Quarantined Comics

Episode Archive

Episode Archive

155 episodes of Quarantined Comics since the first episode, which aired on May 29th, 2020.

  • GENE LUEN YANG ...chats on Modern Minorities

    May 20th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  45 mins 4 secs

    Gene Luen Yang is an award-winning cartoonist, storyteller, and teacher - whose been creating comics since the fifth grade. His 2006 graph_ic novel American Born Chinese will be a 2022 Disney+ TV series by Shang Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton. Two of Gene’s other two books - Dragon Hoops + Superman Smashes the Klan - won the 2020 Eisner (the Oscars for comics), and Raman’s reviewed them on his other podcast Quarantined Comics. Gene’s a former CS + Math teacher - who’s since gone on to work on some of the biggest name in pop culture and comics - including Avatar the Last AirBender, rebooting Shang Chi over @ Marvel Comics (before the hit movie), and having more than a few unique takes on DC’s Superman. Gene was named the Library of Congress’ fifth National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and has also received a MacArthur Genius Grant. Gene advocates for the importance of reading diversely - and makes his kids finish all of their projects. Raman tried really hard not to fanboy over one of his personal heroes...

  • PALESTINE ...cartoon journalism that's required reading

    May 13th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  46 mins 20 secs

    PALESTINE is Joe Sacco's seminal work of cartoon journalism

    First published in 1993, PALESTINE covers Sacco's travels thru occupied Palestine territory - and Israel - to embed himself with the Palestinian people - hearing their stories first-hand to understand how they lived their every day lives. Sacco wanted to get around the sanitized story the Western Media was potraying — to emphasizes the history and plight of the Palestinian people, as a group and as individuals. In Palesteine Sacco positions himself as the westerner confronting a reality unfamiliar to most Americans at the time - concentrating on his personal experience and perspective, as well as the stories of the people he encounters, with some light history thrown in for good measure. Conversations are documented over tea, roadblocks, police action, taxis and checkpoints - which become all too familiar set pieces in Sacco's narrative journey..

  • DR. STRANGE: TRIUMPH & TORMENT and THE OATH ...these relationships are DOOMED.

    May 8th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  35 mins 45 secs
    comics, dr doom, dr strange, graphic novels, marvel

    In celebration of the release of "Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Motherhood"... uh... or "Dr. Strange in the Motherhood of Madness"... no. Well, we commemorate the release of Marvel $tudio$ newe$t film and mothers everywhere by reviewing a book that combines the two: "Dr. Strange & Dr. Doom: Triumph and Torment." We'll also read the "Dr. Strange: The Oath," because these books are pretty short.

  • SQUIRE ...girls with swords (feat. grounded geeks)

    April 29th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  57 mins 24 secs

    This week for Ramadan (~kinda?) we are teaming up with the Grounded Geeks podcast and reading SQUIRE by Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas - a comic set in an alternate history Middle East and North Africa. Squire follows Aiza, a 14 year old girl training to become a knight for a war-torn empire while hiding her true background as a girl from conquered lands...which could be any major world civilization. Born Ornu - a second-class citizen of the once-great Bayt-Sajji Empire, Aiza dreams of a better life of glory and citizenship - by leaving her family to enlist in the empire's military. She must navigate friendships and rivalries, train rigorously and confront the bitter societal truths...and lies...being told to ALL of the people of the empire. SQUIRE is informed and inspired by many actual elements of Islamic culture and history.

  • THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM... let's call it an unconventional education

    April 23rd, 2022  |  Season 4  |  35 mins 40 secs
    comics, drifting classroom, graphic novels, horror, manga

    This week, we go back to school and get educated about Kazuo Umezu's seminal horror manga The Drifting Classroom. Though published in the 70s, it continues to exert its tremendous influence on modern horror creators, including Junji Ito.

  • EASTER SPECIAL: USAGI YOJIMBO... a bunny with bushido

    April 17th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  50 mins 24 secs
    easter, graphic novels, stan sakai, usagi yojimbo

    Stan Sakai's epic tale of the samurai Miyamoto Usagi was first published in 1984 and is ongoing today. We'll review a fraction of it, specifically the run from 1997, when Dark Horse took over as publisher from Fantagraphics, to 2003.

  • EPISODE #100 ...why Paul Pope's 100% + Batman Year 100 are only 75%

    April 8th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  39 mins 59 secs

    This week marks the 100th episode of Quarantined Comics — so we wanted something SO epic, but instead we just picked TWO comics with the number 100 in the titles by Eisner-award-winning wunderkind Paul Pope...
    100% - takes place in a dystopian alternate future New York — focusing on the intertwining struggles and relationships of six characters.
    BATMAN YEAR 100 - takes place in the same universe in an unfamiliar Gotham City 100 years from Batman's debut, where the caped crusader is but a a forgotten legend from the past who shouldn't exist at all.
    Across much of Paul Pope's indie, alternative work - he's become known for a unique, emotionally charged style — often presenting a futuristic world where everything is seedy, technology is ubiquitous, and privacy is pretty much a thing of the past. So, basically contemporary historical fiction.

  • FRANK MILLER'S RONIN ...pure male ID, in full samurai color!

    April 1st, 2022  |  Season 4  |  41 mins 43 secs

    RONIN - by comics superstar Frank Miller (+longtime colorist / collaborator Lynn Varley) was a groundbreaking work of the 1980s in many ways, - paving the way for creator-centric works like the Dark Knight Returns and many more of comics greatest works. Ronin tells the story of a disgraced samurai warrior and his sworn demonic enemy Agat - awakened from a centuries-long slumber trapped inside a magical sword. Reincarnated in a near future dystopic NYC run by a benevelont technology corporation and their friendly sentient AI, the Ronin finds himself in the body of an armless, legless telekinetic named Billy, and creates cybernetic limbs, and Agat possesses the corporate head of the aforementioned company. Also, there's a badass head of security whose storyline does not pass the Bechdel test. A beautiful book, where like Elsa said, you just gotta let it go.

  • TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES... they're in a half shell, but are they heroes?

    March 22nd, 2022  |  Season 4  |  42 mins 15 secs
    comic, eastman, laird, teenaged mutant ninja turtles, tmnt

    This week, we dip into nostalgia and review Kevin Eastman's and Peter Laird's original run on Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, as it went from indie comic to pop cultural phenomenon.

  • THE UKRAINIAN & RUSSIAN NOTEBOOKS ...this isn't the first time

    March 11th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  32 mins 8 secs

    SupportUkraineNow.org
    The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks: Life and Death Under Soviet Rule by Igort, is a collection of two harrowing works of graphic nonfiction about life under Russian foreign rule. After spending two years in Ukraine and Russia, collecting the stories of the survivors and witnesses to Soviet rule, Igort was compelled to bring those stories to new life with in-depth reporting and deep compassion.With elegant brush strokes and a stark color palette, Igort has transcribed the words and emotions of his subjects, revealing their intelligence, humanity, and honesty—and exposing the secret world of the former USSR.

  • THE BATMAN ...it never stops raining in Gotham

    March 9th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  51 mins 37 secs

    Hey, did you hear there's a new Batman movie out?

  • BATMAN IMPOSTER ...what happens when the Butler leaves

    March 4th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  49 mins 56 secs

    This week, BEFORE we risked life and lung to go see THE BATMAN on the big screen, we decided to read BATMAN IMPOSTER, written by Mattson Tomlin, and illustrated by Andrea Sorrentino. Tomlin happens to also be an (uncredited) screenwriter of the latest film...so it's an interesting look into what feels like it could be in the same tonal universe but not quite (i mean they got the eyeliner down)

  • MOMS... Sex and the City with Seoul

    February 26th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  37 mins 23 secs
    comics, graphic novels, ma yeong-shin, moms, seoul, south korea

    This week, Eisner-winning creator Jen Wang ("Stargazing" and "The Prince and the Dressmaker") visits Quarantined Comics, and we all take a trip to visit "Moms." Ma Yeong-shin's graphic novel, based partially on his own mother's life, follows four middle-aged women in Seoul who've finished raising their kids (mostly) and find themselves still figuring things out in the second half of their lives.

  • MY BEIJING & LITTLE WHITE DUCK ...learn why Ryan hates kids (books)

    February 18th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  32 mins 56 secs

    Our journey to China continues...this time, for the kid...friendly? Namely 2 kids comics: "My Beijing: Four Stories of Everyday Wonder" by Nie Jun,
    and "Little White Duck: a Childhood in China" by Na Liu and her husband Andrés Vera Martínez. Both books weave tales of a childhood in China. One idyllic and magical, and one full of innocently lived, yet harsh realities. "My Beijing" tells four stories in the hutongs...or interior neighborhoods of urban Beijing in mostly the modern day - with a little bit of time travel thrown in for good measure, following the adventures of a little girl and her "Grampa," holding onto idyllic memories of how it once was.
    Whereas "Little White Duck" is a series of autobiographical recollections of the writer's childhood growing up in Wuhan during the late 1970s, as China found itself in transition, slowly opening up - especially after Mao's passing.Both books captured a feeling of China that was both familiar and eye opening.

  • NIGHT BUS... a walk through someone else's dream

    February 13th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  28 mins 54 secs
    chinese, comics, graphic novels, night bus, zuo ma

    This week, we take a long, strange ride on "Night Bus," a collection of semi-autobiographical comics from the Chinese cartoonist Zuo Ma. We'll start off in a country landscape undergoing a rapid industrialization, and take a sharp turn into the weird.

  • BOXER & SAINTS ...unraveling the hero’s journey, and snacks

    February 4th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  38 mins 51 secs

    This week, in honor of the Chinese New Year (恭喜發財) we revisit favorite cartoonist Gene Luen Yang for his 2013 two-volume epic BOXERS & SAINTS - which tells the story of the late 19th Century Boxer Rebellion, from two sides, injecting magical realism injected into the complexity of historical events. It's got everything - bald dudes with pony tails swinging ancient Chinese swords channeling the ancient spirits of Chinese lore. a converted Chinese Christian youth channeling the spirit of Joan of Arc, and a historical fiction allegory (or one-sided commentary) on the follies of our "civilized" hubris. This 2-part graphic novel was Yang's sophomore follow-up to his award-winning comic "American Born Chinese" — BOXERS & SAINTS lays bare the foundations of extremism, rebellion, and faith. Fighting for the glory of China...but at what cost?!?