House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 13
It’s a whole new era for Marvel’s Most Wanted as our reread of Thunderbolts enters the Fabian Nicieza era, looking at issues 34-37. The team comes face to face with someone who’s either a new enemy or an old friend (or possibly both) as the tale of the new Beetle wraps up and the Scourge saga begins!
The podcast is here, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page, and remember, a t-shirt isn’t just stylish, it’s just plain old common sense.
House to Astonish Episode 201
It’s 2023! And you know what that means! That’s right, more 2022! Join us as we dish out the golden gongs in the comics industry’s most Scottishy-podcasty awards, the Homies! Now in its titantic tenth year! Who won (we’ll tell you!)? Who lost (we won’t tell you!)? EXCITING!
The podcast is here, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And T-shirts! They’re going to be big, trust us!
The Homies 2022
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except this one mouse who was rereading issues of Saga to see if it wanted to nominate the book for Best Continuing Series. That’s right, it’s time to put forward your nominations for the Homies, our annual awards!
As always, Paul and I will individually be choosing a winner for each category, but there’s the usual proviso – we want YOU to help, so you all name your picks in the comments, and Paul and I each choose our own, and we talk a bit about each of the three on our awards show.
We’re likely to be recording mid-January, so we’re giving you until midnight UK time (7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific) on January 14 2023 to make your choice. When you list your picks, don’t just name names either, because we’ll be reading out the best comments on the show, so let us know your thinking!
BEST NEW SERIES
This one’s pretty self-explanatory – any comic whose first issue was published between 1 January and 31 December 2022 is eligible. What new series got your attention the most this year?
BEST ACTUALLY NEW SERIES
This one’s a little less self-explanatory – what series, again first published during 2022, did you think was best, with the proviso that it has to be something where the property wasn’t in existence prior to the start of 2022. We’re counting re-use of titles as well as concepts, so Strange or Rogues wouldn’t be eligible, but (for example) Earthdivers or Know Your Station would.
BEST CONTINUING SERIES
The counterpart to the categories above, which covers books whose first issue was published in 2020 or before. They’ve been around the block, but they’ve still got what it takes.
BEST MINI, ONE-SHOT OR OGN
These are explaining themselves by this point, right? We’re looking for OGNs, one-shots and minis published in 2022 (or partially in 2022, in the case of minis).
FAVOURITE WRITER
FAVOURITE ARTIST
FAVOURITE COLOURIST
Each of these three is pretty self-explanatory – whose name on the cover or credits box of a book makes you want to pick it up? Whose work do you most look forward to seeing?
MOST WANTED
This is for the comic, series or graphic novel that saw print this year which you’d want to see more of, whether that be a book that was cancelled before its time, a one-shot or mini that just begs for a follow-up, or an OGN that you’d love to see a sequel to.
MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE
It may have seemed unappealing when you read about it online, and those preview pages may have looked unremarkable, but when you finally got the winner of this category in your hands you were ready to eat your words. What comic, series or graphic novel did you find yourself enjoying much more than you thought you would?
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT
This is exactly what it says – which creator, creative team, publisher or other contributor to the world of comics really knocked it out of the park this year?
Let us have your picks in the comments thread below, along with your thinking on each one – we’ll read out a range of the responses on our big end-of-year show. Happy nominating!
House to Astonish Episode 200
Or “Goodness me, is it that time already?”
To quote the Bard, it’s been a long road, getting from there to here, but we’ve made it to episode 200 of House to Astonish, and we’re indulging in our traditional vices of cake and fizz, and talking about Vault Comics’ Headshell line, Titan’s new Conan series, Joe Kelly and Kim Niimura’s Immortal Sergeant, and Ty Templeton’s cancer-free all-clear. We’re also reviewing a bunch of comics on a theme, as we look at Batman #200, House of Mystery #200, Amazing Spider-Man #200, and, er, Deadpool #58? And as always, the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is ringing in the new. All this plus the villainy of Soupface, the world’s least efficient purse-snatching scheme, and a small haystack that looks like a big haystack.
As we recorded this episode on Sunday evening, the news hadn’t yet broken of the incredibly sad loss of Kevin O’Neill, an absolute giant of British comics. We’ll have more to say about him on a future episode.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And has there ever been a better time to snag yourself one of our gorgeous t-shirts from our Redbubble store? Depends on your personal circumstances, I guess?
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 11
The Thunderbolts are back, and Graviton is making heavy weather of things for them. Can Archangel tip the scales in the heroes’ favour? Can you imagine how embarrassed he would be if he didn’t? We’re looking at issues 27-30 of Thunderbolts (1997) this time out, and there’s a guy with too many baguettes, some highly unfortunate kerning, and a high society scandal in the world of military robotics to deal with.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. You can get our frankly delightful shirts over at our Redbubble store, and you can let us know what you think of the show in the comments below, on Twitter, via email, or on our Facebook fan page.
House to Astonish Episode 199
We’re back, and we’re remembering George Pérez, Neal Adams, Tim Sale, Kazuki Takahashi and Pat McCallum, as well as discussing Oni-Lion Forge and Comixology’s recent personnel shifts, the upcoming Tim Drake: Robin series from DC, Marvel’s newest Spider-Man ongoing, the return (again) of Miracleman, the just-announced Wakanda miniseries and Ryan North and Erica Henderson’s Danger and Other Unknown Risks. We’ve also got reviews of Starhenge and Batman, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is very online. All this plus a photocopier and some tracing paper, the comic book version of the Magic Roundabout and a Weeping Angel but in reverse and useless.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or through our Facebook fan page, and remember, a dog is for life, but a House to Astonish t-shirt is for eternity (NB: may not be for eternity).
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 9
Lightning keeps striking! Good lord! It’s just bizarre by this point! We’re back to look at Thunderbolts issues 22, 0 and 23 (in that order) and Avengers 12 (not in that order). Thrill to Hawkeye losing his AirBnB deposit! Be wowed by Vision’s capacity for complaining! Wonder aloud at whether Hercules and Atlas had a fling! It’s all go here!
The episode is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or through our Facebook fan page. And look, far be it from me to say, but our t-shirts are very reasonably priced and would look amazing on you.
House to Astonish Episode 198
We’re back, with more news and reviews and the usual nonsense. We’ve got chat about Archie Comics’ NFT shenanigans, IDW’s Originals line, DC’s Pride special’s lineup, the new Batman and Detective Comics creative teams, Superman: The Space Age, X-Terminators, All-Out Avengers, the relaunch of Shang-Chi and Grant Morrison’s debut novel Luda. We’ve also got reviews of The Wrong Earth: Fame and Fortune and Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe doesn’t have a leg to stand on. All this plus a fictional Scottish king, an unexplained vendetta against Sussex and Fleem Blomfom, the character find of 2022.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
And as always, if you want to show off your appreciation of Scotland’s longest-running comics podcast, you can do so with a fab shirt from our Redbubble store.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 8
Lightning strikes eight times! It’s really very dangerous to be out here! Get to shelter!
Paul and Al are back to talk about Thunderbolts #21 and Captain America/Citizen V ’98, with all the extraneous cover blurbs, world-class pauldrons and embarrassing Pritt-Stick accidents that entails. Come on in! The water’s Thunderbolts!
The episode 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. And as always, there are some beautiful shirts over at our Redbubble store. They would look great on you! I mean, obviously everything would look great on you. But these give us a few quid a pop.
House to Astonish Episode 197
We’re back once again with a full slate of comics news, remembering Ian Kennedy and Tom Veitch, and discussing the Hero Initiative’s JLA/Avengers reprint, DC’s upcoming Black Label titles, Marvel’s Wild Cards and Thunderbolts revivals, IDW’s Last Bot Standing and the Amazon/ComiXology disaster. We’ve also got reviews of Iron Fist and Nightwing, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe has a burnin’ love. All this plus an underground car park, trading cards with staples and Carnage, the most well-adjusted man in comics.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or through our Facebook fan page. And if you wanted to buy a t-shirt from our Redbubble store, then well, we wouldn’t say no.