House to Astonish Episode 103
We’re a few days late because of the Easter holiday, but we’ve got lots of chat for you this time round to make up for it. We’re talking about Angela joining the Marvel Universe, DC’s creative merry-go-round, Marvel’s new Avengers title, Jeff Parker’s Batman ’66, the return of Quantum & Woody, Marvel’s move into OGNs, Jim Rugg’s Supermag and various other bits and bobs. We’ve also got reviews of The Private Eye, Constantine and East of West, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is spreading like a viral infection. All this plus two dogs dressed as a pirate, DC’s new Thai green curry book and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of Smash Hits.
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.
Don’t forget we’ve also got our Redbubble store – making a fashion statement out of keeping your torso warm.
Charts – 31 March 2013
Bit of housekeeping to start: we recorded the podcast tonight, so it’ll be up tomorrow. X-Axis… probably Monday or Tuesday. But in the meantime, here’s a chart worth spending a bit of time on.
Regular readers will have noticed that one thing I like about the current chart rules is that literally anything can chart if the great British public suddenly feel an urge urge to buy it, as long as it’s lurking somewhere in the iTunes catalogue. If enough people succumb to the same collective madness, literally anything can be number one.
Behold a peerless example. This one’s going to take some explaining for the overseas readers.
Charts – 24 March 2013
And we’re back. I was originally planning to chuck this week’s new entries in with the post for tomorrow’s chart, but it seems that in my absence the country has had one of its periodic fits of lunacy that means there will be plenty to say in that column already. So instead, I’m going to briefly run through last week’s largely uneventful chart to get us up to date…
35. Jakwob (featuring Maiday) – “Fade”
The first hit for James Jacob, a producer from Hereford who some of the evening shows on Radio 1 have been vaguely supporting for a couple of years now. It’s a pretty little thing, but it’s going no further. I’ve never heard of singer Maiday, but she’s got a couple of videos of her own on YouTube, neither of which seems to have made a huge impact, but then they don’t actually seem to have been followed up by a commercial release – here’s “Breathe”.
Housekeeping
Just a reminder that, as previously mentioned, we’re taking a week off. We’ll be back next weekend. Or maybe Monday. More likely Monday.
Charts – 17 March 2013
Let’s get straight to it, shall we?
38. Blake Lewis – “Your Touch”
Blake Lewis was the runner-up of American Idol in 2007, since when he’s released a couple of albums in the States to sharply diminishing returns. (If Wikipedia is to be believed, his debut album sold 309,000, and the follow-up managed just 10,000.) With this, the lead track from his third album, Lewis hurls himself on top of the passing dubstep bandwagon and clings on for all his might. It’s not horrible, actually, but it’s clearly the work of someone chasing trends.
The X-Axis – 17 March 2013
It’s a podcast weekend, so check one post down for discussion of Age of Ultron, Aliens vs Parker, and Lost Vegas. Oh, and the link to our RedBubble store is there too.
Housekeeping announcement: I’m taking next week off, so the X-Axis will return in two weeks (or a bit after).
And now…
Uncanny X-Men #3 – The previous issue ended with the Avengers showing up, but it did seem a bit early for that fight, so it’s no great shock to find that this issue doesn’t actually contain it. What happens instead is that they talk to each other for a while, and then when the Avengers finally decide to have a go at arresting Scott’s team, Tempus just freezes them all in place.
House to Astonish Episode 102
Bags of stuff to talk about this time round, with chat about Marvel’s SXSW announcements (and the fallout from their 700 Firsts giveaway), Justice League of America‘s sales, the casting of Drax the Destroyer, the delay of the adjectiveless X-Men book, Afterlife with Archie, the closure of JManga and a quick trot through the June solicitiations. We’ve also got reviews of Lost Vegas, Aliens vs Parker and Age of Ultron, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is seeing other people’s lives flash before its eyes. All this plus War is Awesome, Captain America’s dramatic walk and the impracticalities of a Top Cat heist.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available through the embedded player below. We’re also on Stitcher.com or their free iOS and Android apps.
Don’t forget that we’ve also got a range of super-swanky T-shirts available at our Redbubble store – love comics, look cool.
Let us know what you think, in the comments, via email, through Twitter or on our Facebook fan page.
Charts – 10 March 2013
A pretty quiet week, to be honest, but there are a few points of interest in here.
30. The Stereophonics – “Indian Summer”
Hey, these guys are still going! I always regarded the Stereophonics as meat-and-potatoes indie-rock plodders at the best of times, but they’ve been around since 1997, so they must be doing something right. This is the lead single from their new album “Graffiti on the Train”, which enters the album chart this week at 3. It seems to show them mutating into a lower-impact Bon Jovi. Is this what they call “growing old gracefully”?
The X-Axis – 10 March 2013
Quite a lot to get through – though for once, that’s mostly because I’ve still got three titles to cover from last week. Also, it’s Titles Beginning With A week!
A + X #5 – Quite the random selection this time, as the book seems to be broadening its already broad agenda to “any two characters as long as one of them’s associated with the Avengers titles and the other is associated with the X-Men titles.” So in the lead slot we’ve got Iron Fist and Doop by Kathryn Immonen and David Lafuente, while the second story, by Kieron Gillen and Joe Bennett, has Mr Sinister crossing paths with Loki.
Charts – 3 March 2013
It’s not the busiest week, but there are a few interesting records here nonetheless.
Admittedly, not so much this first one.
39. Paramore – “Now”
Well, that was non-specifically discontented. It’s alright, but I think they wrote better tunes when they were doing straight power pop. It’s their 6th UK hit; the biggest was “Ignorance”, which made number 14 in 2009. Sales on this must have been hugely frontloaded by fan purchases, since it was at 23 in the midweeks.
