Comic Books Are Burning In Hell

On this very special episode, Make-A-Wish kid Dan Nadel makes his fondest dream come true: a podcast with Joe McCulloch, Chris Mautner, Tucker Stone and a very special surprise guest! The topic: Dave Sim! Unfortunately, professional obligations ultimately demand that all individuals also discuss young Daniel's newly published biography of Robert Crumb, the famed cartoonist. No punches are pulled, but really, are any punches thrown? It's comic book time!

If you're keeping track of these, this is number eight. When did we record it? None of your business, turkey hunters! This time around, on Batman Books Are Burning In Hell, Matt Seneca & Tucker Stone are talking about Batman: Strange Apparitions by Steve Englehart & Marshall Rogers.

On this episode, Tucker, Chris & Joe tackle the latest Kazuo Umezz books to make it to American shores: My Name Is Shingo! And that's not the only comic that came across the US Border under the microscope...they're also all about Batman, and his adventures with Italian mainstay, Dylan Dog. Does this Caped Crusader appearance mean more Batman yakking? You guessed right, True Believer!

In this episode, we're talking about Matt Wagner's Grendel--well, as much of it as we could fit in before we reached emotional capacity for...the devil! That turned out to be basically Grendel as it was published by Comico in the 1980s, which basically means "everything Grendel up until you get to Grendel Prime"). There is a little diversion into a Dark Horse comic written by Diana Schutz and drawn by Tim Sale, and as few cursory mentions of Grendel Red, White & Black as we can get away with, but neither of those take up so much time that we can't safely call this one "The Comico Years".

The gang is all here, and so is the NYRC release of Social Fiction, a collection of comics by Chantal Montellier, translated by Geoffrey Brock. Is there a bit of spot the reference going down? Sure there is: but if your eyes are closed, how are you gonna see who is coming at you?? Wake up sheeple!!! France is a real place!!!!

This week, all decorum is out the window: Joe isn't here to stop us, so we're talking about Disney's Mickey Mouse in a labor fantasia, we're talking about a comic where a talking penis takes the stage (he's pink, y'all!) and, in the episode's coda, we talk about the coda of Crickets. You wouldn't think we'd get this much done with only the three of us: and your lack of faith reflects your poor upbringing!

The Hernandez Brothers make it to television, but they don't talk about Blubber enough for our taste, and Alan Moore throws some words on the page but doesn't include any Don Simpson pictures? Well, if everything is wrong in the world, then what is right? Garth Ennis. Garth Ennis is always right!

In this special, weirdly long episode, we talk about a bunch of Marvel characters in an Abrams book--all of them, somehow connected to Alex Ross. It's Fantastic Four: Full Circle time! Get in where you fit in, and brother, you fit in just fine!  

On this special episode of Comic Books Are Burning In Hell, we discuss fairy tales, Kazuo Umezz and critically acclaimed cartoo--BARF. BARFING SOUND. Carto--VOMIT AGAIN. UPCHUCK CENTRAL.

The boys are back-actually, they were back a while ago, but then one of the boys got sick and sleepy, so it took a while to get this one up: it's about Crickets, from Sammy "Salami" Harkham! It also features our recurring segment on British comics, which finally is giving a name. It's comic book time, pal!

Say hello to Joe McCulloch, everybody! Co-editor of TCJ.com, formerly of Comics Comics, Savage Critics, and the legendary Jog the Blog, Joe is the headliner of our main show Comic Books are Burning in Hell, and the best comics critic of the internet era. There's no other way to say it: no one since Gary Groth has contributed as much high level writing and thinking about the form as Joe. But even the greats are fallible! Case in point: this episode, in which he deigns to babble about Bryan Talbot and Batman at great length with us. That's right folks: it's time for a podcast about some all-time Serious Superhero Comics, the great Legends of the Dark Knight deep cut BATMAN: MASK. Wanna listen?

Green Lantern, the guy who created the Double Dragon side-scroller, Tucker's mistaken "let's interrupt people" idea, Donny Cates Hulk comic, very old school podcast stuff, Akira, Jack Kirby's Silver Star, Koike's Heaven's Door, the Legends of DC Universe featuring Steve Rude, and the new Jack Reacher book. It's one of our biggest and messiest podcasts in a good long while: climb aboard and GRAB AHOLD!

Welcome once again to Batman Books are Burning in Hell, where this time Tucker and Matt are joined by none other than Cliff Chiang, master cartoonist behind the best superhero comic to hit the stands since some of those old ones we usually talk about -- CATWOMAN: LONELY CITY. Whip-smart, addictively paced, and visually stunning, LONELY CITY is a hardboiled "one last score" crime novel that dons Batman-universe drag and absolutely werks it while tossing off no-shit social commentary that's as cutting as it is intelligent. It's a throwback to the type of dense, creator-driven, legitimately mature Batman sagas of the late '80s and early '90s that we created this show to discuss.. That Cliff is one of comics' most thoughtful interview subjects is the cherry on top. We're very proud to present this interview, so stop reading these words and start listening to it now! 

It's time for another installment in: the boys read some Tsuge! This time around, they're drinking in Red Flowers, the latest development in Yoshiharu Tsuge archival studies, in this, a look at the second volume of his mature tales! IS THAT AN ANTLION TALE? It is, you frisky freak! But wait? A salamander as well? B'twixt my shanty!

Chris, Matt, Joe & Tucker get together to talk about some of the comics that hit them the hardest this year. Less a back and forth, more a roundtable ramble: no list is coming, you'll have to listen to find out more!

Welcome back to Batman Books Are Burning In Hell, where this episode Tucker and Matt are joined by special guest star and master cartoonist Anya Davidson! Anya's work sometimes seems to encompass the whole history of American comics, harnessing the raw current of energy tapped by everyone from George Herriman to Jack Kirby to Fort Thunder - but it's also a world of its very own, its artist dancing in perfect counterpoint to a music only she can hear. Books like School Spirits, Band For Life, and Lovers in the Garden are as notable for their expert markmaking and perfectly composed sequences as they are for their rare level of commitment to building characters and the big heart beating underneath their skin. They're also vvery vveird stuff, so we are absolutely gassed to present a conversation about one of the all-time best Bizarre Batman Comics: The Jungle Cat-Queen (1954), by the legendary Dick Sprang, with writer Edmond Hamilton and inker Charles Paris, as presented in Detective Comics #211. This is the stuff that dreams are made of - LISTEN UP

Welcome once again to Batman Books Are Burning In Hell, this week featuring special guest sta- hey wait a second, how'd he get in here? Chris Mautner? It's Chris Mautner, people! If you've literally never listened to an episode of our eleven year old comic book podcast before, Chris boasts a top-5 resume as a comics critic, with a portfolio of work for The Comics Journal, Blog@Newsarama, Robot 6, The Smart Set, and probably ten or twelve other publications I'm forgetting. He's also 1/4th of Comic Books Are Burning In Hell, and a big nerd who really took this show's bit between his teeth and made us talk about some completely random comic I'd never heard of. So here we go with more discourse than you ever imagined could exist about Murder in the Night, as presented in Detective Comics #481-482 by Jim Starlin and P. Craig Russell! Reach between your legs and hold on tight!

It's time to get back to the classics of Comic Books Are Burning In Hell: a look at a new one from Olivier Schrauwen (that new one would be Sunday 3/4, from Colorama) and an old one from Martin Vaughn-James (that old one would be The Cage, from Coach House Books). But first: did you hear that one about the time the guy googled a religion the night before his paper was due? There's a comic book version of that. DC published it!

Welcome to Episode 2 of Batman Books are Burning in Hell, in which regular hosts Tucker Stone and Matt Seneca are joined by Benjamin Marra for a discussion of Batman: Venom! If Marra needs an introduction you're living wrong - the cartoonist behind Night Business, Terror Assaulter O.M.W.O.T., American Blood and What We Mean By Yesterday is one of the most accomplished artists currently making comics, full stop. Marra's works are vital entries in the category of American pulp, embracing his medium's history of disrepute while avoiding nostalgia with their purity of execution and commitment to extremity. Venom, published in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #16-20 (1991), is Denny O'Neil, Trevor Von Eeden, Russ Braun, and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez's epic saga of a Batman whose commitment to workout gains ends in tragedy, madness, and punching a great white shark in the face. LISTEN UP!

We start off with a random survey of each other's memories to determine who has that diesel, then it's time to go to church and mourn the passing of an O.G. killer, TAKAO SAITŌ. After that, we put Chris in the hot seat to figure out why he needed to read every single issue of 52 to decide whether or not he should keep the issues or take them outside to his nearest dumpster, which resulted in evern more memorializing. Where's Matt Seneca? He's busy! 

Get ready to dive straight towards your nearest 90s longbox! Matt and Tucker are taking the reins and talking Batman. In this installment of a Very Special Takeover Cast, the tale on offer is "Prey", from Paul Gulacy & Doug Moench. Over at The Factual Opinion, you'll find extensive show notes and images from the work in question from Matt Seneca. Keep your ears peeled, right down to the blood splattered bone, for more BatCasts To Come.

Rumor control? Here are the facts! 1) Chris read every single issue of Rom, The Space Knight...but nobody asked him too! 2) Tucker read all of the Eternals...but Joe doesn't believe him! 3) This podcast is actually all about what Jack Kirby and Steve Dikto really wanted to do...and more! Get in where you fit in, and if you can't find that place, make that place! Make it your own! We're there, and our arms are outstretched. Podcast!

While most of the comics we talk about on this one are new, this is as classic an episode of Comic Books Are Burning In Hell as it gets: there's Garth Ennis comics, a recap of Peter Milligan's decisions, Joe checking in on some up-to-the-minute new manga from Tatsuki Fujimoto, huge technical problems, Tucker losing his temper with Chris, Matt talking about the Punisher, and then they still find time to talk about the 80s DC supercreeps of Hawkworld. Get it on!

It's time to dive into some of the most politically prescient manga now available in English to the discerning reader: Masumura Jūshichi's Children of Mu-Town, published by Glacier Bay. What will the onslaught of takes result in: consensus, or all out war? There's only one way to find out, and if you haven't figured that part out yet, then I think we all know why you're still reading this description. Suit up!

It's time to talk about Monsters, the newest brick of Barry Windsor-Smith comics since...geez buddy. I don't know. A long time! Consider this a prelude to our Rune-cast, part of a Malibu Monday series we have planned for the tenth of In Your Dreams. Time to get some teeth gnashing on!

It's time to return to the subject of old: Jimbo, from Gary Panter. We've been jawing on the subject of Gary Panter for as long as we've been jawing at each other on anything, podcast or no podcast. NYRC's reissue gave us yet another chance to return to the subject, as did Fanta's publication of the big orange Crashpad. But none of us expected this episode's shocking discovery! You can take a look at a lot of the books we talk about on this show on our Bookshop page. If you purchase any of the books, the podcast will receive an affiliate fee, which will go towards paying the monthly hosting fee for the podcast, and, because it is Bookshop, will also go to support indie booksellers. On Twitter, you can keep up with the boys at @factualopinion, @snubpollard, @mattseneca and @cmautner. We also set up an instagram for the show if you want to bet money on future hot takes!

This week, the boys are playing with fire by talking about Alan Moore: will this be the end of our fair podcast? Probably not, because he refuses to even acknowledge the existence of the comics in question: it's the all new In Pictopia (from FU Press!) and the never-gonna-be-new-again 1963 (from Image's cool kid days!). Don Simpson, Steve Bissette, Chester Brown & Dave Gibbons: get ready to be name checked, boys!

This week, you'll get hot, ripped-from-the-bedsheets coverage of the manga all the kids were reading a few years ago that has finally made its way through the various nerd channels and achieved "make Tucker and Chris read it" status. How will they react? Will Joe quit the show in a huff? At one point did Matt join the conversation? Who performs the new closing theme song? This episode is as full of twists and turns as a chapter of....CHAINSAW MAN!

Joe, Matt and Tucker get together to talk about filmmaker Zack Snyder, his Man of Steel, his Batman V Superman, and how that informs all of their lives and life experiences. It's time for a comic book movie podcast! wait where's Chris

It's time to take a page from the baby book: a 1980s DC Comic that is! It's Frank Miller's Ronin, and yes, everybody is wearing tight shoes and really awake this time, with interruptions and "I don't agree with you sir" ringing out like a turn of the century switchboard. We also cover Chris Claremont's X-men as much as we probably ever will. Bring it on home, Frank!

This week, the crew is looking at the career output of Al Columbia, a cartoonist we all love tenderly and wildly. You want to get there? Cross the Syndercut river, you cowards! The Biologic Show awaits!  

How many jokes about the Judge Dredd movie featuring Sylvester Stallone will we will allow Chris Mautner to make? How many assumptions regarding British comics will be made? How often will Tucker get hyperbolic about John Wagner? Will Matt do an accent? Guys, the answers to these questions are yes, 1, a lot, many times, and sure. You'll have to listen to find out the order? You can take a look at a lot of the books we talk about on this show on our Bookshop page. If you purchase any of the books, the podcast will receive an affiliate fee, which will go towards paying the monthly hosting fee for the podcast, and, because it is Bookshop, will also go to support indie booksellers. On Twitter, you can keep up with the boys at @factualopinion, @snubpollard, @mattseneca and @cmautner.  

It's that time again: back issue time, when the boys go digging into the boxes of old. This time, it's to take a look at a comic that Matt Seneca has been making a case for as of late: the last ten issues of DC's Tomahawk, drawn by Frank Thorne. We're all in on this one, even when things get contentious, and even more so when things get really saucy...hey, we're talking about Frank Thorne, of course that kind of stuff is going to happen! Who knew Chris would choose this episode to explain his personal fetishes!

This week, we're spotlighting the late Richard Corben, the great Richard Corben. We don't all walk in with the same take, but by the close, we reach the kind of war torn climax a Corben character often finds: a grudging, earned moment of quiet spent looking across a blasted landscape. Except here, the landscape is of the listeners mind. Dare you join us, brother? Shalt we see you, sister? Rise! Rise and FIGHT!

Happy New Year, you dirty scumbags, you shiny bottleneckers, you comic book naildrivers: it's time to look back at the comics that came out in the last year where you might have been able to keep from getting your hands dirty. We've got ten comics to yank our entrails about, and the whole gang is in the building. It's list talking time!

Joe McCulloch, Chris Mautner, Matt Seneca and Tucker Stone get together to take a look at Vertigo Visions: Phantom Stranger, Rachel Pollack and Chris Weston's Time Breakers and the legal problem-causing Spectre comics by Jim Aparo and Michael Fleisher.

This week, we're down a man and the sass is upped: Tucker, Joe & Chris are talking about the latest Michel Rabgliati book, Paul At Home, then they're talking Keum Suk Gendry-Kim's Grass, and a brief tour of M.S. Harkness' Desperate Pleasures is made as well.  You can take a look at a lot of the books we talk about on this show on our Bookshop page. If you purchase any of the books, the podcast will receive an affiliate fee, which will go towards paying the monthly hosting fee for the podcast, and, because it is Bookshop, will also go to support indie booksellers. On Twitter, you can keep up with the boys at @factualopinion, @snubpollard, @mattseneca and @cmautner.

On this special background and feelings episode, we get Joe to open up even more than he already did in a 10,000 word interview, specifically about the conclusion of one of his major works of comics criticism, "This Week In Comics", then we discuss the merits and debits of comics advocacy as a general program, talk about our favorite types of writing, and say nice and mean things to one another in equal measure. If you stick around at the end, there's a nice little conversation about Batman and jeans.

This week, the boys are taking a look at CF's latest works with Anthology Editions...but talking new CF means talking old CF, and talking old CF means talking legacy, impact, the whole deal. Then things take a turn...for the randy!

This week, the boys are looking at the latest from some lifers: Katie Skelly's Maids and Julia Gfrorer's Vision. Do things get heated? Yes. But do they get heated because of those two comics? No! They get heated because Joe won't stop talking about the dingdang Three Jokers!

On this week's episode, we take a look at DC Comics in the 80s, specifically, the Marv Wolfman & George Perez series Crisis On Infinite Earths. Everybody is here: The Psycho Pirate (Matt Seneca), The Anti-Monitor (Joe Mcculloch), Arion, Lord of Atlantis (Chris Mautner) and Tucker, who dresses up like Hawk every morning! It's comic book podcast time!

This week, Joe, Tucker & Chris are talking about Boston Corbett, the massive new comic that comes in a cube by Andy Douglas Day. It's a beast of a read, but well worth the box that Sonatina put it in...even if that box is as heavy as a child's bowling ball!

This week, the boys are going back to the shelf to take a look at The Hero's Life and Death Triumphant, but they're also checking in with the new Jack Kirby biography from Kirby expert extraordinaire Tom Scioli. It's a bunch of talking about these things! 

This week, the boys are taking a look at Ex.Mag #1, published by PEOW--an anthology of cyberpunk comics by a laundry list of creators, while Chris and Matt are breaking down their innermost on Perramus, the latest hardcover of Alberto Breccia comics put out by Fantagraphics.

This week, we're talking about the work of Kuniko Tsurita, recently collected and brought to English by Ryan Holmberg, Mitsuhiro Asakawa and Drawn & Quarterly.

It's round-up time! Tucker's reading the Ladronn Cable, Chris is reading Umma's Table, Matt is reading Olivier Schrauwen's Sunday and Joe's reading Magician A by Natsuko Ishitsuyo. Is there a connective thread between this variety of works? Hell yes there is!

This week, the spotlight falls upon Adrian Tomine. How will this widely acclaimed new memoir land for the boys of the Burning in Hell crew? There's only one way to find out, trusted listener: by asking someone else who listened to the episode to tell you. Proceed with caution!

This week, the full crew is here with a look back at Jack Kirby's 2001 comics, published by Marvel in the 1970s. Get ready to hear about the history of violence in human development, the most incisive and contemporary criticism of fandom and consumption you can find (written by Jack himself) and the nature of children: what's wrong with their faces?

On this episode, Matt, Tucker, Joe & Chris talk about Wendy: Master of Art, by Walter Scott. And then, because there is always time for pie, they talk about Punisher #89 and how it represents the Platonic Punisher.

Matt's away, but the rest of your crew is here to talk about David Kunzle's Eisner nominated Cham, Rick Veitch's self-published Maximortal franchise, and what it looks like when Garth Ennis phones it in with Jimmy's Bastards!