Chicacabra” = “Goat-Girl”
At least it wasn’t “Chupachi –” never mind.
I want a collection of Not Brand Ecch. Marie Severin, Spidey-Man Marries The Wisp, Teen Hulk. They reprinted lots of those strips in 1980s UK Marvel summer specials, and they were ace. Better than anything any of the modern Marvel chaps have done in a similar vein.
David Quantick was writing for the revamped Dandy for a while. Harry Hill’s strip.
Cinder and Ashe is the rags-to-riches life story of pioneering American tennis player — no, wait.
FROM THE MAN WHO KILLED GWEN STACY AND WROTE ALL THE BEST LAWS AND ORDER.
I liked the new DD – the altered logo is thilly – but there’s a coupla moments of weird overpowerness. Feeling radiowaves splashing against his skin? Hrm. No. Liked the procedural opening – Monk’s a Frisco series, isn’t it? Frisco. Frrisco. And Charmed! I hope Monk and Holly Marie Combs turn up.
Witch-Man or MAN-WITCH? And did Al say “Space Warts?” The power of Space Warts.
Likenesses are a funny thing. I’d rather people draw characters than actors, because you run the risk of getting a comic full of stiff poses and publicity photos. There was a CSI book where the artist did a fantastic job of making it work…apart from the bit where he had Gil Grissom run a man down and sack him to the ground like he’d SpOck’d Vic Mackey. I’m sure it must be harder to capture some actors than others – try making a comic out of Hollyoaks, or 90210 or one of those interchangeable blue-lit YA superpower shows. THAT’S WHY WE HAVE COSTUMES, PEOPLE.
Wonder what role the Batman games have played in Harley’s ascension? I mean, you go on Tumblr and she’s up there with DeadPool in terms of all the lolls and feels. Interesting that those characters would be embraced so. Not unexpected, but interesting.
//\Oo/\\
About brand dilution. I don’t think it’s a major factor. Did you know there’s over 200 varieties of Kitkat? And they all sell, to some extent. OK a lot of them are limited edition or novelty releases, but that only reinforces this little parable. There would be very few people who’ve even tasted all 200 flavours, and nobody would buy them all regularly. But enough people buy at least one variety to make the whole thing worthwhile. Furthermore, there are no doubt people who aren’t too fussed about plain Kitkats, or cookies and cream Kitkats, but love eating ginger ale flavour, to the point of feeling strong loyalty to that flavour. It’s the only flavour that really fits their tastes.
Now, if there was only plain Kitkats for sale, no doubt they would sell a lot better than they do. But the brand overall wouldn’t sell nearly as many. And quite a few people who eat Kitkats would just go eat some other choclate, maybe even a Cadbury bar. And very few people would say “I’m so sick of seeing these Kitkats everywhere, I’m giving up for good”.
So back to comics. I’m starting to think that having so many multiple comics only bothers people because it upsets their sensibilities, especially if they have an interest in continuity or complete collections. For those who just want a ripping read, maybe it just doesn’t matter. “They’ve been lucky so far but sooner or later the whole thing will crash” can only go so long, after all.
@Paul F –
The Daredevil digital series is, like all Waid’s DD work, very good. It’s a little inconsequential but is a nice bridging story as it establishes the use of Matt’s powers in an unfamiliar (to him) environment. It also the Infinite format excellently, steering away from the incessant tapping issue that Paul has referred to before and has one absolutely phenomenal panoramic panel of DD using his radar sense on an airplane. That panel alone is worth the price for issue 1.
Why do all the Marvel superheroes go to San Francisco when they leave New York anyway? There must be other cities in the US with crooks that need punching.
Lee and Ditko did a five-page story called something like “Never Wrong A Witchman”, actually.
I saw a copy of NME a few weeks ago and suspect it’s not long for this world. It seemed not to know what it was supposed to be any more.
One thing I’ve been curious about for a while, Paul O’brien. When exactly did you get interested in Buffy? I’ve been following you long enough to remember the old days when you pointed out that you don’t watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and worried about Buffy bugging you with mails and phone calls telling you to check it out.
Si:
Thank you for such a brilliant analogy.
Re-Al-aunch
When Al explains the joke a second time
Every time Paul mentions Buffy, I also think about the time when he mentioned that he didn’t like (or watch, any way) Buffy.
I believe he addressed this once later on.
“Turtles in Time” sounds like it’s based on the Super Nintendo game from the mid-1990’s. That game was freakin’ sweet.
Jan Duursema’s the definitive Star Wars comic artist, IMO. Good at the likenesses, too. Hoping Marvel tries to get her (and Ostrander) on their new stuff (hoping, but not really hopeful).
Perhaps some of The Walking Dead’s success is down to consistency – same creative team all the way through, and simplicity – if you want to, it’s easy to get into all the way back to the start. Wouldn’t be so simple if you had 5 different number ones you had to work out the order of. And speaking of that – Marvel really need to sort out their system of ‘volumes’. Is Avengers volume 1 the ’60s originals, or Bendis’ from right after Siege, or Hickman’s first arc…? Look for volume 1 of any major Marvel title on Amazon and you’ll get at least 3 or 4 different books. In the past you could at least separate them by writer, but not any more.
I think that Kit Kat analogy is more than a little flawed, not least because of the cultural weight that brand has in Japan. It’s also a chocolate. Chocolate is crazy popular, everyone always wants more chocolate, and if there are more types of one, even better!
Little Britain would be a better example. Remember how that went from being an unassuming Radio 4 sketch show, to straddling the nation everywhere you looked or listened? Everyone spouting the catchphrases, Tom Baker doing voiceovers for everything, other programmes trying to imitate it, live shows, birthday cards, fancy dress costumes, debates in the press about classism, racism, ableism, a video game, a DVD game, eight spin-off books, that Proclaimers cover, adverts for Nationwide… it had to reach a tipping point. Was anyone arsed about Little Britain USA? They didn’t even bother releasing Dafydd’s single “I’m Gay” in the UK.
Are you saying superheroes have no cultural weight in the Anglosphere? Movies aside, I don’t follow comic sales really bt I understand the consumer base is stable, if in decline.
Little Britain was a sketch comedy show with about three jokes and two comedians. It’s rare for any tv show to last more than three or four seasons, especially sketch comedy. It wasn’t killed by overexposure, it was killed by consumers inevitably moving on to new things, as they always do.
I’d say superhero comics have little cultural weight. I haven’t got a local store I can buy them from (and I’m not right out in the sticks), but I have got several different kinds of chocolate.
Kit Kat sucks.
Well, as long as we’re on the subject, can you guys settle something for me? Is there a difference between British and American Kit Kats beyond the wrapper design? I remember being a little bemused first time I saw them in a vending machine when I was in St. Andrews, but didn’t think too much of it until I started seeing them in British import shops here in the U.S.
I believe that in the UK, Kit Kats use a higher quality chocolate, are made with Oreos in the middle, instead of the wafers used in the US version, and the wrapper contains a prize inside, usually mini baseball cards or Batman scratch-n-sniff stickers