Wait, What? Ep. 86: Defending Your Life

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on May 15, 2012

Categories: Podcasts

(Visual from Art Spigelman’s piece on Maurice Sendak unrelated to this episode, but I adore it too much to ignore it!) Hail and well met, fellow Whatnauts! Sadly, my M.O. of dashing something off in a state approaching sheer terror continues as I managed to put this together in time to hit all of our deadlines but with unexpected side-effect of stripping my soul down to its most bald-tiredian self. Forgive me, won’t you? But, hey, at least as a result you get to dig into the nougaty goodness that is Wait, What? Ep. 86. Packed with seven essential vitamins and minerals, the latest episode of Graeme and I answering your questions is part of this complete breakfast. [Quick shot…  Read More…

Wait, What? Ep. 78: Quotes From Pandora Three-Sixteen

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on March 13, 2012

Categories: Podcasts

(This installment’s accidental shout-out courtesy of Action Comics #7) Normally, I try and pitch some rhetorical woo at you as a way to encourage or remind you to listen to this miniature stage play of the mind  Graeme (with his smooth, Noel Cowardesque line delivery) and I (with my stammering Method Actor incoherence) offer up each week. However, as the soul-stealing monster known as Daylight Savings Time has arrived to demand the tribute of an hour from each of us trembling villagers, I fear I’ve got nothing especially fleet-footed with which to charm you, merely the verbal posturings of the maladroit and the overwrought.  The sundial? Tis broken.  The hourglass? Now hollow. But if you wish to remember me fondly,…  Read More…

Wait, What? Ep. 76: Dares, Wins

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on February 28, 2012

Categories: Podcasts

And Lo, There Shall Come…An Answering! For most of you, anyway.  I fully confess Graeme and I did punt on a few questions that were either complex enough to take up a full podcast at a later date, or so good that it would require better men than us to answer it.  (Ah, yes: the old “It’s not  you, Listener Question, it’s us” strategy–never leave home without it.) Anyway, as you might imagine with so many exceptional inquiries, it would take us a while to answer them–and of course us being us, we’re going to go egregiously off-topic, right?–so, yeah.  Two hours and forty minutes is what we’ve got for you. We talk so long Graeme turns into The Lord…  Read More…

Wait, What? Ep. 75: Joshua Judges OMAC

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on February 21, 2012

Categories: Podcasts

[Above:  Not a deliberate shout-out, I'm sure, but we'll take what we can get, of course.] Thanks for your patience during our mild vacation! In return, we offer you Wait, What? Ep. 75, which features more than two and twenty minutes of Graeme McMillan and me “stealing the air” or “pump[ing] up the volume” or whatever it is you “kids” call it. [Thanks to Joolian for pointing out that should really read "two hours and twenty minutes," damn my eyes!] Do we talk Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and The Walking Dead? Do we, ever! Dare we discuss Gary Friedrich, Ghost Rider and Marvel? Dare, we do! Tire I of answering rhetorical questions? Frankly, yes, but I won’t let that get…  Read More…

Wait, What? Ep. 59.2: Nine 9 Nein

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on October 6, 2011

Categories: Podcasts

It was a tough call, deciding how to chop up Ep. 59 — it was one of those eps. where the cleanest transition between topics wasn’t very clean at all. So, really, if you’ve just listened to Ep. 59.1, you’ll handle the transition to 59.2 just fine–I literally just cut an inhalation between the end of that one and the start of this one. So maybe when I launch into my thoughts on Craig Thompson’s Habibi, you’ll get a better sense of where I’m coming from if you’ve recently finished that.  (Or maybe not.  I never know.  Embarrassingly enough, I more or less have this conversation twice–once as a speaker, and once as a listener/editor — and I still can’t…  Read More…

nu52: wk 4: The Finaleing!

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on October 3, 2011

Categories: Reviews

Running low on time, and I didn’t have “clever” subcategories to go with it this week, so, here’s the final 13 books in a single post.

Graeme Takes On The New 52. All At Once.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on September 28, 2011

Categories: Reviews

You know, before DC Comics so politely sent me the entire run of the New 52 launch issues, I don’t think that I’d ever read an entire month’s worth of a superhero universe before. I have to say, it’s kind of exhausting. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try and run down very quick capsule reviews of all 52 right here, right now, as Fatboy Slim once said many many years ago oh God I am so old.

Wait, What? Ep. 52.2: Jerks, Fighters, and Jus’ Folks

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on August 18, 2011

Categories: Podcasts

I admit it. I love “Our Valued Customers” even though it caters to the worst stereotypes about comic store customers. (Although I had my share of crazy people stories when I worked the counter at CE, none of them ever seemed quite as bad as what apparently walks into Mr. Tim’s store on a weekly basis — and honestly, most of the crazy people we had were “it’s San Francisco and there are mentally ill people on the streets” crazy as opposed to “I must talk to you about Spider-Man so hard spittle is always flying off my lips” crazy.) In any event, none of this is especially relevant to the conclusion to Episode 52 of our podcast, although it…  Read More…

Marvel’s Best And Worst: Graeme Looks At Comics From 7/13, 7/20

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on July 22, 2011

Categories: Reviews

It’s been awhile, but that’s because of too much work/vacation/too much work, respectively. But! Finally! Comics! Well, some of them, anyway.

Things That Actually Happened This Week: Graeme Really Manages To Review Some 6/22 Books

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 27, 2011

Categories: Reviews

Why, if it’s Monday, then it’s capsule reviews. And, for once, proper capsule reviews about books that came out on Wednesday! How did that happen? (Also, scroll down for John’s reviews, and then down some more for the shipping list. Yes, it’s a surprisingly busy Monday here, for once.)

Graeme Tries To Remember How This Capsule Thing Works For Some 5/11 Books

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on May 16, 2011

Categories: Reviews

Call me a sentimental old fool if you must, but it feels to me like the best way to do a post on the 10th birthday of the Savage Critics is to go old school, and try and remember how those capsule reviews of yore worked… (Click through for nostalgia! But scroll down to read Hibbs’ post, if you haven’t already!)

Geeks on Film

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on May 2, 2011

Categories: Reviews

I’ll get back to print in the next day or so, but I wanted to dive into a few things-on-film for a moment.   (I quite imagine there will be SPOILERS here, so be careful, kiddo!)   THOR: Saw an advance screening on Saturday morning (10 am, what an odd time for a preview screening!), and yeah, pretty decent film. My reaction could possibly be the result of low expectations — I mean, seriously, did anyone ever think there could possibly be a Thor movie based on the comic, prior to 3-5 years ago? Let alone a good one?   It largely kept my attention, and it has some astonishing design on display — I particularly liked their interpretation of…  Read More…

Look, Up In The Sky: Graeme On The First Post-JMS Superman

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on January 13, 2011

Categories: Reviews

From the very first page, you can tell that someone new is handling SUPERMAN #707. After more than half a year of a passive, dickish Man of Steel walking across America and coming across either standoffish and dick-like or curiously naive, the first page of the issue has Superman doing three “super” things – Stopping a bank robbery (with bullets bouncing off his chest!), saving a girl’s life (by stopping a train! With his bare hands!) and grabbing a falling helicopter. It’s as if new writer Chris Roberson thought, “People might need a reminder why Superman is awesome.”

SELF-PROMOTION from ABHAY

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Posted by: Abhay Khosla on December 2, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Self-promotion warning.  For those of you not interested in self-promotion, and don’t want to spend their free time consuming advertising, this is fair warning, and I’ll hide my infomercial for myself behind a jump.  I apologize in advance to anyone who thinks this doesn’t belong here– in my defense, I got Brian’s okay, plus Brian reminded me that Jeff had already done the whole self-promotion thing so… Please send all angry e-mail to Jeff Lester.  Also: please send photos of yourself but just from the waist down to Jeff Lester. Pants tolerated.

Wait, What?, Ep. 17.2: The Really Big Picture.

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on November 18, 2010

Categories: Podcasts

On the one hand?  Graeme and I talk about the recent news/controversy surrounding J. Michael Straczynski’s departure from the Superman and Wonder Woman titles in a way I don’t think anyone has yet. On the other hand? So…maybe it all evens out in the end.  It should be up on Itunes shortly and is available for you to listen to right here: Wait, What? Ep. 17.2: The Really Big Picture And our grand finale for Ep. 17–our discussion of Return of Bruce Wayne #6 should be up very soon….

Superman: Earth One

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on October 27, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry , Reviews

About 2 months ago I received an advance copy of  the SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE original Graphic Novel. This was an uncorrected proof, and was a bit rougher than other galleys I get — there’s only about a dozen pages in color, other pages were inked, but not toned, while there’s even a few pencil-only pages. I get a lot of galleys from many different publishers, but this one came under the auspices of a ComicsPRO program, and I made a fatal error of thinking of it while wearing my “Critic” hat, rather than my ‘retailer” hat (I wear far too many hats) DC was (and, let’s underline this very strongly) justifiably upset that I screwed up my hats, and as…  Read More…

Wait, What? Ep. 11.2: The Podcast With The Jaws of Steel!

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on August 31, 2010

Categories: Podcasts

A podcast cut brutally short: oh sure, Graeme and I talk about Jack Kirby’s Losers Omnibus, and The Hunger Dogs (and Graeme, like the last podcast, is pretty much firing on all guns), Jimmy Olsen and Superman, and then Skype decides Jeff needs a timeout…whether I like it or not. (I didn’t.) Anyway, it should probably be longer, but it’s on Itunes and you can listen to it right here: Wait, What?, Ep. 11.2 (Also, if you could pretend I didn’t refer to it in the recorded intro as “The Loser Omnibus,” I’d appreciate it. Believe it or not, that intro was the best I could do.) By next week, we should have two generous portions–and hopefully I won’t blow…  Read More…

Look! Up In The Sky! It’s… Wasted Potential!

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on March 25, 2010

Categories: Reviews

My secret shame: I have been buying all of the Superman books since Superman left Earth for Krypton. No, wait, that’s not actually shameful in and of itself. The shame part is this: I’m not sure I’ve actually been enjoying them for awhile.

Favorites: All-Star Superman

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Posted by: Sean T. Collins on March 11, 2010

Categories: Reviews

All-Star Superman Vols. 1 & 2 Grant Morrison, writer Frank Quitely, artist DC, 2008-2010, believe it or not 160 pages each $12.99 each The cheeky thing to say about the brand-new out-of-continuity world Grant Morrison constructed to house his idea of the ideal Superman story is that it’s very much like the DC Universe we already know, but without backgrounds. Like John Cassaday, another all-time great superhero artist currently working, Frank Quitely isn’t one for filling in what’s going on behind the action. One wonders what he’d do with a manga-style studio set-up, with a team of young, hungry Glaswegians diligently constructing a photo-ref Metropolis for his brawny, beady-eyed men and leggy, lippy women to inhabit. But, y’know, whatever. So…  Read More…

Obsolescence & Model Kits: Jeff Looks at FC: Superman Beyond #1 and G-Mo in the DCU

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on September 3, 2008

Categories: Reviews

I remember when I was a kid being entranced with model kits. It was a different time then, back before semi-autistic engineers could make themselves rich with their penchant for elegant complexity: instead of writing computer code, they wrote tactical charts for historical wargames, assembled model kits of cars, ships, jets, and rockets (and, occasionally, monsters and robots), and crafted massive model train sets in garages and basements. Painstakingly, they assembled private landscapes–usually based on an actual historic train route–stipling mounds of carved foam to create textured boulders; studying photographs to create detail accurate train yards; rigging lighting; recreating timetables. Until finally, the engineer was done: he’d remade a corner of the world to scale. It looked perfect, ran smoothly,…  Read More…

Don’t Tug

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 29, 2008

Categories: Retailing/Industry

It’s February 29th, Leap Year Day, which can only mean one thing: It’s Superman’s birthday! Superman is, of course, 70 years old this year (ACTION #1 had an June, 1938 cover date, so that would have shipped in April, I think), but sometime in the 1970s it was decided that he was a Leap Year baby. I asked Mark Waid if there was a citation in the comic books to this, and he replied: “I know it was in one of E. Nelson Bridwell’s/Mort Weisinger’s letter columns, a jokey answer about how Superman could have been an adult in 1938 and still look so young. Nelson ‘cemented’ the date in the 1976 Super DC Calendar from Warner Books.” I had…  Read More…