House to Astonish Episode 73
It’s our first podcast in conjunction with Comics Should Be Good, and it’s a bit of an epic – our longest ever episode, with discussion of the Marvel cancellation wave, the Booster Gold TV show, Image Comics’ convention and Ron Marz’s move off Voodoo, as well as a run through the solicitations. We’ve got reviews of Fantastic Four and Mudman, interviews with Nick Spencer, Stephen Wacker and Kieron Gillen recorded at Leeds’s Thought Bubble convention and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe hits the bottle. All this plus J Michael Straczynski’s tomb, Iceman being beaten with a giraffe and some of the more obscure levels of Sonic the Hedgehog.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, either in the comments thread, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
Good News, Everyone!
Hot on the heels of our third anniversary show, we’re pleased to be able to announce that House to Astonish has joined top-tier comics website Comic Book Resources, as a new regular feature of the Comics Should Be Good blog! We’re going to be posting our show there as of tomorrow’s episode, and we’re looking forward to being part of their line-up.
Now, don’t fret – this isn’t going to have an impact on the blog. You’ll still get the X-Axis, the wrestling write-ups and the chart posts, and the podcast will continue to be posted here too. You’ve just got another avenue by which you can get hold of the show now. The RSS feed will remain the same as well, and all it should mean for House to Astonish’s continued operation is that we’ll be in front of a lot more eyes.
We’ll see you all tomorrow, for an extra-long episode, featuring interviews with Nick Spencer, Stephen Wacker and Kieron Gillen, conducted at last weekend’s Thought Bubble convention.
Charts – 20 November 2011
If I’m not writing reviews, let’s see if I can get this up insanely early instead. (Ah, midweek chart update, you make this so much easier…) Settle down, because there’s a lot of videos in this one.
After last week’s snoozefest, this week’s new releases are a decidedly more interesting crop. There are also tons of them. But there’s one thing in common with last week’s chart – once again, a boy band who were number 1 in the midweeks have fallen short in the second half of the week and missed the number 1 slot by quite some way. We’ll come back to that.
Remarkably, “We Found Love” by Rihanna is still number 1. That’s now five weeks in total, which in the current market is sheer dominance. The last record to spend five weeks at number 1 (admittedly in a single run) was “I Kissed A Girl” by Katy Perry in 2008.
That leaves the highest new entry to come in at number two – tying in nicely with my wrestling post, since it’s also being used as the theme for this year’s survivor series – is “Good Feeling” by Flo Rida. Unexpectedly, this isn’t bad. Naturally, there is an explanation for that, and I’ll come to that, because it’s quite an entertaining diversion in its own right.
Survivor Series 2011
Survivor Series holds a curious position in the WWE pay-per-view calendar. In theory, it’s one of the “big four” shows that have been around since the early days of wrestling PPV – the others being Wrestlemania, the Royal Rumble, and Summerslam. In practice, it’s been allowed to drift down in importance, and its gimmick of ten-man elimination matches has been steadily de-emphasised. It continues to be presented as a slightly more significant show than others, but in an increasingly half-hearted way.
So there was some surprise when it was announced that this show had been chosen for the Rock’s return match. While he’s certainly not going to return to any sort of regular wrestling schedule, he is going to wrestle John Cena in the main event at Wrestlemania 2012, and something had to be done to start the build-up for that. Hence his appearance on tonight’s show. Presumably, the theory is that Rock’s name will add more buys to Survivor Series than it would to January’s Royal Rumble. Or maybe he’s just not free in January.
However it ended up happening, Survivor Series 2011 is very much a one-match show – or even a half match show, since Rock’s opponents aren’t going to be shifting many tickets in their own right.
Housekeeping
Just so you know, no X-Axis this weekend – I won’t get the books until Monday.
We will, however, have a wrestling preview on Sunday night!
Charts – 13 November 2011
Rarely has a week with so many new releases been so utterly dull. There are seven new entries (plus one big climber), but with one exception, they’ve all dropped sharply on the midweeks.
In a display of unusual staying power, “We Found Love” by Rihanna returns to number 1 in its sixth week on release, having moved 1-1-1-3-2-1.
(The song starts at 0:50.)
This is a little unexpected, because the midweek charts had “Take A Chance on Me” by JLS in the lead. And the X Factor’s only successful band has a good track record for making number 1. But the second single from their new album is just a generically forgettable mid-tempo pop dirge. It’s inoffensive. It’s slightly above average. But the initial sales from the fanbase clearly didn’t hold up, since it winds up at number 2, and the midweeks show it dropping to 7.
The X-Axis – 13 November 2011
Thought for the day: Kade Kilgore may seem like a wildly implausible character, but then, we do live in a world where Silvio Berlusconi got elected three times.
It’s the third anniversary of the House to Astonish podcast, and you’ll find that episode just one post down! Meanwhile, after a fairly subdued few weeks, the X-office seems to be back up to full speed again. But there’s also a couple of other major releases from Marvel…
Avenging Spider-Man #1 – A monthly comic by Zeb Wells and Joe Madureira! Anyone seriously believe this is going to come out on schedule without a horde of fill-in artists by issue #6? (As near as I can make out, his record for a book that actually came out on time was five consecutive issues of Uncanny X-Men. And Salvador Larrocca had to help out on one of those.)
But cynicism, and awful title, notwithstanding, this de facto relaunch of Marvel Team-Up is quite good fun.
House to Astonish Episode 72
Three years in and we’re still going strong, with news on the passing of Mick Anglo, the October sales charts, DC’s collections plan, Marvel’s rollout of bagged digital codes, the early online leak of Incredible Hulk issue 2, Jim Mahfood’s Tank Girl OGN, the Spider-Man musical’s continued injury woes and the one-dollar Wasteland promotion. We’ve also got reviews of The Occultist, Uncanny X-Men and Heart, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe features a cult classic. All this plus organically vat-grown Marauders, a full football team of artists and a gun the size of a tree trunk.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or accessible via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments thread, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. As always, nice iTunes reviews are much appreciated, and they really do help.
Here are the cakes we were so kindly given for our three-year anniversary. They are delicious.
Thanks for the past three years, and here’s to the next three.
Charts – 6 November 2011
Unexpectedly, the recent outbreak of chart stability seems to be continuing. The midweeks showed a new number one, but as it turns out “Read All About It” by Professor Green holds on for a second week. Judging from iTunes, it won’t manage a third – sales were actually down sharply this week, but that’s starting from one of the highest first-week sales of the year.
Even more surprisingly, Rihanna’s “We Found Love” is back up to 2, and it’s currently at the top of the iTunes chart – so it’s entirely possible it could yet return to number 1 for a fourth week.
All of which must be very disappointing to the record which was number 1 in the midweeks – “With Ur Love” by Cher Lloyd ft Mike Posner.
The X-Axis – 6 November 2011
The “Regenesis” relaunch is now well and truly underway, with three of the regular X-titles starting their new arcs this week, including core title Uncanny X-Men. Elsewhere… well, there are a few other new titles, and a bunch of more diverse stuff sitting the pile I haven’t read yet. Busy week.
Avengers Academy #21 – By Marvel’s standards, this deserves some sort of award for restraint. It is indeed the start of a new direction for the series – relocating to California, adding two new regulars, and expanding the supporting cast dramatically. But while there’s a big sign on the cover saying “1st Issue of a New Era”, they haven’t renumbered it. Astonishing. Has somebody finally figured out that that stunt only works if you use it sparingly? Seems unlikely. Maybe it was an oversight.
Regardless, Avengers Academy is worth a passing mention because it’s written by Christos Gage, who’s soon to take over X-Men Legacy. While it’s never been a big seller, it is one of Marvel’s most consistent team books. Gage certainly knows how to juggle a large cast and make sure they all have something to do; and the original characters who make up the student body are all nicely rounded personalities with strong individual concepts. The series has a very well judged blend of classic Marvel tropes and fresh characters to experience them. Granted, Gage is writing one of the low-end X-books where he’ll be working in the margins of other peoples’ stories, and granted, his Brood arc on Astonishing X-Men was nothing special… but I have hopes for him as a regular writer.
