Episode 100 - Family Affair #3 - Caged Heat

The sons vow to avenge their father.

We had such great plans for episode 100. Unfortunately, life gets in the way sometimes. We had lined up a bunch of folks to discuss the night that changed Continental Championship Wrestling, when Robert Fuller turned on Bob Armstrong in a steel cage and joined the Stud Stable with his brother Ron and cousin Jimmy in August 1985. But, due to all the sad wrestling news from this week, we were left with the only piece of the show that was recorded before the deaths of Jody Hamilton, Bert Prentice and Bobby Eaton.

So, we welcome back Karl Stern (@WIWCool) from When It Was Cool to talk about the fateful evening. We discuss the build-up to the cage match, not just from the start of Continental in June, but seeds that had been planted for years in the long-running Armstrong family feud with the Fuller/Golden/Welch clan. Then we analyze the match and the angle, including one part of the story that bugged Karl for many years.

We follow that up with a more general discussion of Continental and Southeastern, including why some parts of the wrestling community have overlooked or ignore the contributions made by Roy Welch, Buddy Fuller and Ron Fuller over the years.

The show wraps up with some comic book talk, as Karl had been gushing online about the first issue of the new Moon Knight comic, so we chat about that and whether this version will tie into the new Disney/Marvel TV show featuring the man of many personalities.

We have some shows lined up in the future, so hopefully those will materialize. Given all the problems we have had with guests lately, we don’t feel confident giving a timetable anymore. But thanks for listening for any and all of the first 100 episodes.

Episode Fifty-One - In Suburbia

Snapshot in the Family Album. From Vision 11 by King, Walta and Bellaire. (c) 2016 Marvel

The podcast returns from holiday/health hiatus for a look at the year in comics for 2016. We're joined in separate segments by (01:33) Joe Sposto (@joesposto) from Longbox Heroes, (40:22) magazine contributor Matt D and (1:11:20) Al Kennedy (@housetoastonish) from House To Astonish. There's chat about DC Rebirth, Civil War 2, the Inhumans' failed babyface push and other news from the past year. Then, it's lots of recommendations about what our favorite books and creators were from the past year. There are so many quality books now, things are bound to be forgotten, so apologies to those we should have mentioned during the show and did not. We still love your work, even if our collective memories are like a new kind of Swiss cheese,

Some of the books we did remember to mention include: The Vision by Tom King, Gabriel H Walta and Jordie Bellaire, Batman by King and multiple artists, Detective Comics by James Tynion IV and multiple artists, Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp, Moon Knight by Jeff Lemire and multiple artists, The Fix by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber, Future Quest by Jeff Parker, Doc Shaner, Steve Rude and other artists, the Batman 66 books by multiple creators, Kaijumax by Zander Cannon, The Black Monday Murders by Jonathan Hickman and Tomm Coker, Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour, Doctor Strange by Aaron and Chris Bachalo, the Thor books by Aaron and multiple artists, Giant Days by John Allison and multiple artists, Limbo by Dan Watters and Caspar Wijngaard, Another Castle by Andrew Wheeler and Paulina Ganucheau and plenty of other great books that you should check out to see if they are for you. It's a great time to be a comics reader, if you tastes run to action-oriented fare, indy slices of life or (hopefully) both. 

We also said goodbye to two amazing books this year that ended after 50 and 60 issues: The Sixth Gun by Collen Bunn and Brian Hurtt and Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory, respectively.

Also, I wanted to give a shout-out to some great collections that came out this year: The return of Blue Monday by Chynna Clugston-Flores, IDW's Artist Edition for the DC War books (featuring Kirby, Kubert, Kanigher and people whose last name didn't start with K) and the Master of Kung Fu omnibuses, books I never thought I would ever see collected.

There's some brief chat throughout the podcast about non-comics stuff, because we just can't stick to one topic for a whole show. We talk Marvel Puzzle Quest with Joe (our alliance leader), NXT wrestling with Matt and Chikara with Al. 

Episode Fifty - Ouroboros

The Devil Doctor. from LXG 1. (c) 2016 Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

Author and academician Jess Nevins (@jessnevins) joins the podcast for big episode fifty. We talk the art of annotating comics, starting with Kingdom Come and most notably The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. We also discuss how his research methods have changed since the start of the internet age in the mid 1990s to the present. We also chat about current comics include the works of Ed Brubaker(@brubaker) and Sean Phillips (@seanpphillips), Bandette by Paul Tobin (@paultobin) and Colleen Coover (@colleencoover),  the new Moon Knight book and Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire (@jefflemire) and various artists, Vision and Batman, both written by Tom King (@tomkingtk), Scarlet Witch by James Robinson jamesdrobinson) and various artists, and other books.  We conclude by telling some stories about role playing Golden Age heroes while we both in grad school at Bowling Green.  You can find information about Jess' books available in print and digitally at jessnevins.com.