Quarantined Comics

GREEN LANTERN: FAR SECTOR ...when fear meets willpower

March 7th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  39 mins 12 secs

In this episode, we'll look at the inaugural adventure of newest and most unique Green Lantern: Sojourner Mullein, a young black woman raised in post 9/11 New York, whose experiences growing up, and later serving in both the army and the NYPD, impact how she carries out her duties investigating a homicide in the furthest reaches of space.

SUPERMAN RED SON ...why does Batman need a Russian hat?

February 26th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  37 mins 14 secs

This week we continue our subversive superhero series ...with Superman Red Son, the 2003 miniseries that reimagined the Man of Steel had he been raised in Mother Russia

Written by Mark Millar with the artist team of Dave Johnson, Andrew Robinson, Walden Wong, Killian Plunkett, and colorist Paul Mounts - RED SON has the last son of Krypton's rocket ship landing on a Ukrainian collective farm. the book starts decades later in 1953 - at the beginning of the Cold War, with the Soviets revealing Superman to the world as "the Champion of the common worker who fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, socialism, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact."

ARKHAM ASYLUM ...frightened boy in a haunted house

February 20th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  27 mins 49 secs

Batman is many things. The Dark Knight detective. A tortured hero. Fetish bat. But scared boy? In Arkham Asylum, writer Grant Morrison (him again!) and illustrator Dave McKean give us a Batman the likes of which you've never seen before - and take him on a nightmarish spin through a haunted insane asylum.

MISTER MIRACLE ...diapers, PTSD, and veggie trays

February 12th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  32 mins 7 secs

This week we're talking about 2018's "MISTER MIRACLE" by Hugo award winning writer - and ex-CIA officer - Tom King and artist Mitch Gerads ... the same team behind “the Sherrif of Babylon.” Mister Miracle is an ambitious new take on one of Jack Kirby's most beloved New Gods - and his dysfunctional family. this is some PTSD-laden shit, and one of the best new comics we’ve read in awhile…and a great book to kick off our “Subversive Superheroes” series...

SATOSHI KON'S OPUS... are you reading a comic? are you in a comic? are you listening to a podcast?

February 6th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  32 mins 52 secs

manga, opus, satoshi kon

When manga artist Chikara gets pulled into his own work... it's quite literal. Soon, he finds himself entangled in the adventures of the characters he created, many of whom are not thrilled to learn they're fictional.

THE ROUGH PEARL... are you crazy? or is it just your life?

January 30th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  35 mins 32 secs

"The Rough Pearl" by Kevin Mutch begins as an in-depth look at one man wrestling with his own mediocrity... and ends in another dimension. If you like existential dread, quantum realities, and the zombie apocalypse...this book for you.

SAILOR TWAIN... i sailed the Hudson and all i got was a mermaid splitting my soul

January 22nd, 2021  |  Season 2  |  35 mins 9 secs

This week, we're reading SAILOR TWAIN or "the Mermaid of the Hudson", by Mark Siegel, Founder of First Second press, one of my favorite semi-indie comics publishers. The book just has a haunting atmosphere that pulled me in and still haunts me to this day.

THE ARAB OF THE FUTURE VOLS. 1-4 ...culture clashes everywhere

January 17th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  35 mins 17 secs

comics, graphic novels, memoir

Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Riad Sattouf's graphic memoir about his childhood growing up in France and Syria. At turns funny and at turns disturbing, The Arab of the Future is about a boy's growing disillusionment with his father and not feeling completely at home, no matter where you are.

PULP ...cowboys and...nazis?

January 8th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  23 mins 38 secs

grab your cowboy hat, and break out your typewriter for PULP, by the longstanding writer / artist duo of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. To many, Brubaker's best known for revitalizing Captain America with his "Winter Soldier" storyline...but to TRUE FANS, we know and love Brubaker's frequent team-ups with Sean Phillips for any # of NON-superhero, crime drama. If you want some good comics reading, i'd recommend any # of the duo's pairings - like SLEEPER, THE FADE OUT, FATALE, and their long-standing series CRIMINAL.

UPGRADE SOUL... congratulations, you've been optimized

January 1st, 2021  |  Season 2  |  37 mins 16 secs

graphic novels, science fiction

This quirky and eerie sci-fi trip by Ezra Claytan Daniels - the fewer plot details given, the better - follows two extraordinary individuals in the twilight of their lives as they undergo a scientific experiment to become their optimal selves.

It goes poorly.

At turns touching and horrifying, Upgrade Soul is among the best graphic novels we've reviewed so far.

WW84... two scoops of ice cream, two scoops of WarnerMedia's latest loss leader

December 29th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  53 mins 23 secs

comics, wonder woman, ww84

WW84, the sequel to the 2017 hit Wonder Woman, hasn't gotten the critical or audience acclaim of its predecessor. No surprise, we didn't like it either - but in this episode, we'll examine what did and didn't work for us.

BONE ...adorably innocent darkness for the kids!

December 25th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  38 mins 40 secs

BONE - the comics masterpiece epic by Jeff Smith - was the indie comics darling of the 90s, released in black and white from 1991 to 2004. It tells the story of 3 adorable cousins, a beautiful young woman, her grandma, a talking bug, a bartender, a friendly red dragon, evil rat creatures, a lord of locusts, and a cast of characters who find themselves descending into dark times...

GOOD TALK ...hits a little too close to home

December 18th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  45 mins 41 secs

This week we're talking about Mira Jacob's autobiographical memoir "Good Talk" (2018) - depicting in a uniquely simple graphic retelling of conversations about work and life with her young son, her Jewish husband, her parent-pleasing brother, her Indian parents, her extended family in India, her two best friends, and her very Trumpy in-laws.

SKIM and THIS ONE SUMMER ...growing up before the glowing up

December 12th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  41 mins 48 secs

In this episode, Ryan and Raman look at two graphic novel collaborations by the cousins Jillian and Mariko Tamaki: Skim (2005) and This One Summer (2014). Both are very different coming-of-age stories centered around teenagers plunged into a world of adult problems.

TOMINE'S LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE CARTOONIST ...mostly, we just talk about our lives

December 4th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  30 mins 49 secs

adrian tomine, comics, graphic novels

You might know Adrian Tomine from what seems like his monthly New Yorker covers, but the guy is one of the most accomplished cartoonists out there. This week, we'll check out his newest book/memoir "The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Cartoonist" which effectively charts Tomine's most salient moments of humiliation over the years.

Feel the cringe.

BLACK (+ BLACK AF) ...where the concept was better than the execution

November 27th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  40 mins 57 secs

This Black Friday... we're talking about "BLACK" and its sequel "BLACK AF" by Kwanza Osajyefo + artists Tim Smith 3 and Jennifer Johnson (respectively). The series posits that in a world that already hates and fears them - what if only Black people had superpowers?
Black made quite a splash when announced (on Kickstarter), and subsequently released from 2017-2018 - and were recently announced to being adapted to film by Warner Brothers. But we ask...was the book as good as the hype/concept?