Funnybook Babylon

This episode, we discuss changes over at the Comics Journal and what that means for the blogosphere, plus answer your questions about love, shame, professional wrestling and enabling habits!

If you have questions or topics you’d like to see addressed in future podcasts, write us at editors AT funnybookbabylon DOT com, or take advantage of our new phone service:

(347)-AUNT-MAY

That’s right, New York’s own May Parker has taken time out of her busy schedule of working at a soup kitchen and fretting about her nephew Peter to collect questions for us. Treat her well, she’s a great ol’ gal!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:05 — 40.6MB)

This episode, we take a look at Peter Milligan’s recently started run on Hellblazer, as one of the original British Invasion writers becomes the latest in his gang to tackle one of the longest running monthly American comic books in print.

Does Milligan still have “it”? Does John Constantine? Are they both self-sabotaging, self-destructive British gentlemen of a certain age? Listen and find out!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:52 — 17.2MB)

Sometimes our tough love strikes listeners as a little too tough. We’re sensitive to concerns about our negativity — and our tendency to ramble on — and so here we have a brief conversation where each of us describe a recent comic we’ve genuinely enjoyed.

Want to be spoiled? Our picks lie below!
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Rock ‘n’ Roll and Superhero Comics are two uniquely American creations of the twentieth century, and they share many traits — a patchwork Genesis story, arguments about who was really first, youthful rebellion, corporate co-option, a “British Invasion” coming along and showing up their American rivals, a decades-long struggle to be taken “seriously”.
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:45 — 25.3MB)

Dear Listeners,

Did you enjoy the Listener Questions segment of our hundredth episode? Did you hate it because we didn’t answer your question? Do you still have a burning question for Joe?

Well, you have another chance to ask questions in a new ongoing segment. You can leave a question in the comments, or dare to take advantage of innovative Web 2.5 technology and call in to the Funnybook Babylon Hotline!

(347) 548-8377

Assuming we can work out this Web 2.5 technology, we might just play your question “on the air”!

If you’re in New York City and you like the music you’ve heard on our podcast you should go see the band that provided us with our music. They’re performing this Tuesday at the Sidewalk Cafe at 11pm.

If you would like a primer before you check them out, listen to this musical retrospective and interview with Huggabroomstik frontman Neil Kelly.

Okay, maybe not, but look at his hair. Look at it!

Oxendine is running for governor in Georgia, and was brought to my attention thanks to this amazing cartoon campaign ad, which is well worth watching. If a follow-up ad depicts a political opponent as a spider, somebody track down Mark Millar and shoot him for making Marvel 1985 real.

The Planetary retrospective rolls on with a podcast dissection of the series. WHERE IS THE FOURTH MAN? Sorry Jamaalamanaics, he was busy this weekend. But he’ll be back later this week in our Umbrella Academy review from the archives! Also, if you haven’t already checked it out, our Planetary Timeline has been updated with corrected images and more moments in the past decade of funnybook history!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:23 — 39.5MB)

As I discussed in our previous installment, Planetary finishes in a comics world quite different than the one it entered. Sure, Marvel and DC still have an effective oligarchy and pervert suit/nurse novel/ammonite pimp/fanmen still rule the land, but they do so in a different — and I will be so bold as to suggest better — landscape than what existed in 1999.

This timeline is a work in progress, and I know there are loads of important releases and business moves that I have not yet added to it, especially in recent years. If you think I’ve missed something, please let me know in the comments. But in the meanwhile, check out the timeline!

Thanks to Pedro for coding the thing in Flash, and thanks to the Gang of Davids (Brothers, Uzumeri, Cole) for input on dates and design.

For nearly twenty years, Deadpool has been a cult favorite Marvel character, beloved on the Internet for his scan-ready quips and pop culture references. But lately — whether it’s because his increased presence in movies and video games, change in market demographics, or just some sort of Yellow Word Balloon Zeitgeist — he’s a bonafide fan favorite, with a third ongoing series forthcoming and his current two series outselling the likes of Superman and Wolverine.
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Batman and Robin #5

As suspected by a few people in last month’s comment thread, the Red Hood is in fact the obvious option, Jason Todd. So that entire mystery’s away from us, although the domino killer and Man-On-Gargoyle are still milling around, not to mention Oberon Sexton.

Philip Tan’s art in this issue is rather confusing and unclear with regards to the storytelling, especially on the fifth page, so I’ll try to disentangle some of those things as we go.
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Planetary #1 came out on February 3rd, 1999. Britney Spears was still a chipper seventeen year old whose debut song “Hit Me Baby One More Time” was on top of the Billboard charts. New shows like Family Guy and The Sopranos had debuted days earlier on television. Nobody knew what The Matrix was and people were still optimistic about Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Sales of Zip Discs were peaking, and no one had an iPod, an Xbox, or a TiVo. Major studios like Paramount, Fox and Dreamworks were still resisting the DVD format, throwing their lot in with DIVX.
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This month, Dark Horse Comics released The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century, a behemoth six hundred page hardcover so balling only Pedro could fathom purchasing it.

So instead, we just read 1990’s Give Me Liberty, the four issue series that introduced Martha. This was one of the first projects Miller and Gibbons each worked on after their era-defining works on The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen respectively, and like those works, it has a uniquely Reagan/Thatcher Era vision of a bleak near future. The secret ingredient this time? Ayn Rand!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:52 — 26.8MB)

From this week’s Incredible Hulk #602, by Greg Pak and Ariel Olivetti:

Incredible Hulk #602

versus

Legends Comics & Books

You know, if they just had Greg Land doing Ariel Olivetti’s backgrounds and Olivetti doing Land’s, at least then we’d get one readable comic and one hilariously horrific piece of shit rather than two painful comics.

With Dark Reign entering a new phase with the release of the first Dark Reign: The List one-shots, the gang looks at Marvel’s recent experiments with telling One Big Story, from Civil War to today. Of special interest in Norman Osborn: is he the Green Goblin, Super-Cheney, or the second coming of Hitler? Marvel’s stable of writers seem to hold different opinions, and we explore them all.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:53 — 28.1MB)