Quarantined Comics

MS. MARVEL ...fighting for truth, justice, and time management?

This week, we're reading MS. MARVEL - written by award winning novelist, and Muslim American G. Willow Wilson. Some would argue that MS. MARVEL was one of the most important books - and new characters Marvel comics has released in a decade. While her name might be familiar, everything else is "all new, all different" - because we're introduced to Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American teenage girl - just trying to get her homework done, write fan-fic, play MMORPGs, figure out her relationship with...

PERRAMUS ...crying - and laughing - for Argentina

Perramus: The City And Oblivion is genuinely one of the most unusual and wildest graphic novel experiences you'll find today. Created during a period of great political turmoil, Perramus is at once terrifying and laugh-out-loud funny, following a group of oddball freedom fighters as they work their way through a country overrun by a fascist regime.

SWORD DAUGHTER ...like a Julie Andrews movie, but with revenge

This week we're reading SWORD DAUGHTER, created by Brian Wood and Mack Chater. It's a short-and-sweet epic of one father and daughters' quest to seek revenge against the ruthless vikings that destroyed their lives. SWORD DAUGHTER is set one THOUSAND years ago, - where the murderous Forty Swords clan, has burned a village to the ground, leaving just two people alive: DAG - a shattered father and ELSBETH - his teenage daughter. Setting off a revenge quest that will span the width of Viking Age...

YOSHIRO TATSUMI ...3 books that just got odder, yet more poignant?

We continue our journey to post WW2 Japan, with the more obscure, but equally important manga master - Yoshiro Tatsumi (credited as being the creator of the darker, more realistic "Gekiga" movement in manga). We read THREE short story collections that reflect Tatsumi's delightfully (?) tortured ethos of the time: "The Push Man" (1969), "Abandon The Old In Tokyo" (1970 - also a great name for a band), and "Good-Bye" (1971-1972). Tatsumi’s depiction of Tokyo largely takes place amid the garbag...

AYAKO... family troubles in post WWII Japan

Before WWII, the Tenge family ruled over their massive land holdings. But with the American occupation, their land is divvied up and the family, already in a state of deep moral decay, resorts to even more desperate measures to hold on to what they have. Osamu Tezuka's epic casts a critical eye on how Japan was forever transformed by its post-war fate -- all through the eyes of a family on the verge of an apocalypse. Deeply ambitious, Ayako is at times a mashup of genres, from political thr...

BLACK HAMMER ...heading to a farm upstate

Ever thought about going to a farm upstate? How about an interdimensional pocket reality that you can never escape from? This week we're reading Black Hammer, the Eisner award winning series by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston. This is an really fresh take on a lot of familiar tropes...which also brings our journey into subversive superhero stories to a close. It's got all your favorite superhero archetypes: the foul-mouthed lightning powered lass, the patriotic populist patriarch, the mellow mor...

FANTASTIC FOUR 1234 & ALL STAR SUPERMAN... reimagining the icons, for better or for worse

In 2002, superstar writer Grant Morrison dissected the familial relationships underpinning Marvel Comics' first family, with the four-issue Fantastic Four 1234. The result was a dark, distorted version - aided by artist Jae Lee - of the Fantastic Four, with the family fracturing as their arch nemesis Dr. Doom readies his final assault. Ryan dug it, Raman hated it. And in this episode, we agree on what Morrison is trying to do and disagree on whether they accomplished it. And just a few years ...

PLANETARY ...the secret fascist archeologists we deserved

This week we're talking about Planetary, written by the now-controversial Warren Ellis and drawn by the always-astonishing John Casaddy (who, in hindsight really has bad taste in comic book partners). Planetary broke onto the comics scene in 1998, and was unlike anything anyone had seen before...running sporadically for just 27 issues from 1998 to 2009 (do the math...that is a long time to wait between monthly issues) Revisiting Planterary was like reconnecting (and having lots of fun)) with ...

WARREN ELLIS'S MOON KNIGHT & KARNAK

What do you do if you're saddled with a stale, tertiary superhero? You hire writer Warren Ellis to inject some fire. Or at least you did. Ellis's superstar has lost a lot of shine following multiple allegations of his behavior around women. This week, we'll take a look at how Warren Ellis reinvigorates stale forgotten superheroes - but we'll have to do so within the context of Ellis's behavior, and whether or not his creations can be separated from their creator.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE SNYDER CUT ... everything is EPIC.

It's hard not to have an opinion on Zack Snyder, and his movies are always heavily produced and luxuriate in the epic-ness of their subject matter - whether it's Superman hurting into space or a janitor setting down a mop. And that tendency both hinders and helps his version of Justice League - which after years of anticipation, has been released. The mystique of The Superhero Film That Never Was turned the Snyder Cut from an idea into a reality. But now that Snyder's complete, unadulturated...

JIMMY OLSEN (Matt Fraction) ...and arguing about Charles Dickens

This week we're continuing our "subversive superhero series" and reading Matt Fraction's 2020 reboot of "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olson," illustrated by Steve Lieber. Fraction's an Eisner award winning writer is known his unique, sometimes edgier, realistic take on books like Hawkeye, Iron Man, Iron Fist, and Sex Criminals. Sure, Jimmy Olson is an ace photographer, turned content creator. He's a bow-tied bon vivant and adventurer. But as the book asks, why does Jimmy get to be Superman's best fri...

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

DC's Young Animal imprint, developed in 2016 by Umbrella Academy writer Gerard Way, gave visionary creators a platform to put their stamp on existing DC properties. As part of this initiative, Way recruited acclaimed sci-fi author N.K. Jemisin to spin up her unique take on the Green Lantern mythos. Her take: Sojourner Mullein, a young black woman who grew up in post 9/11 NYC and who went through the ringer both in the army and as a member of the NYPD. A rookie Green Lantern whose ring is po...

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

What's more American than Apple Pie and Baseball? Up in the sky - it's a bird, it's a plane...it's Superman RED SON, which reimagines the Man of Steel had he been raised in Mother Russia. Sign me up Komrade! We continue our subversive superhero series ...with Superman REDSON, 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 Mou...

ARKHAM ASYLUM ...frightened boy in a haunted house

In our second episode of SUBVERSIVE SUPERHEROES, we'll try to unpack the enigma of ARKHAM ASYLUM. Grant Morrison's and Dave McKean's disorienting ride takes its cues from haunted house narratives, classic horror stories of escaped prisoners visting their former keepers, and Alice in Wonderland, to deliver a Batman tale the likes of which you've never read before. Arkham Asylum is highly influential as well - and its presence can be felt in the Arkham Asylum video game series, the Batman: The ...

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

SUBVERSIVE SUPERHEROES! This will actually be the first in a series of QTD episodes where we talk about some of the more...subversive takes on some of DC Comics greatest heroes. What happens when you're a war veteran, were in the CIA, saw some shit, decided to start making PTSD-inspired, superhero comics? 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.”...

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

The late Satoshi Kon is known for his anime like Perfect Blue and Paprika - movies where both the characters and the audience must constantly question the reality of what they're experiencing. But before Kon directed movies, he was a manga creator, and the unfinished Opus is his last work before jumping careers. In many ways, Opus feels like a wind up to the metafictional playfulness of Kon's later work. But how does it stand as a story on its own? Raman and Ryan argue it out again.

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

It's the mid-90s in New York City. Adam Kline is teaching a deadend job at a midtown fashion college, trapped in a loveless marriage, angry that his art career never took off. And then the black outs start happening. The hallucinations. The floating eyeballs. The zombies. Kevin Mutch's THE ROUGH PEARL taps into your midlife anxiety and takes you down a psychedelic journey where the decisions you make might very well be an alien infestation. Or maybe you're just crazy.

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

Over a century ago - on the foggy Hudson, our Sailor Twain - a riverboat captain with his own problems is just doing his job, when he finds himself rescuing, and becoming enamored by an injured mermaid. Toss in a fornicating french nobleman, a no notoriously reclusive author, and a cast of weirdly wonderful window dressing characters - SAILOR TWAIN is an emotionally dark and mysterious story that's equal parts Poe, Hemingway and world mythology - illustrated in a moody charcoal finish. SAIL...

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

We look at the first four of cartoonist Riad Sattouf's six-volume epic memoir about growing up in France and Syria (the fifth volume came out in November 2020 in French). A unique, nuanced, and disturbing look at a childhood that takes place between two very different cultures.

PULP ...cowboys and...nazis?

on the eve of WW2...the big city, a sleepless dame who is as cruel as she is beautiful... what happens when you take a washed up, reformed cowboy-bandit-turned-comic book writer, who's down on his luck, flat broke, got a rotten ticker, and can't leave his old lady hangin...? YOU PUT HIM ON A MISSION TO STEAL MONEY FROM THE NAZIS! 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 kn...

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

Just read this book. It's amazing.

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

Unlike the previous DC Extended Universe movies, WW84 is a fun, campy romp - but that still doesn't absolve it of some fundamental storytelling problems. In this episode, we'll take a break from reading weird, obscure comics like Jim Lee's X-Men in favor (kidding) in favor of watching WarnerMedia's presumptive blockbuster WW84, the sequel to 2017's Wonder Woman. What worked? What didn't? And to what extent did viewing it on a streaming platform in our living rooms, rather than being enraptur...

BONE ...adorably innocent darkness for the kids!

There were once these three cousins, who done got run out of town. One was a con man, the other a doofus, and the third, a journeyman. they descended into a valley, found themselves a friendly dragon, a talking bug, and a beautiful young woman who could walk between her dreams. ...sounds like a 60s folks song written while tripping on acid? Not quite...this week we're talking about BONE - the comics masterpiece epic by Jeff Smith. Bone was the indie comics darling of the 90s, released spor...

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

Have you ever wondered what a conversation would be with your bi-racial kid, reflecting on everything that's going on in the world - the good, the bad, and the ugly? Have you ever had a conversation about race with your spouse of another race? This week, we're talking about what might have been Raman's all time favorite BOOK of 2018. Mira Jacob's autobiographical memoir "Good Talk." Jacob - of Indian descent was already an acclaimed author for her debut NON-GRAPHIC novel - "The Sleepwalker's...

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

The artist Jillian Tamaki and her cousin the writer Mariko Tamaki each have dynamic careers in illustration and comics. You might have seen Jillian's art in The New York Times, or on the covers of Penguin Classics. And Mariko has sharpened her pen writing a variety of superhero comics including Harley Quinn, Hulk, and Supergirl. Most recently, DC Comics appointed her as lead writer on its storied "Detective Comics" title. But the cousins have collaborated on more grounded fare - and This On...

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

Somehow, Adrian Tomine still feels like a young cartoonist to me, yet he's had a long and varied career - from his experimental strips in the self-published Optic Nerve, to his studies of loneliness, alienation, and simmering rage in... well, most everything he wrote afterwards. In his most recent work however, Tomine seems to be more charitable to his characters (which, in The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, is mostly himself) while charting their insecurities. Perhaps that's th...

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

Somehow, Adrian Tomine still feels like a young cartoonist to me, yet he's had a long and varied career - from his experimental strips in the self-published Optic Nerve, to his studies of loneliness, alienation, and simmering rage in... well, most everything he wrote afterwards. In his most recent work however, Tomine seems to be more charitable to his characters (which, in The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, is mostly himself) while charting their insecurities. Perhaps that's th...

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

Imagine a world, where only BLACK people have super powers... This week we're talking about "BLACK" and its sequel "BLACK AF" by Kwanza Osajyefo + artists Tim Smith 3 and Jennifer Johnson (respectively). The books made quite an impression on the industry when they came out from 2017-2018, and was recently announced to being adapted to film by Warner Brothers. But we ask...was the book as good as the hype/concept? The book posits that in a world that already hates and fears them - what if only...

Black (+ Black AF): where the concept was better than the execution

Imagine a world, where only BLACK people have super powers... This week we're talking about "BLACK" and its sequel "BLACK AF" by Kwanza Osajyefo + artists Tim Smith 3 and Jennifer Johnson (respectively). The books made quite an impression on the industry when they came out from 2017-2018, and was recently announced to being adapted to film by Warner Brothers. But we ask...was the book as good as the hype/concept? The book posits that in a world that already hates and fears them - what if only...

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

Imagine a world, where only BLACK people have super powers... This week we're talking about "BLACK" and its sequel "BLACK AF" by Kwanza Osajyefo + artists Tim Smith 3 and Jennifer Johnson (respectively). The books made quite an impression on the industry when they came out from 2017-2018, and was recently announced to being adapted to film by Warner Brothers. But we ask...was the book as good as the hype/concept? The book posits that in a world that already hates and fears them - what if only...

HOW TO BE HAPPY and THE HARD TOMORROW ...why Raman hates Kal Penn

The people in Eleanor Davis' stories strive to find solace only to often find it tantalizing out of reach. How do you find peace in this world? That question seemed to permeate Davis' 2014 collection How To Be Happy and arises again in her 2019 graphic novel The Hard Tomorrow, which takes place in a dystopic future yet feels at home in the middle of the Trump era. Seems depressing, but Davis is a virtuostic visual storyteller and her work is often sad, mysterious, and breathtaking all at th...

HOW TO BE HAPPY and THE HARD TOMORROW ...solace out of reach

The people in Eleanor Davis' stories strive to find solace only to often find it tantalizing out of reach. How do you find peace in this world? That question seemed to permeate Davis' 2014 collection How To Be Happy and arises again in her 2019 graphic novel The Hard Tomorrow, which takes place in a dystopic future yet feels at home in the middle of the Trump era. Seems depressing, but Davis is a virtuostic visual storyteller and her work is often sad, mysterious, and breathtaking all at th...

SANDMAN V6-10 ...dreams get real

Whereas the first half of The Sandman were rousing adventures, it's in the final volumes where Neil Gaiman uses the character to explore familial responsibility and the nature of dreams. But don't worry, it's not a slog (Tell that to Raman) - there's still tons of bloodshed.

PAYING FOR IT... Chester Brown on prostitution

Chester Brown breaks down his thoughts on human relationships and the economics and morality of prostitution. Do we agree with him? Sometimes. Do we disagree with him? Sometimes. We'll interrogate Chester Brown's interrogation of a taboo topic.

THE WORLD OF EDENA...revisiting Moebius' beautiful narrative weirdness

This week we fill some airtime by revisiting a later work from the French superstar Moebius - the World of Edena. In 1990, the French car manufacturer Citroen commissioned Moebius to create a short piece to celebrate...a marketing campaign. A quick commissioned commercial piece...quickly went of the rails. What stared as an innocent little ditty became a much larger, universe spanning, genre-defying epic. After 2 androgynous space buddy pilots find an abandoned space station, Crash land on a...

WATSON & HOLMES ...the intellectual dickedness we deserve?

The game is afoot! Watson & Holmes is 2013’s urban re-imagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson - as contemporary Black men in Harlem (this one ain’t about Benedict Cumberbatch & Lucy Liu). The series was created by writer Karl Bollers with art by Rick Leonardi, and crowdfunded initially on Kickstarter. Book One, “A Study in Black” - features the eponymous Dr. Watson - an Afghanistan war vet - a former army medic now working as a surgeon in an inner-city ...

1: THE INCAL ...immersive, influential, but it also felt like a high school assignment

The Incal is an epic sci-fi by filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and the legendary French artist Moebius. A madcap adventure that involves acid lakes, a boy turned into a spaceship, and a naked woman riding a rat, it's also a book that can be confusing and frustrating to read if you come into it not knowing what to expect. Or it can be a magical romp. Or maybe some of column A, some of column B. Pop a special chocolate and come on in.

THE INCAL ...immersive, influential, but it also felt like a high school assignment

The Incal is an epic sci-fi by filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and the legendary French artist Moebius. A madcap adventure that involves acid lakes, a boy turned into a spaceship, and a naked woman riding a rat, it's also a book that can be confusing and frustrating to read if you come into it not knowing what to expect. Or it can be a magical romp. Or maybe some of column A, some of column B. Pop a special chocolate and come on in.

THE BEST WE COULD DO - an American immigrant story, about Vietnam

"Proximity and closeness are not the same.” We're getting a little heavy (and non-fiction), with THE BEST WE COULD DO - Thi Bui's illustrated memoir of her family's history and exodus from Vietnam to America. Joining us is Raman's OTHER podcast co-host-with-the-most, Sharon Thony from MODERN MINORITIES (modmypod.com) This book - Bui's first graphic novel - is a moving one: covering love, war, and the refugee's journey — with an intimate focus on one family: her own. Rather than simply retell...

ED THE HAPPY CLOWN ...Vampires, religious anxiety and inter-dimensional poop

The indie cartoonist Chester Brown started making a name for himself in the 80s, with the publication of his self-published Yummy Fur. From those pages originated the short, four panel cartoons that eventually became Ed the Happy Clown, a crude made-up-on-the-fly adventure about... well, a naked vampire lady, religious guilt, Ronald Reagan's head on the tip of a penis, and an inter-dimensional portal in someone's butthole. We'll talk about these madcap elements, but we'll also confront some ...

X-MONTH '19: Jonathan Hickman's HoX/PoX ...island dreams & weekly screams

We conclude X-MONTH, with one of the latest and greatest X-Sagas - Jonathan Hickman's HOUSE OF X / POWERS OF X (HoX PoX). Beyond being all about the infographics and Mutant West Wing / C-Span, HoX PoX was actually TWO concurrent mini-series from 2019 - to once again attempt a fresh take for not just the X-Men, but ALL of Marvel's merry mutants. More than a reset or reboot - HoX PoX was more of a realignment, making some dramatic changes all mutants in the Marvel universe - respectful of all...

X-THEMES (feat. Bill Murray)

dedicated to the one and only Auntie Pinky.

X-MONTH '04: Joss Whedon's ASTONISHING X-MEN …Kitty Pryde & curing mutantkind

The hiring of Joss Whedon to launch of Astonishing X-Men in 2004 was an interesting move by Marvel for a lot of reasons. This was Marvel’s 2ND attempt to reinvigorate the X-Men, after Grant Morrison, who we just spent some time talking about. The run almost feels like a counter-argument to much of what Morrison set up - and Marvel wanted to disavvow. This was not the first time a TV/film writer had penned a popular comic - Joss Whedon (pre MCU/Avengers) had a really loyal following from hi...

X-MONTH '01: Grant Morrison's NEW X-MEN ...biker jackets & genocide

In 2001, superstar writer Grant Morrison took the X-Men on a wild ride. By this point, the X-Men had become an unwieldy mess, with an overstocked roster and convoluted lore. Morrison reinvigorated the characters by focusing on what made the X-Men so unique in the first place: unlike other superheroes, the X-Men are hated and feared by the people they save. With every conflict stemming from that premise, Morrison breathed new life into a stale title. We'll take a look at how we he think he di...

X-MONTH '91: Jim Lee's X-MEN ...the basketball & tentacles of our youth

In 1991, Marvel superstar artist Jim Lee launched a fresh new vision for the X-Men. 30(!) years later, does it hold up? Well... Admittedly, there's a lot of stuff here that doesn't work at all, but Jim Lee's early-nineties X-Men run is still a fascinating time capsule of superheroes then, and how much they've changed now that they've become mainstream.

UNCANNY X-MONTH!

For 4 UNCANNY weeks in (mostly) September, we're binging some of the X-Men's MODERN greats (to see if they hold up). What could go wrong? 8/28: Mutant Genesis (Jim Lee) 9/4: New X-Men (Grant Morrison) 9/11: Astonishing X-Men (Joss Whedon) 9/18: House of X / Powers of X (Jonathan Hickman)

HAWKEYE (Matt Fraction) ...bros, Bed-Stuy, and boomerang arrows?

Matt Fraction & David Aha's HAWKEYE run from 2015 is a fun - often funny - character-driven romp, with beautiful, minimalist sepia art - and features more than just a LOT of Eastern European gangsters saying BRO. It features not one, but TWO Hawkeyes. You may know Hawkeye, aka Clint Barton, as the avenging archer from some very popular movies. But while this is just about a guy with a bow and arrows - it's anything BUT the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters. Often described as "Hawkeye's day o...

THE ADVENTURES OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT ...not just tits and the hobbit

Are you into Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison and Garth Ennis? Well, they derived a lot of inspiration from Bryan Talbot's multiverse epic The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, which we're picking apart in this episode. Guest-host Adam Boretz, an editor at The Millions and Publishers Weekly, swings by to share his take and lecture us about nachos in the 80s (among other things). How does Luther Arkwright hold up after all these decades? Why are British comic authors so obsessed with tan...

BLACK SCIENCE ...traversing the Onion of demon muppets, fish strippers, and child endangerment?

10 BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS ...a children's book goes bad