The Comics Canon – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, we take a long-overdue look at one of the most acclaimed crimefighters in comics history, Will Eisner’s The Spirit!

Published in its own special insert in Sunday newspapers in the 1940s and early 50s, The Spirit featured seven- and eight-page stories about a masked hero in a suit and tie who helped the police of Central City fight criminal masterminds, underworld figures and slinky femmes fatales. Initially influenced by the pulps, The Spirit soon became known for short stories that showcased Eisner’s genre-defying imagination and visual invention—stories in which the Spirit himself often wasn’t even the main character!

Starting with the 1940’s “The Origin of the Spirit,” we dive into eight tales that demonstrate the wide range of this influential comic. But does The Spirit have what it takes to kick back in that tastefully appointed crypt known as … The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

·       Curt has a dream

·       Who was handling Paste Pot Pete’s branding?

·       Is The Spirit the Citizen Kane of comics?

·       Will Eisner’s Shop Talk

·       Two of the Spirit’s femmes fatales

·       The Story of Rat-Tat the Toy Machine Gun

·       Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Join us in two weeks as we mark the upcoming release of Joker: Folie a Deux and other Batman-related properties with a handful of stories featuring everyone’s favorite clown prince of crime, the Joker!

Until then:
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In this episode, we conclude our three-part look at V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, as collected by Vertigo/DC Comics!

V disables Norsefire’s surveillance apparatus, nudging the citizens of London toward revolution. Rose Almond takes action. Schemes are hatched as Helen Heyer and Peter Creedy vie to take control of the government. Detective Finch takes a bad trip. And Evey prepares to fulfill her destiny.

As society collapses, will any of our players get a happy ending? And will they finally step into the spotlight of that vicious cabaret known as … The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

·       V’s Bugs Bunny physics

·       We’ve got a fever, and the only cure is more Scottish brogue!

·       A surprise induction into The Comics Canon!

·       The Filth and the Fury

·       Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep and The Simple Art of Murder

Join us in two weeks as we take a long-overdue look at Will Eisner’s The Spirit!

Until then:
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And as always, thanks for listening!

One of our co-hosts is quarantined at home, so we’ve decided to postpone our next proper episode until we can be together in person! Meanwhile, Curt surprises Kevin with a pop quiz on quotes from books we’ve covered on the podcast. How good is Kevin’s recall? (Spoiler: It’s bad! Very, very bad!)

For decades, Bucky Barnes sat cooling his heels with Ben Parker in the exclusive club of characters Marvel Comics would never bring back from the dead. But all that changed in 2006, as chronicled in Captain America: Winter Soldier—specifically, Captain America issues 1-6. 8-9, and 11-14—by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, Michael Lark and others.

While chasing down a terrorist plot with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter, Captain America starts having flashbacks to World War II and the heroic death of his teen sidekick, Bucky—who might also be the Soviet assassin known as the Winter Soldier!

Can the Star-Spangled Avenger help this ruthless killing machine remember who he is, while also facing off against Crossbones and a Russian mastermind with a Cosmic Cube? And can this popular and influential story arc score an invite to that Party in the U.S.A. known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• Walking in a Winter Soldierland
• The Avengers’ leather jacket era
• The soap opera elements of Winter Soldier
• Comparisons to Captain America: The Winter Soldier (the movie)
• Velvet by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting
• The Expanse series of novels
• Strange Adventures by Tom King, Mitch Gerads and Evan “Doc” Shaner
• Rorschach by Tom King and Jorgé Fornes

Join us in two weeks as we segue seamlessly from hard-hitting superhero action into a collection of stories about the Bradley family from Peter Bagge’s 1980s comic Neat Stuff!

Until then:
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And as always, thanks for listening!

In this episode, we quack the case of everyone’s favorite talking waterfowl with a look at Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck! Specifically, his appearances in Giant-Size Man-Thing issues 4-5 and Howard the Duck (Vol. 1), issues 1,2,3, and 5, published by Marvel Comics!

Trapped in a world he never made, this irascible, cigar-chomping mallard became a breakout star following his debut in Man-Thing #1 and went on to star in his own series, known for its biting satire (and for having him often appear as a parody of fellow Marvel Comics characters).

Can our fowl-tempered philosopher prevail against such absurd antagonists as Pro-Rata, Turnip-Man, Count Macho and the undead menace of Bessie the Hellcow? And will he take his rightful place among that duck dynasty known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• The Bird Pun Swear Jar
• Milkshake Duck
• Curt’s favorite comic book sound effect
• Smokestacks and skyscrapers
• Master C’haaj
• Our Immortal Hulk episode
• Mark Gruenwald
• Dark Avengers Vol. 2: Molecule Man
• Thundarr the Barbarian
• Howard the Duck Vol. 0: What the Duck?

Join us in two weeks as we look ahead to Marvel Studios’ 2021 slate of Disney+ shows with a discussion of Captain America: The Winter Soldier!

Until then:
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And as always, thanks for listening!

Bro! On this episode, comics writer and publisher Carlton Hargro (20th Place Media) returns as we take aim at “the breakout star of the blockbuster Avengers film” with a discussion of Hawkeye (2012), specifically issues 1-5 (as seen in Vol. 1: My Life As a Weapon) and 11 (“Pizza Is My Business”), by Matt Fraction, David Aja and Javier Pulido, published by Marvel Comics!

This charming take on the World’s Greatest Marksman deftly balances humor, action, dense plotting and a strong, unifying visual style courtesy of David Aja and the muted color scheme of Matt Hollingsworth.

Can Avenger Clint Barton and his protégé, Kate Bishop (who also goes by Hawkeye) survive encounters with tracksuit-clad mobsters, the Circus of Crime, and a dangerous auto-thieving redhead? Can Clint’s pizza-loving canine companion, Lucky, solve the murder of one of Clint’s neighbors? And can these stories hit that moving target known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• Save the Cat and Does the Dog Die?
• How is the Circus of Crime still in business?
• Pulp by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
• Hawkeye: Kate Bishop Vol. 1: Anchor Points by Kelly Thompson, Leonardo Romero and Michael Walsh
• Daredevil Vol. 1 by Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin
• 20th Place Media on Instagram

Join us in two weeks as we discuss Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck!

Until then:
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The second volume of Art Spiegelman’s award-winning graphic memoir finds the artist grappling with the success of the first, and questioning his ability to pull off such an ambitious project.

In doing so, he adds another layer to the book’s metaphorical conceit of depicting various ethnicities as different animals, and creates a work more reflective and self-aware than its predecessor.

Meanwhile, as Spiegelman’s often contentious relationship with his father takes him from the Catskills to Florida and back to New York, Vladek’s recollections take him from the horrors of Auschwitz through the end of the war. But although he’s finally free of the concentration camp, his trials are far from over.

Recommended in This Episode:

• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
• Safe Area Gorazde and War’s End: Profiles From Bosnia 1995-96, by Joe Sacco

Join us in two weeks as we change course to discuss Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon, by Matt Fraction and David Aja!

Until then:
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And as always, thanks for listening!

Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus had a profound effect on the public perception of comics as an art form when its first volume, serializing installments that had first appeared in the alternative comics anthology Raw, appeared in 1986.

In it, Spiegelman’s conversations with his father, Vladek—background for a comic the artist wants to write—serve as an entryway into the elder Spiegelman’s harrowing, matter-of-fact account of his experiences in Poland in the 1930s and 40s, including his eventual arrival at the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. In one of the book’s most disarming touches, all of its Jewish characters are portrayed as bipedal, clothes-wearing mice, while Germans are depicted as cats, and the non-Jewish people of Poland as pigs.

In this first volume, Vladek paints an increasingly grim portrait of a changing Poland and recounts the various indignities, humiliations and atrocities he and other Jews experienced during the first stages of the Holocaust.

In This Episode:

• Prisoner of the Hell Planet
• The Wild Party: The Lost Classic By Joseph Moncure
• Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio
• Our appearance on Marvel by the Month: December 1966

Join us in two weeks as our two-parter concludes with a discussion Maus: A Survivor’s Tale II: And Here My Troubles Began.

Until then:
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And as always, thanks for listening!

The Cosmic Canon, our miniseries on space-faring epics, concludes with a look at Mike Baron and Steve Rude’s Nexus, as seen in Nexus. Vol. 2, issues #13-16 and 18-19, published by First Comics!

In the 25th century, Horatio Hellpop dreams of mass murderers, and is compelled to hunt those killers across the galaxy and kill them. When his efforts to free himself of this mission are thwarted, he winds up face to face with the bizarre alien entity behind his incredible powers!

Can his best friends and his erstwhile lover prevail against a four-armed assassin and one of the galaxy’s most formidable spymasters in a desperate effort to save Horatio’s soul? And can this richly imagined and beautifully rendered saga cross the threshold into that space odyssey known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• First Comics
• Burn After Reading
• Steve Rude’s artwork
• Nexus as a Warlock in Dungeons and Dragons
• The Sun Devils
• We Hate Movies: The Nexus
• Nexus Omnibus Vol. 1
• Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes

Join us in two weeks as we switch gears in a big way with a look at Art Spiegelman’s Maus Vol. 1: My Father Bleeds History.

Until then:
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And as always, thanks for listening!

In this episode, The Cosmic Canon, our series on space-faring epics, rockets all the way to the 30th century as we discuss The Great Darkness Saga from Legion of Super-Heroes #290-294, published by DC Comics!

As chronicled by Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen, the early ’80s Legion isn’t your daddy’s teenage superhero space club! Combining space opera and soap opera, it features a large cast of super-powered young adults embroiled in romantic dramas and interplanetary intrigue. And in this landmark five-issue story, they face their greatest foe yet, the enigmatic Master of Darkness! (Spoiler alert: It’s Darkseid!)

Superboy, Supergirl and the Legion face off against Jack Kirby’s deadly despot as well as his sinister Servants and three billion mind-controlled aliens with the power of Superman in this story that helped to establish Darkseid as one of the elite antagonists of the DC Universe! Can our host of attractive young Lads and Lasses hope to prevail? And can this twilight saga emerge unscathed from the Apokalips Now that is ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• What’s your Legion name?
• Superboy goes to college
• The artwork of Keith Giffen
• Great Darkness Saga vs. The Sinestro Corps War
• Legion of Substitute Heroes Special #1
• The Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans

Join us in two weeks as The Cosmic Canon concludes with a look at Mike Baron and Steve Rude’s Nexus!

Until then:
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