Podcast appearances and mentions of Jeremy Whitley

WHITLEYYYYYY!!! In this episode, Jeremy Whitley and Phil Falco of Lifeline Comics drop by the pod to hype their upcoming Kickstarter campaign for Aces and Aros: An Asexual and Aromantic Comic Book Anthology! After that, Bob hangs with Pamela Isley, Aaron gets a headache, John admits Duke is MAGA, and Steve falls farther down the Dept. of Truth rabbit hole!Books: Fantastic Four Fanfare #1, It's Jeff Jeff Week #1, Adventureman: Family Tree #2, Poison Ivy #33, Free Planet #1, Blood and Thunder #1, GI Joe #6, GI Joe #21 + Silent Missions, The Dept. of Truth #5-29Other Stuff: Sleep Token - Even in ArcadiaThe Comic Book Podcast is brought to you by Talking Comics (www.talkingcomicbooks.com). The podcast is hosted by Steve Seigh, Bob Reyer, Joey Braccino, Aaron Amos, and John Burkle who weekly dissect everything comics-related, from breaking news to new releases. Our Instagram handle is @TalkingComicsPodcast and you can email us at podcast@talkingcomicbooks.com.

Jace welcomes Jeremy Whitley back to the show to chat about The Cold Ever After. Set in a fantasy world rich with an Arthurian feel, there's plenty of romance, mystery and betrayal in this original graphic novel. Jeremy chats about some of the themes of duty, obligation and famil that he wanted to explore and how that contrasts with the ideas of love and sacrifice. The characterizations are rich and complex as well, which works perfectly with the clean art style of Megan Huang. Join us to learn all about the book.

Hang out with Al Mega as he chats with comic book creator/writer, Jeremy Whitley. Tune in to learn al about Jeremy's journey , books and more…. www.JeremyWhitley.com Host of the Progressively Horrified  Podcast Twitter @Jrome58 LinkedIn JeremySWhitley Instagram: @jrome58 BlueSky: @JeremyWhitley Thank You for Watching / Listening! We appreciate your support! Episode 494 in an unlimited series! Host: Al Mega Follow on: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook: @TheRealAlMega / @ComicCrusaders Make sure to Like/Share/Subscribe if you haven't yet: Rumble/Twitch: ComicCrusaders YouTube: / comiccrusadersworld Visit the official  Comic Crusaders Comic Book Shop: comiccrusaders.shop Visit the OFFICIAL Comic Crusaders Swag Shop at: comiccrusaders.us Main Site: https://www.comiccrusaders.com/​​​​ Pick up official Undercover Capes Podcast Network merchandise exclusively on RedBubble.com: bit.ly/UCPNMerch * Edited/Produced/Directed by Al Mega

It's a brand new Cryptid Creator Corner! Jimmy had a chance to chat with both Archie Bongiovanni and Mary Verhoeven about their new graphic novel being published by Maverick, an imprint of Mad Cave Studios: Teleportation and Other Luxuries. So here we have yet another outstanding Maverick original graphic novel, after recently chatting with Jeremy Whitley, the writer of Navigating With You. The title of TaOL immediately drew me to it, and I was not disappointed in the story or the art. Mary packs so much into every panel, be it emotion, information, or jokes. I loved hearing Archie talk about how they came up with all the techno-babble. It adds a fun element to this story. It's not all fun though, this book really serves up the dangers of certain mega corporations and how they treat their workers, which I think is too close to the truth to be satire. I also had a chance to chat with Archie about the wonderful book A Quick and Easy Guide to THEY/THEM Pronouns created with Tristan Jimerson that I found helpful and delightful.  Teleportation and Other Luxuries is an amazing graphic novel and I had so much fun recording this episode. Give it a listen.     Out on November 12th, order your copy here: https://madcavestudios.com/maverick/teleportation-and-other-luxuries/ From the publisher In a cutthroat scientific competition, an oddball quartet—featuring an internet-famous teen heartthrob, a rebellious anarchist, a shy genius, and a small-town jack-of-all-trades—vie for victory while their clash of personalities and hidden agendas threatens to sabotage their chances to win, making them realize maybe victory isn't what they truly seek.  In a bustling futurist metropolis, the Blamazon Teen Scientist Competition promises not just scientific glory, but fame and substantial financial rewards as well. Among the contestants, four teenagers from different backgrounds form an unlikely team: Tyler Risley, a teen heartthrob known for his genius-level intellect, Gabby, a grumpy nonbinary anarchist with a knack and distrust for science, Allegra, a shy and brilliant loner hiding her vast intelligence, and L.J., a small town jack-of-all-trades with an unparalleled knack for engineering. Amidst their bickering and missteps, they uncover the secret of teleportation. Despite this invention being a clear albeit dangerous way to win, it becomes apparent that perhaps victory isn't their only collective goal. PATREON We have a new Patreon, CryptidCreatorCornerpod. If you like what we do, please consider supporting us. We got two simple tiers, $1 and $3. I'll be uploading a story every Sunday about some of the crazy things I've gotten into over the years. The first one dropped last week about me relocating a drug lord's sharks. Yes, it did happen, and the alligators didn't even get in the way. Want to know more, you know what to do. Our episode sponsors Arkenforge Play TTRPG games? Make sure to check out our partner Arkenforge. They have everything you need to make your TTRPG more fun and immersive, allowing you to build, play, and export animated maps including in person fog of war capability that let's your players interact with maps as the adventure unfolds while you, the DM get the full picture. Use the discount code YETI5 to get $5 off your order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I met Jeremy Whitley at this year's Baltimore Comic-Con and picked up a copy of Navigating With You at the Mad Cave Studios booth. I had read a few things Jeremy had written and was excited to dig into this new graphic novel published by Maverick, a Mad Cave imprint. I absolutely fell in love with the characters of Neesha and Gabby and had to get Jeremy on the podcast to talk about them. We also chat about The Dog Knight, The Cold Ever After, and School for Extraterrestrial Girls.  I had a great conversation with Jeremy that I know you're going to love. He also joined the editorial team for Lifeline Comics and a new Asexual & Aromantic Comic Book Anthology. They are accepting submissions until November 24th: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScTtQJCwFJTsxZ7_dLCxNb_c_6CdnRck_wh55_eXqv3OFGJfQ/viewform Navigating With You: https://madcavestudios.com/maverick/navigating-with-you/?srsltid=AfmBOoqjHw5tUYXJqgBV_CgU-jz3ovLPrNFHH1w-if50RhGOOBWv8eap From the Maverick website A charming POC-led WLW romance where two new friends hit the road in search of the missing volumes of their favorite manga. Neesha Sparks is a disabled, vocal community activist with a passion for costume design. Gabby Graciana is an optimistic surfer – and, like Neesha, a new kid at school. When the two girls discover that they like the same manga series, Navigator Nozomi, they become more than just fellow new kids. But it was more than just having read the same book series–neither of them had finished it! Soon, they become new friends on a mission – to track down the remaining Navigator Nozomi books. This slice-of-life romance follows the two girls as they adventure across North Carolina to find each book, with their story intercut with the tales of Navigator Nozomi. Neesha and Gabby find more than just the books though—they find acceptance, friendship, understanding, and love.  NEW PATREON We have a new Patreon, CryptidCreatorCornerpod. If you like what we do, please consider supporting us. We got two simple tiers, $1 and $3. I'll be uploading a story every Sunday about some of the crazy things I've gotten into over the years. The first one dropped last week about me relocating a drug lord's sharks. Yes, it did happen, and the alligators didn't even get in the way. Want to know more, you know what to do. Our episode sponsors From Within on Kickstarter From Within is a martial arts revenge graphic novel about a slave fighting his way through a deadly tournament where the rules shift at the whims of a tyrannical emperor. It's a mash-up of the high-impact action sequences of Bruce Lee's films with the paranoid thriller undercurrent found in Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips' Sleeper series. Late pledges are enabled if you happen to hear about it after the campaign officially ends. Arkenforge Play TTRPG games? Make sure to check out our partner Arkenforge. They have everything you need to make your TTRPG more fun and immersive, allowing you to build, play, and export animated maps including in person fog of war capability that let's your players interact with maps as the adventure unfolds while you, the DM get the full picture. Use the discount code YETI5 to get $5 off your order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeremy Whitley has been on the podcast several times. With books like Princeless, School For Extraterrestrial Girls, and The Dog Knight Whitley has proven himself as a writer with an ability to tap into the core of characters who have not always been represented in pop culture fiction. In his latest book, Navigating With You, […]

Comic Reviews: DC o        Absolute Power: Task Force VII 7 by Dan Watters, Fran Galan o        Batman: The Long Halloween – The Last Halloween 1 by Jeph Loeb, Eduardo Risso, Dave Stewart o        Lobo Cancellation Special by Kyle Starks, Kyle Hotz, Dan Brown Marvel o        Avengers Annual 2024 by Derek Landy, Salvador Larroca, Guru eFX o        Venom War: Daredevil 1 by Chris Condon, Lan Medina, Yen Nitro o        Marvel Unlimited §  Jeff Week by Gustavo Duarte §  Alligator Loki 40 by Alyssa Wong, Robert Quinn §  Lovable Lockheed 4 by Nathan Stockman Boom o        Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Usagi Yojimbo 1 by Ryan Parrott, Shawn Daley, James Fenner Dark Horse o        Magic Order Five 1 by Mark Millar, Matteo Buffagni, Giovanna Niro o        Masters of the Universe/TMNT: Turtles of Grayskull 1 by Tim Seeley, Freddie Williams II, Andrew Dalhouse o        Survival Street: The Radical Left 1 by James Asmus, Jim Festante, Abylay Kussainov, Ellie Wright DSTLRY o        Missionary 1 by Ryan Stegman, Jason Howard IDW o        My Little Pony: The Storm of Zephyr Heights 1 by Jeremy Whitley, Andy Price, Heather Breckel Image o        Creepshow Volume Three 1 by Chip Zdarsky, Kagan McLeod, James Stokoe o        Knights vs. Samurai 1 by David Dastmalchian, Fede Mele, Ulises Arreola o        Manchurian (Horizon Experiment) 1 by Pornsak Pichetshote, Terry Dodson, Rachel Dodson o        Old Dog Operations 1 by Declan Shalvey; PJ Holden, John McCrea, Mike Spicer; Declan Shalvey, Matias Bergara, Sofie Dodgson; Rory McConville, David O'Sullivan; Sumeyye Kesgin; Declan Shalvey, Luke Sparrow, Dee Cunniffe; Leonardo Romero, Triona Farrell; Alex Paknadel, Chris Sprouse, Dexter Vines; Charles Soule, Gavin Guidry, Chris O'Halloran o        Violator 1 by Marc Andreyko, Piotr Kowalski, Brad Simpson o        Violent Flowers 1 by Maria Llovet Mad Cave o        Revolution 9 1 by Mark London, Carlos Reno, Jao Canola Valiant by o        Black, White, and Bloodshot 1 by Luciano Saracino, Ariel Olivetti; Marc Guggenheim, Agustin Alessio; Matts, Guillermo Fajardo; Tim Seeley, Rodrigo Rocha Magma o        Hell's Half Acre 1 by Denton Tipton, Jack Jadson Indie o        Yuletide Flame by Hayden Fryer OGN Countdown o        Transplants by Dave Collard, Domenico Carbone, Josh Rodriguez o        Grinch Takes a Vacation by Kaeti Vandorn o        New Adventure of Turning Red Vol 2: Panda Power by Sloane Leong, Sergio Algozzino, Sara Galanti o        Moosicians by Steve Behling, Jeff Crowther o        Inventor Vol 2: The Secret of the Scrap Goblin by Lars Henrik Eriksen o        A Quick and Easy Guide to Coming Out by Kristin Russo, Ravi Teixeira o        Spinal Cord by David Brana, Pahito o        Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens o        Amazing Grapes by Jules Feiffer o        Holler by Jeremy Massie Additional Reviews: Wild Robot, Justice League International, Wilderness, Agatha All Along ep3, Penguin ep2 News: rumors of a James Gunn/Jim Lee Superman comic in 2025, Justice League x Sonic, Hellboy: Crooked Man going straight to digital, superhero trademark Trailers: Sinners, Caddo Lake, Dream Productions, Killer Cakes, Sweatpea Comics Countdown (25 September 2024): 1.     Helen of Wyndhorn 5 by Tom King, Bilquis Evely, Mat Lopes 2.     Spectregraph 3 by James Tynion IV, Christian Ward 3.     Ultimate Spider-Man 9 by Jonathan Hickman, Marco Checchetto, Matt Wilson 4.     Lobo Cancellation Special by Kyle Starks, Kyle Hotz, Dan Brown 5.     Action Comics 1069 by Gail Simone, Eddy Barrows, Danny Miki, Jonas Trindade, Rex Lokus 6.     Standstill 2 by Lee Loughridge, Andrew Robinson 7.     Drawing Blood 6 by David Avallone, Kevin Eastman, Troy Little, Ben Bishop, Luis Antonio Delgado 8.     Detective Comics 1089 by Dan Watters, Ram V, Guillem March, Christopher Mitten, Luis Guerrero, Triona Farrell 9.     Batman: Brave and the Bold 17 by Michael Conrad, Christopher Mitten, Miguel Mendonca, Mike Spicer; Zipporah Smith, Mike Norton, John Kalisz; Alex Segura, Andy MacDonald, Patricio Delpeche; Troy Peteri, David Baldeon, Veronica Gandini 10.  Universal Monsters: Frankenstein 2 by Michael Walsh  

It's our SEASON 11 PREMIERE! We bring back Jeremy Whitley for the FOURTH TIME to discuss his new OGN, Navigating With You. How did he manage to take Anthony & Doc's real-life high school friendship and turn it into a YA lesbian romance? Listen to find out! Intro Background What have you been up to since the Dog Knight? Navigating With You (4:21) What was the impetus for this story? Did you realize you basically wrote me & Doc, except girls? Love inclusive writing, a Jeremy specialty THANK YOU for acknowledging disability tragedy porn without falling victim to it The impact Josh has on Gabby, and her development over the arc, just *chef's kiss* Super Navigator Nozomi - story within the story - when did you decide to write a manga within a comic? How hard was it to condense the story into a handful of pages for each volume? (27:37) What was the biggest thing you wanted to fit in there that was just for you & yours, knowing other people might or might not “get it” but you had to have in the story? (36:48) Any new stories coming up? Ending Plugs for social Jeremy's website References: Macho Man “Cream of the Crop” interview - Anthony (33:32) Apple Podcasts: here Google Play: here Stitcher: here TuneIn: here iHeartRadio: here Twitter Facebook Patreon TeePublic Discord

Jace is joined by writer Jeremy Whitley to talk about his YA Graphic Novel from the Mad Cave Studios imprint, Maverick. The story of two girls who have newly moved to North Carolina and meet on the first day of school. Both have various challenges from tehir past they are dealing with, but through discovering a love of an unfinished Manga that they both never finished ad friendship blossoms. Could there be more than just a friendship coming? You will have to read to find out. Wonderful characterization from Jeremy Whitley and gorgeous art from Cassio Ribeiro give a realsim to this touching story. We recommend it highly.

Welcome to the fifteenth episode of Best Issue Ever! Today's guest is Jeremy Whitley, who has written many comics! He has brought us Young Avengers #1, written by Kieron Gillen, featuring art by Jamie McKelvie, and lettering by Clayton Cowles! No joke, Jeremy has written a LOT, so we'll condense it for the purpose of this bio but check out his work! He's been behind books like Marvel's Unstoppable Wasp, as well as creating originals like The Cold Ever After and Navigating With You, which we talk about here. This podcast is recorded in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is edited by Sara Century. The theme music is provided by Earth Control Pill, whose work is on Bandcamp. I do not want to deal with ads AT ALL, so if you also don't want to deal with ads, please consider supporting the podcast by rating and reviewing and/or signing up at the Ko-fi or Patreon @ ko-fi.com/saracenturypodcasts. or patreon.com/saracenturypodcasts. Finally, you could support my other ventures, including the narrative horror podcast Medusa Mask, as well as my work through QueerSpec, including the Bitches On Comics Podcast and the Decoded Horror Channel. Visit my website to sign up for my newsletter for updates. Oh, and I'm a horror writer, so pick up my short story anthology, A Small Light and Other Stories, through Weirdpunk Books, or pretty much wherever else you get books.

November 2024 Solicits (DC, Image, Oni, Mad Cave) Comic Reviews: DC o        Absolute Power: Task Force VII 4 by Pornsak Pichetshote, Claire Roe, Lee Loughridge o        DC vs. Vampires: World War V 1 by Matthew Rosenberg, Otto Schmidt, Pierluigi Casolino Marvel o        Amazing Spider-Man 55 by Zeb Wells, Emilio Laiso, Bryan Valenza o        Iron Fist 50th Anniversary Special by Chris Claremont, Lan Medina, Israel Silva; Alyssa Wong, Von Randal, Arif Prianto; Justina Ireland, Elena Casagrande, Espen Grundetjern; Frank Tieri, Ty Templeton, Dee Cunniffe; Jason Loo, While Portacio, Alex Sinclair o        Spider-Society 1 by Alex Segura, Scott Godlewski o        Ultraman x The Avengers 1 by Kyle Higgins, Mat Groom, Francesco Manna, Matt Milla o        Venom War: Spider-Man 1 by Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, Greg Land, Jay Leisten, Frank D'Armata o        Werewolf by Night Red Band 1 by Jason Loo, Sergio Davila, Jay Leisten, JP Mayer, Craig Yeung, Alex Sinclair o        Wolverine Annual by Ezra Claytan Daniels, Yildiray Cinar, Frank D'Armata o        X-Factor 1 by Mark Russell, Bob Quinn, Jesus Aburtov Boom o        S.I.R. 1 by Fell Hound, Eleonora Bruni, Freddie Tanto Dark Horse o        Gilt Frame 1 by Matt Kindt, Margie Kraft Kindt o        Midst: Address Unknown 1 by Colin Lorimer, Alejandro Aragon, Chris O'Halloran o        Tiny Tina's Wonderlands: Land of the Giants 1 by Paul Tobin, Luisa Russo, Michele Pellegrini, Heather Breckel IDW o        Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Nightwatcher 1 by Juni Ba, Fero Peniche, Luis Antonio Delgado Archie o        Kardak the Mystic by Joe Corallo, Butch Mapa, Ellie Wright Ahoy o        Babs 1 by Garth Ennis, Jacen Burrows, Andy Troy Mad Cave o        Defenders of the Earth 1 by Dan Didio, Jim Calafiore, Juancho! Magma o        Greaser Gemini Blues 1 by Darick Robertson, Stephen B. Jones Alien o        Damaged People 1 by Damian Connelly Dynamite o        Jonny Quest 1 by Joe Casey, Sebastian Piriz, Lorenzo Scaramella OGN Countdown o        Star Wars: The High Republic - Edge of Balance Vol 3 by Daniel Jose Older, Shima Shinya, Mizuki Sakakibara, Satsuki Yamashita o        Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store by Tsuchika Nishimura o        Jimmy's Elbow by James Kochalka o        Let's Go, Coco by Coco Fox o        Lion Dancers by Cai Tse o        Makers Club by Reimena Yee, Tintin Pantoja, Melanie Ujimori o        Nina Peanut: Creative Genius by Sarah Bowie o        Tiffany's Griffon by Maddi Gonzalez, Magnolia Porter Siddell o        Ash's Cabin by Jen Wang o        Navigating With You by Jeremy Whitley, Cassio Ribeiro, Nikki Foxrobot o        Houses of the Unholy by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Jacob Philips Additional Reviews: Gen V s1, Alien Romulus, Daredevil by Chip Z Vol 1 News: Tom King launching Trinity ongoing series, new Terminator film from Cameron, Vault pulls a Goncharov, Archie superhero comic from Seeley and Norton: Mr. Justice, Kahhori comic debut, Kickstarter “Tell Them Of Us”, Acolyte s2 Trailers: Saturday Night, Kraven, Wildwood, Nosferatu, Heretic Comics Countdown (14 August 2024): 1.     Gilt Frame 1 by Matt Kindt, Margie Kraft Kindt 2.     Absolute Power: Task Force VII 4 by Pornsak Pichetshote, Claire Roe, Lee Loughridge 3.     Green Lantern 14 by Jeremy Adams, Fernando Pasarin, Oclair Albert, Romulo Fajardo Jr. 4.     Spider-Boy 10 by Dan Slott, Nathan Stockman, Erick Arciniega; Dan Slott, Paco Medina, Erick Arciniega 5.     Immortal Thor 14 by Al Ewing, Jan Bazaldua 6.     From the World of Minor Threats: Barfly 2 by Patton Oswalt, Jordan Blum, Kyle Starks, Ryan Browne, Kevin Knipstein 7.     S.I.R. 1 by Fell Hound, Eleonora Bruni, Freddie Tanto 8.     From the DC Vault: Death in the Family – Robin Lives 2 by J.M. DeMatteis, Rick Leonardi, Rico Renzi 9.     Amazing Spider-Man 55 by Zeb Wells, Emilio Laiso, Bryan Valenza 10.  Geiger 5 by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Brad Anderson  

In the latest episode, The Fanbase Weekly co-hosts welcome special guests Amy Chase (writer, Archie Horror, Tell Them of Us, Let Her Be Evil) and Jeremy Whitley (writer, Navigating with You, Princeless, My Little Pony) to discuss the latest geek news stories of the week, including the announcement of Colin Kaepernick's new AI-based comics company, whether Robert Downey Jr's casting as Doctor Doom will rejuvenate the MCU, and DC's latest reboot of the Absolute Universe.

The writer of the new OGN Navigating With You joins us once again this week to talk about Bojangles, tag teams, Bojangles' choice of tag teams, and, oh yeah, his comic. And a whole lot more, too!

Tad is joined by Jeremy Whitley!Consider becoming a patron!Support the Show.

After the recent release of his latest graphic novel, The Cold Ever After, Jeremy Whitley joins the show to talk about writing for younger audiences, telling stories of underrepresented groups, and making it all fun.Jeremy Whitley is a writer from Durham, North Carolina. He broke into comics in 2010 with the Eisner-Nominated smash hit comic Princeless. He then spun off a second book in the same world called Raven Pirate Princess that highlighted the adventures of Raven and her all-girl crew of pirates.After the success of Princeless, Jeremy has gone on to write for a number of existing properties including an acclaimed run for Marvel's Unstoppable Wasp, Future Foundation, Hulk Vs. Thor: Champions of the Universe and a ground breaking coming out story for Marvel's Gwenpool in their Love Unlimited series. He has also written for Sea of Thieves, Vampirella, and over 50 issues of My Little Pony.Currently he is writing School for Extraterrestrial Girls, The Dog Knight, The Cold Ever After, and The Dashing School for Wayward Princes.Huge thanks to HIVE Comicade for hooking up this conversation! For More from Comics Are Dope:Get This Week in Comics, our weekly e-mail newsletter: http://thisweekincomics.comSubscribe on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@comicsaredopeJoin our online Discussion Communities:Facebook - http://bjkicks.link/communityDiscord - http://bjkicks.link/discord

As we return to more regular releases of the show, we’re hoping to diversify the style of Comic Timing releases a bit. This episode, rather than a panel discussion, Ian sits down for a one-on-one interview with Jeremy Whitley! You may know Jeremy from such works as Princeless, The Unstoppable Wasp, My Little Pony: Friendship … Continue reading Episode 216: Navigating With You…And Jeremy Whitley Too! →

Comic Reviews: DC Bat-Man: First Knight 1 by Dan Jurgens, Mike Perkins, Mike Spicer Blue Beetle 7 by Josh Trujillo, Scott Kolins, Cully Hamner, Howard Porter, Adrian Gutierrez, Natacha Bustos, Laura Martin, Wil Quintana, Hi-Fi, Luis Guerrero Marvel Aliens: What If…? 1 by Paul Reiser, Leon Reiser, Adam Goldberg, Hans Rodionoff, Brian Volk-Weiss, Guiu Vilanova, Yen Nitro Giant-Size Spider-Gwen by Melissa Flores, Alba Glez, Elisabetta D'Amico, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace 1 by Iman Vellani, Sabir Pirzada, Scott Godlewski, Erick Arciniega Spectacular Spider-Men 1 by Greg Weisman, Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba, Edgar Delgado Ultimate X-Men 1 by Peach Momoko, Zack Davisson Weapon X-Men 1 by Christos Gage, Yildiray Cinar, Nolan Woodard Marvel Unlimited It's Jeff 33 by Kelly Thompson, GuriHiru Image Last Mermaid 1 by Derek Kirk Kim IDW Golgotha Motor Mountain 1 by Matthew Erman, Lonnie Nadler, Robbi Rodriguez, Marissa Louise TMNT: Last Ronin II – Re-Evolution 1 by Tom Waltz, Kevin Eastman, Esau Escorza, Isaac Escorza, Ben Bishop, Luis Antonio Delgado Oni Night People 1 by Barry Gifford, Chris Condon, Brian Level, Ronda Pattison Ablaze Torpedo 1972 1 by Enrique Sanchez-Abuli, Eduardo Risso OGNs Marble Queen by Anna Kopp, Gabrielle Kari Lastman Vol 4 by Balak, Bastian Vives, Michael Sanlaville Army of One by Tony Lee, Yishan Lee Baker and the Bard by Fern Haught Blue Stars by Kekla Magoon, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Molly Murakami I Feel Awful, Thanks by Lara Pickle Magic Girls: Kira and the (Maybe) Space Princess by Megan Brennan Making Friends: Together Forever by Kristen Gudsnuk Rainbow! by Gloom and Sunny Table Titans Club by Scott Kurtz Additional Reviews: Kung-Fu Panda 4, Iwaju, Damsel Madame Web Challenge – Update Oscars 2024 News: ATLA Live-Action renewed, Scout relaunch, Zaslav strikes, My Adventures with Superman comic by Josie Campbell, Scarlet mini by Kelly Thompson, Destro by Dan Watters, X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse by Steve Foxe, new romance comic by Jeremy Whitley from Mad Cave, Black Label Zatanna series by Mariko Tamaki and Javier Rodriguez, Mario sequel release date Trailers: Garfield, Wild Robot, Inside Out 2, Ripley, Late Night With the Devil Comics Countdown (06 Mar 2024): 1.     Love Everlasting 13 by Tom King, Elsa Charretier, Matt Hollingsworth 2.     Bat-Man: The First Knight 1 by Dan Jurgens, Mike Perkins, Mike Spicer 3.     Marble Queen GN by Anna Kopp, Gabrielle Kari 4.     Batman 145 by Chip Zdarsky, Jorge Jimenez, Tomeu Morey 5.     Doctor Strange 13 by Jed MacKay, Pasqual Ferry, Heather Moore 6.     Blue Beetle 7 by Josh Trujillo, Scott Kolins, Cully Hamner, Howard Porter, Adrian Gutierrez, Natacha Bustos, Laura Martin, Wil Quintana, Hi-Fi, Luis Guerrero 7.     Ultimate X-Men 1 by Peach Momoko, Zack Davisson 8.     Nice Jewish Boys 5 by Neil Kleid, John Broglia, Ellie Wright 9.     Table Titans Club GN by Scott Kurtz 10.  Birds of Prey 7 by Kelly Thompson, Javier Pina, Jordie Bellaire    

Longtime friend of the show Jeremy Whitley returns this week to ostensibly talk about his new book The Cold Ever After, but mostly end up discussing AEW Revolution!

Comic Reviews: Marvel Giant-Size Fantastic Four 1 by Fabian Nicieza, Creees Lee, Arif Prianto Spider-Punk: Arms Race 1 by Cody Ziglar, Justin Mason, Morry Hollowell What If…? Venom 1 by Jeremy Holt, Jesus Hervas, Cici De La Cruz Women of Marvel by Gail Simone, Lydia Rasero, Triona Farrell; Sarah Rees Brennan, Arielle Jovellanos, Brittany Peer; Erica Schultz, Giada Belviso, Giado Marchisio; Nao Fuji; Celeste Bronfman, Leila Leiz; Ceci de la Cruz Marvel Unlimited It's Jeff 32 by Kelly Thompson, GuriHiru Dark Horse Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora - So'lek's Journey 1 by Ray Fawkes, Gabriel Guzman, Michael Atiyeh Dynamite Fire and Ice: Teegra 1 by Bill Willingham, Gabriele Di Carlo Titan Savage Sword of Conan 1 by John Arcudi, Max Von Fafner; Patrick Zircher ComiXology Wishful Thinking by Glenn Dion OGNs Whistleblowers: Four Who Fought to Expose the Holocaust to America by Rafael Medoff, Dean Motter DnDoggos: Get the Party Started by Scout Underhill, Liana Sposto Hound by Sam Romesburg, Sam Freeman, Rodrigo Vazquez Cold Ever After by Jeremy Whitley, Megan Huang Additional Reviews: Inside Man, Avatar: The Last Airbender (Live Action), Great British Bump-Off, Lisa Frankenstein, Dune 2, surprise comic review, worst novel Glenn has ever read News: Scout allegedly not paying talent, Superman: Legacy retitled to “Superman” and casting updates, new Gillen Image book, Michael Walsh Frankenstein from Skybound Trailers: I Saw the TV Glow Comics Countdown (28 Feb 2024): 1.     Radiant Black 28 and 28.5 by Kyle Higgins, Joe Clark, Eduardo Ferigato, Raul Angulo, Marcelo Costa, Rod Fernandes 2.     Ice Cream Man 38 by W. Maxwell Prince, Martin Morazzo, Chris O'Halloran 3.     Batman: Brave and the Bold 10 by Karl Kerschl, Michele SassyK; Delilah Dawson, George Kambadais, Serg Acuna, Matt Herms; Matt Harding, Mike Henderson, Adam Guzowski; Torunn Gronbekk, Tom Derenick, Lee Loughridge; Dan Watters, Ricardo Lopez Ortiz 4.     Deep Cuts 5 by Kyle Higgins, Joe Clark, Juni Ba, Igor Monti 5.     Rare Flavours 4 by Ram V, Filipe Andrade 6.     w0rldtr33 8 by James Tynion IV, Fernando Blanco, Jordie Bellaire 7.     Penguin 7 by Tom King, Stevan Subic, Marcelo Maiolo 8.     Resurrection of Magneto 2 by Al Ewing, Luciano Vecchio, David Curiel 9.     Undiscovered Country 28 by Scott Snyder, Charles Soule, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Leonardo Marcello Grassi 10.  Immortal Thor 7 by Al Ewing, Martin Coccolo  

The Talking Comics crew walks in the spider webs this week with a spirited review of Sony's Madame Web! Writer Jeremy Whitley also joins us to discuss his latest graphic novel, The Cold Ever After!, with artist Megan Huang.Books: Thunderbolts #3, The Cabinet #1, The Infernals #1, The Displaced #1, Action Comics #1059-1062, Amazing Spider-Man #40-43, Fall of the House of X #2, Abbot 1979 #4, Blade #8, Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver #1, Transformers #1-5, Six Fingers #1Other Stuff: Madame Web (movie review), Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Marvels, Dune: Part One, Nin KamuiThis Comic Book Podcast is brought to you by Talking Comics. The podcast is hosted by Steve Seigh, Bob Reyer, Joey Braccino, Aaron Amos, Chris Ceary, and John Burkle, who dissect everything comics-related weekly, from breaking news to new releases. Our Twitter handle is @TalkingComics, and you can email us at podcast@talkingcomicbooks.com.

This week Tayla is joined by Jeremy Whitley (Princeless, School for Extraterrestrial Girls) and Chris Schweizer (Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton, History Comic: Roanoke Colony) to talk about their experience making comics for young people. They also discuss horror movies, video games, and Christmas folklore. During The Last Chapter they discuss: If you could rewrite a book from another character's point of view, what book and character would you choose? Podcast disclaimer Like what you hear? Rate and review Down Time on Apple Podcasts or your podcast player of choice! If you'd like to submit a topic for The Last Chapter you can send your suggestions to downtime@cranstonlibrary.org. Our theme music is Day Trips by Ketsa and our ad music is Happy Ukulele by Scott Holmes. Thanks for listening!  Books Princeless by Jeremy Whitley and M. Goodwin The Dog Knight by Jeremy Whitley and Bre Indigo School for Extraterrestrial Girls by Jeremy Whitley and Jamie Noguchi Maker Comics: Fix a Car! By Chris Schweizer The Roanoke Colony: America's First Mystery by Chris Schweizer and Liz Trice Schweizer Browse books by Marvin Kaye in the library catalog Sondheim On Music by Mark Eden Horowitz Traitor's Blade (Greatcoats #1) by Sebastien de Castell Elle Campbell Wins Their Weekend by Ben Kahn (via bookshop.org) A Blade So Black by L. L. McKinney Titan King by Tony Hawkins Clock Striker by Issaka Galadima Saga Compendium One by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples AV Raising Hope (2010-2014) Progressively Horrified (podcast) Hellbender (2021) Dead End: Paranormal Park (2022) Ted Lasso (2020-2023) Yellowjackets (2021- ) Red Dead Redemption II (video game) Death Stranding (video game) AEW: Fight Forever (video game) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (video game) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (video game) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) Other Jeremy Whitley Chris Schweizer Saturday AM 

In this special Episode, we are excited to welcome guests Jeremy Whitley and Bre Indigo to the show. We talk with them about their new comic The Dog Knight. "A nonbinary middle schooler saves a dog from bullies and is offered the chance to become the Dog Knight, protector of a magical pact between humans and dogs, in the first book of this humorous and heartwarming middle-grade graphic novel series from Jeremy Whitely, author of Princeless , and Bre Indigo, illustrator of Meg, Jo, Beth, and A Graphic Novel." JeremyWhitley.com BreIndigo.com Hosted and Produced by: Robyn McGlotten & Tracy Holt Music from https://filmmusic.io: "Beauty Flow" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Website: http://diversityissues.libsyn.com/ Facebook: @Diversity.Issues.Podcast Instagram: @Diversity.Issues.Podcast Twitter: @div_iss_pod Email: diversity.issues.podcast@gmail.com

We catch up with Jeremy Whitley, author of Marvel's Love Unlimited: Gwenpool, The Unstoppable Wasp, Future Foundation, and his own awesome creations, including The Dog Knight, which just released in May. We get into his horror podcast, Progressively Horrified (check out their rankings: https://letterboxd.com/jerwhit/list/progressively-horrified/), talk about Ace/Arrow representation in media, and have him choose between cute dogs in a knock-out, drag-out "Power Ranking" segment. Creator Crush is an interview series where we chat with our favorite comic book creators, learning more about their work, their thoughts on the industry, and what makes them so darn special. Homo Superior Podcast is five obsessive queers unapologetically dishing about the X-Men and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Smart Analysis and Dumb Jokes Weekly.

Aug 2023 Solicits Comic Reviews: DC Batman: The Brave and the Bold 1 by Tom King, Mitch Gerads, Ed Brisson, Jeff Spokes, Christopher Cantwell, Javier Rodriguez, Dan Mora Cyborg 1 by Morgan Hampton, Tom Raney, Michael Atiyeh Titans 1 by Joshua Williamson, Nicola Scott, Annette Kwok Vigil 1 by Ram V, Lalit Kumar Sharma, Rain Beredo Marvel Avengers 1 by Jed MacKay, Carlos Villa, Federico Blee Danny Ketch: Ghost Rider 1 by Howard Mackie, Daniel Picciotto, Guru eFX Hulk Annual 2023 by David Pepose, Caio Majado, Edgar Delgado, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Travel Foreman, Matt Wilson Infinity Comics Cosmo the Spacedog 2 by Jason Loo, David Cutler Marvel's Spider-Man 2 by Christos Gage, Ig Guara, Rachelle Rosenberg Image Arcade Kings 1 by Dylan Burnett, Sara Antonellini, Sharon Marino Dark Horse Miss Truesdale and the Fall of Hyperborea 1 by Mike Mignola, Jesse Lonergan Dynamite Disney Villains: Maleficent 1 by Soo Lee Elvira in Monsterland 1 by David Avallone, Kewber Baal, Walter Pereyra IDW Dark Spaces: Good Deeds 1 by Che Grayson, Kelsey Ramsay, Ronda Pattison Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes 1 by Marc Guggenheim, Oleg Chudakov, DC Alonso Archie Chilling Adventures Presents: Jinx - A Cursed Life OGNs Hotel REM by Zack Keller, Gabriele Bagnoli, Valerio Alloro Navigator by Steve Burg, Ron Thornton, John Bruno, William Wisher, Jordi Armengol Critical Role Mighty Nein Origins: Mollymauk Tealeaf by Jody Houser, Matthew Mercer, Taliesin Jaffe, Hunter Bonyun, Cathy Le Clementine Fox and the Great Island Adventure by Leigh Luna The Dog Knight by Jeremy Whitley, Bre Indigo, Melissa Capriglione Additional Reviews: Seven to Eternity News: Amazing Spider-Man/Fallen Friend spoilers, Omninews, Seth Rollins cast in Captain America, Loki and Echo release dates, Chiwetel Ejiofor joining Venom 3 cast, Miraculous: The Movie, new Daredevil creative team, casting for the Thing, Galactic Starcruiser closing, Disney+ cuts Am It Glenn? Trailers: Five Nights at Freddy's, Nimona, Miraculous: The Movie Comics Countdown (16 May 2023): The Dog Knight OGN by The Dog Knight by Jeremy Whitley, Bre Indigo, Melissa Capriglione Flash 799 by Jeremy Adams, Fernando Pasarin, Oclair Albert, Wade Von Grawbadger, Tom Derenick, Matt Herms, Pete Pantazis Fantastic Four 7 by Ryan North, Iban Coello, Jesus Aburtov Dark Ride 6 by Joshua Williamson, Andrei Bressan, Adriano Lucas Seasons Have Teeth 2 by Dan Watters, Sebastian Cabrol Hotel REM OGN by Zack Keller, Gabriele Bagnoli, Valerio Alloro Superman 4 by Joshua Williamson, Nick Dragotta, Jamal Campbell, Frank Martin No/One 3 by Brian Buccellato, Kyle Higgins, Geraldo Borges, Mark Englert Wonder Woman 799 by Becky Cloonan, Michael Conrad, Alitha Martinez, Meghan Hetrick, Paulina Ganucheau, Juan Ferreyra, Terry Dodson, Mark Morales, Rachel Dodson Venom 19 by Al Ewing, Roge Antonio, Frank D'Armata  

It’s episode 450! To celebrate we brought Jeremy Whitley back onto the podcast! Jeremy has been on the show several times before chatting about his previous works such as Princeless, The Unstoppable Wasp, Rainbow Brite, and The School for Extraterrestrial Girls! Last week saw the debut of his latest book, The Dog Knight, published by […]

It’s episode 450! To celebrate we brought Jeremy Whitley back onto the podcast! Jeremy has been on the show several times before chatting about his previous works such as Princeless, The Unstoppable Wasp, Rainbow Brite, and The School for Extraterrestrial Girls! Last week saw the debut of his latest book, The Dog Knight, published by […]

This week, the Talking Comics podcast goes to the dogs as Bob, Aaron, Joey, and Steve are joined by Jeremy Whitley to discuss the new original graphic novel The Dog Knight! The crew also brings Lightning Rounds to the table and reviews Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3!Books: Where Monsters Lie #4, Immortal X-Men ##11, Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent #3, Sins of Sinister, Oona Out of Order (novel), Scarlet Witch #5, Love Everlasting #7Other Stuff: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Renfield, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, The Children's HourThe Comic Book Podcast is brought to you by Talking Comics (www.talkingcomicbooks.com). The podcast is hosted by Steve Seigh, Bob Reyer, Joey Braccino, Aaron Amos, John Burkle, and Chris Ceary, who weekly dissect everything comics-related, from breaking news to new releases. Our Twitter handle is @TalkingComics, and you can email us at podcast@talkingcomicbooks.com.

The writer of The Dog Knight and the recent Love Unlimited: Gwenpool, Jeremy Whitley returns to the show this week to talk all about the key elements of dogs, getting the art of a talking dog just right, with whom he'd make an amalgam of Gwenpool, and much more!

Comic book writer Jeremy Whitley is back and he's got a new graphic novel coming out called The Dog Knight which features a non-binary, bi-racial protagonist.

Jeremy Whitley and Bre Indigo join the show to talk about their new middle grade graphic novel, The Dog Knight.

Anthony goes solo to interview the creators of the upcoming YA graphic novel The Dog Knight, Jeremy Whitley & Bre Indigo! Intro Background Welcome back Jeremy What have you been up to since last we spoke? Welcome Bre Indigo Books you've worked on The Dog Knight Impetus for story How was Bre brought in as artist? (14:35) Importance of queer/non-binary representation these days (16:02) Making a book you knew would be challenged/banned (22:30) Appreciate the respecting of boundaries in this book, both physical & emotional (29:54) Frankie - (47:20) Difficult enough being a teenager and trying to fit in, non-binary on top of that, and now they're a hero Pawtheon (52:12) Did you come up with the breeds first and virtues second, or was it done together? Ending (43:13) More stories in this universe? (57:00) Next episodes: Adam Warlock, Sam Alexander, Galactus Plugs for social Pre-order The Dog Knight now! GonnaGeek Network Apple Podcasts: here Google Play: here Stitcher: here TuneIn: here iHeartRadio: here Twitter Facebook Patreon TeePublic Discord

There's tons of great comics to showcase this month, and we have three solid hours of Previews content to prove it! Ian and Murd are your Ironmen who make it through the entire catalog this episode, while Shane sticks around until after Marvel, and Chris joins until midway through the back of the book. This round of Previews showcases issue 414 of Diamond's Previews, DC Connect 34, and Marvel Previews Volume 6 issue 18, for books mostly set for release in May, 2023. Highlights include the launch of Waid and Mora's Shazam! and Jed Mackay's Avengers, the return of Kevin Smith's Maskerade and Tom King's Love Everlasting, multiple projects from friends of the show such as Dave Dwonch, Mike Norton, Brent Schoonover and Jeremy Whitley, TWO Dark Horse sections, and so much more. And while we're at it don't forget to put in your FCBD picks this month! (2:59:08)

This episode is another panel Robyn did with Color of Fandom at Ret-Con. They talk about the horror genre in various mediums and how that interacts with the Black experience. They discuss both viewing horror media from a Black perspective, and discuss what makes something Black horror. We are also excited to announce live interviews we'll be doing at V-Con on discord on Sunday March 26. 3pm: Jeremy Whitley 4pm: Jadzia Axelrod Ret-Con is a speculative fiction conference base in Cary NC. Home | Ret-Con Color of Fandom is a Fan group based in the Raleigh/Durham area with an emphasis on diverse inclusion and representation in fandom. Also, V-Con is a virtual convention organized by Color of Fandom happening March 25-26, 2023. Embracing Diversity in Geekdom Color of Fandom | Facebook Color of Fandom (Raleigh, NC) | Meetup Color of Fandom | Discord V-Con | Discord V-Con Event Link Hosted and Produced by: Robyn McGlotten & Tracy Holt Music from https://filmmusic.io: "Beauty Flow" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Website: http://diversityissues.libsyn.com/ Facebook: @Diversity.Issues.Podcast Instagram: @Diversity.Issues.Podcast Twitter: @div_iss_pod Email: diversity.issues.podcast@gmail.com

On this episode, Pete is joined by Jeremy Whitley, Director of Network Engineering at Roanoke Connect, a division of Roanoke Cooperative. Roanoke Cooperative is a non-profit organization that serves low-income communities in 7 counties in North Carolina. The cooperative aims to provide broadband access to its 15,000 members and works towards closing the digital divide in the region. Whitley is responsible for overseeing the design and implementation of the network infrastructure at Roanoke Connect, ensuring that the cooperative's members have reliable and fast internet access. Click on the link below to listen. Also, be subscribe to the Broadband Bunch podcast so you never miss an episode.

Fear Level: Spooky (But not really...)Trigger Warnings: Sexual ViolenceThe Scream franchise gets more meta than ever with its third installment. Director: Wes Craven Writer: Ehren Kruger Stars:  Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Parker Posey, Scott Foley, Emily Mortimer Recommendations: Ben: Chucky (TV Series - 2021) Emily: Josie and the Pussycats (2001) TJ: Black Swan (2010) Jeremy: Sort Of (Sitcom - 2021) Where to find us:TJ Finecey is on Twitter @troyfin2 and has a podcast with Chris Ceary called Gotham Outsiders.Follow us on twitter @proghorrorpodFollow Emily on twitter @megamothEmily's Website: Megamoth.netFollow Ben on twitter @benthekahnPre-Order Ben's new book, Renegade Rule.Follow Jeremy on twitter @jrome58Visit his website at JeremyWhitley.comRSS Feed: https://feeds.transistor.fm/progressively-horrifiedWebsite: https://progressivelyhorrified.transistor.fm/Transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/APxo0agn3ubJoin our Patreon at: patreon.com/progressivelyhorrified to support the show, get bonus episodes, early access to upcoming episodes, and a cool Progressively Horrified t-shirt.Come back next week to hear about Happy Death Day!★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Fear Level: DocumentaryTrigger Warnings: Historical images of lynching and racial violence, excerpts from a variety of horror films that include blood, violence, racism, and terror. They say Candyman several times in a row. Director: Xavier Burgin Writers: Ashlee Blackwell, Danielle Burrows  Based on the book by: Robin R. Means Coleman Stars: Robin R.Means Coleman, Tananarive Due, Tony Todd, Keith David, Rachel True, Ken Foree, Jordan Peele, Paula Jai Parker, Loretta Devine Covering the entire history of black people in horror films is a huge task, which Horror Noire decides to take on and it's up to the task. With an awesome format, an array of amazing black horror stars, directors, and critics, and clips from dozens of films - it's a movie you absolutely have to watch...but we're gonna describe it to you anyway!Danny Lore, Emmanuel Lipscomb, and Allie Mullin join podcast host Jeremy Whitley to talk about all the amazing movies we've have seen, the trash fires we look forward to finding on Tubi, and the classics we've missed.Topics of Discussion:-Keith David's buttery smooth voice-"Birth of a Nation" and where you can stick it.-Sci-Fi and the things "black folks just don't do"-Duane Jones, George Romero, and the OG zombie movie-A man's gotta see himself-Pam Grier, the friend you're always psyched to see at the party-A dramatic reading of the plot of "Doctor Jekyll and Mister Black" by Danny Lore-We crack on The Craft one last time, but not nearly as hard as we come for The Shining-Why we ABSOLUTELY do not want a 2021 Nightmare on Elm Street reboot-Candyman-Candyman-Candyman-Is Def by Temptation real and do we have proof?-Hey, Eve's Bayou was thirty years ahead of the rest of FILM.-Bones, Crow, and Def Jam: Fight for New York-Attack The Block, mother fuckers!-Get Out, the horror movie so real, we just had this deep ass conversation in the middle of this whole thing-All of our dating histories-That time Jeremy wrote a comic where Iron Fist did Misty Knight's hair-Dads/white boys, You don't get cookies for learning how to take care of the people you love.-Unless you make them cookies, then you share, I guess.Recommendations:SpiralDread Nation by Justina IrelandMonday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. JacksonNightlight - A Black Horror PodcastThe First PurgeThe Queen of Bad Dreams - Danny Lore and Jordi PerezFollow our guests:Danny LoreTwitter: @weredawgzInstagram: @weredawgsWebsite: dannylore.comEmmanuel LipscombTwitter: @elipscomb2Allie MullinTwitter: @alliemullinInstagram: @alliemullinWebsite: alliemullin.comFollow us on twitter @proghorrorpodFollow Jeremy on twitter @jrome58Visit his website at JeremyWhitley.comRSS Feed: https://feeds.transistor.fm/progressively-horrifiedWebsite: https://progressivelyhorrified.transistor.fm/Join our Patreon at: patreon.com/progressivelyhorrified to support the show, get bonus episodes, early access to upcoming episodes, and a cool Progressively Horrified t-shirt.Come back next week to talk the Jordan Peele masterpiece of micro-aggressions, "Get Out"★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

It's a new Marvel Reread Club where we read just one issue, June 1963's Tales to Astonish #44, joined by special guest Jeremy Whitley, the only writer to have written a Marvel comic starring any version of the Wasp in her own book! Pillbox hats! Laughter and gaiety! Sluggards confused with dullards!

Today on the show: As current and former Action Lab Comics creators suffer under the yoke of terrible contracts and a publisher that has long since stopped serving their interests, we discuss the origins and current controversies surrounding the company. Joining host ANTHONY RUTTGAIZER (writer of The F1rst Hero, Actionverse) are fellow Action Lab creators SHAWN PRYOR (former Action Lab President/writer of Cash & Carry, Force), JEREMY WHITLEY (writer of Princeless, Raven the Pirate Princess) and JOHN PEREZ (writer of Archon) as well as self-publishing maven MICHAEL KINGSTON (writer of Headlocked). MERCH ALERT!!! The NEW Kingdom James store is open on TeeSpring! T-shirts, sweatshirts, tank tops, face masks, coffee mugs and die-cut vinyl stickers with designs including the Wrestlers Union logo, the Handsome Genius Club logo, the Kingdom James soft drink logo and both the Outlive Your Enemies and new Choose Better Heroes designs. Check out the new store at MyNameIsKingdom.creator-spring.com. SUBSCRIBE TO THE PATREON!!! You can also show your support for Anthony and projects like the Handsome Genius Club Radio Show, the 101 Things In 1001 Days project, the Wrestlers Union and more by subscribing to the My Name Is Kingdom Patreon page. For as little as $2 a month, you can help this show and get exclusive content from Anthony's podcast, comic books and other projects. Join in now at patreon.com/MyNameIsKingdom. CONNECT WITH ANTHONY ONLINE!!! Here's an easy-to-use directory for his website and social media. Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and more: https://linktr.ee/MyNameIsKingdom Recommended Viewing: Sam Wilson Is Still A Black Man In America by Anthony Ruttgaizer

Carrie, Darci, and Brian (CDB) are back with another episode of the Comics Deserve Better (CDB) Podcast with Brian's choice this week, the first volume of Princeless. The Crew are all under the weather this episode and apparently so was Zoom as there were heaps of issues in regards to recording, but a great episode was still created to talk about a great book! Also, is it intentional or coincidental that the podcast has the same initials as the first names of the three hosts? The CDB Crew will never tell! No discussion this week due to the afore mentioned illnesses but it's a solid episode nonetheless with some great tangents about Covid and Booster Gold to name a few. Other books discussed this episode are Cinnamon #1 by Victoria Douglas (Behemoth); Graveneye by Sloane Leong and Anna Bowles (TKO); and Verse Book 1 by Sam Beck (Wonderbound). For a preview of Sam Beck's Verse as well as a link to pre-order it, click here: https://sambeck.ca/Verse For more info about Fiyahcon 2021, click here: https://theconvention.fiyahlitmag.com/ Comics Deserve Better is a weekly podcast hosted by Brian, Carrie and Darci which covers the world of Independent Comics. For a list of episodes, socials and emails, and to request a topic for a future episode please visit comicsdeservebetter.wordpress.com. (Episode Artwork by Jeremy Whitley, M. Goodwin and Jung-Ha Kim)

Picking up where we last left off, it's time to learn about Marvel's second attempt at comics for Christian audiences. Highlights include comic adaptations of "classic" Christian stories and the creation of an evangelical superhero, but the results were decidedly less impressive than the "Saint Series" from the early 80s.  ----more---- Episode 8 Transcription [00:00:00] Jessika: Good, I can see, perfect. No sneaking up on me, Jesus.  Mike: Welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we partake in comics' forbidden fruit, one issue at a time. My name is Mike Thompson and I'm joined by my cohost, the muffin of mayhem herself, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: Hello.  Mike: How's it going? Jessika: Oh, pretty good. Even better, now that you're calling me a muffin. I love it. Mike: I mean, it was either that or the scone of scorn and I liked muffin of mayhem better. Jessika: Oh, either way. I mean, it's very close. I do have a cupcake on my shoulder as you know. Mike: Yes.  [00:01:00] Well, as always, the purpose of this podcast is to perform deep dives on comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to look at their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we're picking up where we left off with our last episode and concluding our look at Marvel's short-lived run of Christian comics. Are you ready? Jessika: Yeehaw.  Mike: Well, I'm going to give you a quick break before we actually get into that. What is one cool thing that you have read or watched since we last recorded? Jessika: I started reading the Princeless series by Jeremy Whitley.  Mike: Nice. Jessika: Yeah. The art for the first book was by M Goodwin, but there are other artists involved, including Emily Martin, who is local to our area, which is super neat. Mike: Yeah. I met her at Luma [00:02:00] Con a couple of years ago.  Jessika: Oh, that's rad as heck. Nice, nice.  So, the story follows a princess, Adrienne, who from a young age, is not at all on board with the conventional helpless role she's expected to take as a princess, and is not happy about being locked in a tower alone. So she decides that she doesn't need to continue this path that has been chosen for her and escapes to help others. She's also a person of color and her hair care routines and style reflect that, which is wonderful. And I'm only one issue into the first book, but I'm so excited to see what destiny Adrienne writes for herself.  Mike: I think I read the first volume a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed it. It was a really fresh feeling story. Jessika: That's how I felt about it, it was very refreshing.  Well, what about [00:03:00] you? Whatcha been reading?  Mike: So, one of the series that I have on my pull list at Brian's comics up in Petaluma is We Only Find Them When They're Dead from Boom. It's about six issues. And now it's this really cool sci-fi fantasy sort of series by Al Ewing who has really gotten big while he's been writing the Immortal Hulk, which I also highly recommend because that takes the incredible Hulk storyline and turns it into pretty much a horror story. Jessika: Oh, cool.  Mike: It's really neat. And it's really unnerving and, he's been writing it for over 30 issues now, I think, but it's really solid. And the whole idea is that the Hulk is effectively an immortal being and he can't die. But how that comes into play is genuinely terrifying at times. But Al Ewing did this new series called We Only Find Them When They're Dead. The series is just incredible. And it's set in this weird dystopian future where [00:04:00] the bodies of these giant space gods, for lack of a better term appear out of nowhere. And then humanity is so stretched thin for resources that, that what they've started doing is they have these spaceships that will harvest the bodies for parts. And nobody knows where these gods come from until the crew of one of these harvesting ships decides to solve the mystery. It's this really tight kind of small scale story so far, but it's set against this really insane, massive cosmic backdrop. And it's also very queer, so, I think you would probably enjoy it more so than usual. Jessika: Very nice. Very nice.  Mike: All right. Let's turn back to Marvel's Christian Comics. Would you be so kind as to give us a quick recap of where we left off after the last episode? Jessika: Sure. Last week we went [00:05:00] through the first years of the Marvel Catholic comics, how it got its start printing religious material, cue the power of asking that we keep discussing on this show, and who was involved in making these particular Comics. Our focal comics were the Saint series, comprised of the stories of St. Francis in Francis Brother of the Universe, Pope John Paul. I can't not do it that way.  Mike: It's so good. Jessika: Pope John Paul II, and Mother Teresa. Oh man. Do we want to take a quick second and talk about the recent news? It was so timely about Mother Teresa. You wanna? You want to talk a little bit about that, Mike?   I just had to talk about it. It was so freaking timely.  Mike: Oh, absolutely.  I think this happened a day or two after we recorded the article.  So over the past couple of days there's been a number of stories that have come out, basically highlighting that [00:06:00] Mother Teresa was running a cult and I think the headline that I sent you was, “Are there still people who didn't know Mother Teresa was running an alleged cult?” And.  Jessika: Cue.  Mike: I think.  Jessika: Cue me raising my hand.  Mike: Yeah, I think this was a day or two after, after you and I had recorded and it just felt ridiculously timely. It was really funny. Jessika: Oh, serendipitous.  Mike: No,  she was not a good person by the increasingly numerous accounts that I've been seeing.  She was quote unquote good by a very narrow definition that unfortunately it was kind of like what the media presented her as back then in the eighties. And since then, I mean, if she was operating today, there's no way that she would have received the Nobel Peace Prize. But. Jessika: Oh, no, absolutely not.  Mike: But you know, we're talking, she received that 40 years [00:07:00] ago, so. Jessika: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh gosh. Well, back to what we were talking about last week. After the St. series, after all of that wrapped up, Marvel seemed to decide to walk away from religious content after these winning Comics, we did however, land on a bit of a cliffhanger because Mike, you teased that they took another swing at religious comics in 1992.  Mike: That is correct. So, to set the stage, the late eighties and early nineties were a massive boom for the comic book market.  There was this huge speculation bubble that was going on, and as a result, Marvel and DC and other imprints were just seeing an unprecedented amount of success.  On average, a lot of major books were seeing over a million issues in circulation, which, even today, they don't see.  I think in 1991, X-Men number one, the new series that was [00:08:00] drawn by Jim Lee and written by Chris Claremont had something like 12 million issues move for the.  Jessika: Oh. Mike: For - yeah. It's bonkers. And then shortly thereafter, the rug basically got pulled out from under Marvel's feet. So the early nineties really went from being awesome to really rough in almost no time flat. And that was because the company's top artists were freelancers and they weren't happy with Marvel's compensation plan. So they left and they founded Image Comics back in early '92. And that was essentially the top artists from really well-performing comics, like X-Men, Spiderman, Guardians of the Galaxy, and X-Force just to name a few, became Marvel's competition overnight.  And DC was having some major commercial successes at the same time with events like the death of Superman, and Batman Knightfall, which is when he got his back broken. [00:09:00] So Marvel was suddenly scrambling to keep their share of the market in that light Christian book, publisher, Thomas Nelson, reaching out to former commercial partnership must have seemed like a, uh, well, for lack of a better term, a godsend. And up until that point, Evangelical Christian audiences were a largely untapped demographic outside of their specialty markets.  Now that said, I haven't been able to find any old press releases from when this deal was announced. It honestly seems like both. Marvel and Thomas Nelson, would just like to have everyone forget about this whole venture since neither company mentions the partnerships on their sites. I can't even find them on archive or anything like that.  Jessika: Oh, wow. Mike: That said - Yeah. It's, it's like buried pretty deep, but that said, I did find an article from Christianity Today, of all places, that fills in some of the details. So, it's kind of a long-winded meandering puff [00:10:00] piece, but there are a couple of relevant details. Would you do me a favor and read the first bit explaining why this deal came to be? Jessika: Sure. Some Thomas Nelson staff, whose young children were drawn to comics noticed there was little available from a Christian viewpoint. Realizing they did not have the resources in house, the publisher struck a deal with Marvel comics to produce a series of comics under Nelson's editorial direction. Using Marvel artists and writers that resulting comics would be marketed in Christian markets by Thomas Nelson and in comic bookstores by Marvel.  Mike: Yeah, so, honestly, it sounds more like Thomas Nelson hired Marvel rather than the two were in a legit partnership.  Thomas Nelson was even setting the price point for the books, which wasn't cheap. For reference the average Marvel comic cost $1.25 in 1993.  The least expensive [00:11:00] Nelson comic, for its single issue Life Christ books, that we'll talk about a little bit, and each of those was going for $2.99, a pop. So that's almost $6 in today's money. Illuminator, which we're really going to talk about for a bit, was going for $4.99 a book, which means Thomas Nelson was expecting kids to shell out the equivalent of $10 bucks per issue for a comic with like zero name recognition. Jessika: Right.  Mike: Yeah, and that's actually called out in the same article. Like Christianity today couldn't even give them a complete puff piece, they actually called out how maybe Thomas Nelson was a little bit high on their own fumes. If you'd be so kind to read that section as well. Jessika: The primary difficulty in selling the Illuminator to the secular comic book market is not the subject matter, but the price. As a book publisher, Thomas Nelson wants the comics to look as high quality and [00:12:00] book-like as possible. They have more pages than standard comics, carrying no advertising, and are printed using higher quality paper and ink than standard comics. Thomas Nelson likes to call them illustrated novels, a variation of the comic industry term graphic novel. Because of this, the 48-page Illuminator sells for $4.99. As one comic store owner put it, “that's a pretty stiff price for a comic with no well-known characters, artists or writers”. Yikes.  Mike: When you can't even get to pull its punches for an article like this, that kinda says a lot. I feel, yeah, so I don't know what kind of marketing was done, but I haven't been able to find any ads for the Nelson comics in any of my Marvel issues from 1992 to 94, nor have I been able to track down [00:13:00] anything on the web. I mean, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but it certainly seems like the partnership got rolling and then nobody really wanted to draw the attention to the end results. Which, based on what we've seen of  the end result of the product, uh, maybe, maybe that's kind of understandable. Jessika: Big sigh.  Mike: Yeah, that said, I do have the Illuminator comics in my collection and they are definitely higher quality in terms of production. Like, you know, the colors still pop they're definitely thicker. But, if I had seen this in the comic store, I would have blown right past it when I was kid.  Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: So speaking of Illuminator, do you want to give us an elevator pitch for that comic? Jessika: Oh my, well, if you insist. I mean, other than calling it a hot mess? Mike: Other than calling it a hot mess. Jessika: Okay. So this high school-aged [00:14:00] kid named Andy Prentiss goes to summer camp, is bullied a lot, and gets tricked into going into the forest in the middle of the night where he is abducted? Mike: It's pretty vague. Jessika: By a beam of light? Yeah.  Mike: It's super vague. Like, they don't ever actually, we'll get into that. Okay.  Jessika: It's very strange. And he, he somehow becomes the light? And has powers for no explicable reason? I know there are a lot of question marks behind my, my sentences, because that's how it feels. He gets semi-brainwashed by a local reverend and convinced that his powers are from God himself.  Mike: Was he actually a reverend was, I thought that dude was just like a… Jessika: I don't know.  Or maybe he was just a janitor. I don't know what he was. Mike: It's never really explained. Like. Jessika: I'm giving him a lot of credit.  Mike: Yeah.  Sorry. I derailed it. Jessika: That's okay. Well, he [00:15:00] convinced him that his power, whoever this dude was who worked at this church. He was always sweeping, he was probably a janitor you're right.  Convince him that his powers are from God himself and that he is acting because God directed him to. But like slippery slope my dude. Thus, the Illuminator was created after that all of the villains are supposed to represent really obvious, evil being demon-like creatures, trying, and being mostly successful at tempting the public into acting sinfully.  There isn't a great explanation as to why any of this happened, like we said, or is being aimed at Prentiss himself, who didn't seem to be very religious in the first place when this thing started? Mike: No, he was just kind of like an earnest, sort of naive teenager. Jessika: Yeah. But I'll tell you what there is, there is a healthy amount of [00:16:00] slut-shaming.  So that's certainly exciting for me because, you know, I hate that bullshit. So.  Mike: Yeah. It's definitely uncomfortable to read.  Also, I wanna note that his superhero design for the Illuminator persona feels like a rip off of Long Shot, who was this popular character in the eighties who palled around with the X-Men for awhile. Like, here's what he looked like. Take a look, tell me what you think. Jessika: Oh, he even has the little star. Okay. This does look really similar to the other comic we read. He's wearing like a black kind of jumpsuit, but it could, it really could be a motorcycle jacket and pants. He's got boots on. He has a little bullet necklace or a bullet sash? Mike: I believe the term is a bandolier. Jessika: A bandolier, thank you. He has a bandolier, I'm cutting all of that bullshit out. He has a bandolier [00:17:00] and he's throwing, like, I don't know, a little, are those knives? Mike: Knives.  Jessika: Oh, okay. Mike: He, like that's Long Shot's thing, is that his power is he's super lucky. He has slightly enhanced strength and hollow bones, which makes him a better acrobat.  Jessika: Got it. Mike: And then his weapon of choice is he throws knives that basically he just can hit anything with. Jessika: The problem is they kind of look like sharp popsicles.  Mike: Kind of yeah.  Jessika: So.  Mike: But yeah, I mean like Long Shot is one of my favorite characters.  Jessika: Nice. Mike: And I was reading this book again and I was just going, oh my God, they added a helmet and then kind of removed the bandolier and added some extra padding and called it a day. He's even got the mullet.  It's just a different color.  Andy's a dirty blonde and. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: And Long Shot is platinum.  Jessika: It's like three shades off, real close.  Mike: So you gave a pretty solid summary of the comic itself. I gotta say [00:18:00] the comic series felt very unfocused.  It doesn't feel like it really conveys much of a Christian message.   Andy's powers are so vaguely delivered, as you called out, and there's no real specific link to Jesus or Christianity at that point.  He only becomes the Christian super hero when he retreats into a church to escape, apparently a demonic opponent? Bu, the only reason that we know that he's demonic is because he doesn't want to go in the church.  And then he gets a pep talk from this one-armed wise man who lives there, apparently. I feel like he still approached things in a very standard superhero way: punch first ask questions later.  Did you notice that there was no trying to solve problems in a way that would result in anything other than a fist fight with powers? Jessika: Oh, no, it was just like, oh, there's a problem, I need to go beat someone up. That was absolutely the vibe.  Mike: Yeah, I was genuinely surprised by that. I would have expected a little [00:19:00] more Jesus-inspired approaches such as turning the other cheek, or lifting people up who are suffering, things like that. But no, it was just a superhero fights with people or things that were designated as evil from an evangelical point of view. And I mean, we should talk about that. Like, each of the comics comes across a super victim-blamey.  Like, there's that party where Nightfire, the first demonic entity, shows up and starts draining victims, and it shows they're all drinking or doing drugs or being slutty. Jessika: Yeah. They're at a party and there are girls on guys' laps and apparently, that's not good. Mike: Apparently, but then they all become Nightfire's sort of undead army. So it's that implication that sinful behavior leads to damnation later on. Um. Jessika: Okay.  Mike: And then [00:20:00] in the second issue, the story paints college campuses out as godless places, full of temptation and being devoid of morality. So, they're susceptible to this mad scientist, who's splicing together weird animal human hybrids, which, I mean, that felt like something that was written by someone who has never actually been on a college campus. Jessika: Yes.   Mike: And then the third issue was absolutely trying to link Satanism and Wiccan beliefs.  I'm not crazy, right? Like that actually, that's how it felt. Like, Satanism and crystals, that  they're just hand in hand. Jessika:  Yeah, it was super gross. Mike: Yeah, it was really bad.  I mean, the book only had three issues or illustrated novels or whatever they want to call it before it was canceled. So, I personally think that the probable lack of marketing that we discussed really hurt it, but it also seems like there were some production problems that caused it to be [00:21:00] delayed because the third volume has a cover date of August, 1993, but it turns out it didn't actually hit the shelves until February of 1994. I could not find sales figures for the months that the first two volumes came out, but the third issue doesn't even crack the top 100 issues being sold in the market when it actually hit the shelves. You brought up the slut-shamey aspect to it. And in the end of the third issue, it really felt uncomfortable where Andy was, these days it would be incel kind of logic, where he's really mad that the girl he saved didn't go to him. Jessika: That is so how it felt. I was just like pointing at you viciously right now, like, really aggressively. Mike: Yeah. When you were doing that, I was like, what did I do wrong? Jessika: Ya know that's exactly how it felt. It felt like he's like, well, I saved her and I'm the better guy. So she should just be with me.  Mike: Yeah. And then. Jessika: He just expected it. It was gross.  Mike: And then they kind of have a teaching moment where they're like, well, you know, that's not always how it works, [00:22:00] blah, blah, blah. And then she shows up to be another disciple of Christ or whatever, and blah. Jessika: Yeah. She's like, I broke up with that other guy.  Mike: Oh yeah. That. Jessika: She's wearing a knee length skirt and like. Mike: Yeah. And before that she'd been wearing kind of form-fitting jeans and tank tops and. Well, the other guy, I can't even remember his name, but he was at the party. That's the only time we saw him. And he was basically trying to make it okay that everyone was drinking. So, you know. Jessika: Yeah. And then he was in the mall scene and he was like, trying to convince her like something stupid, something else stupid.  Mike: Yeah. That was after they got returned to their bodies. That's right. I, I actually thought that she was the mom of one of the other characters originally because she had such a mom haircut and it was like, oh, it's kind of the sexy mom. And then oops. It was, the ages of those characters was very [00:23:00] ill-defined. Jessika: Agreed.  Mike: And then, like I said, like this was clearly written by someone who had not experienced really anything of the real world, it felt. Nightfire is a drug dealer who just hangs out outside of high schools and tries to randomly sell drugs to kids? Like, my dude. Do you not understand how drug dealing works? Jessika: That's not how that works. Yeah. Your kids don't have enough money for drug dealers to be interested in them.  And they're definitely not giving your kids free drugs. Like I know I say that a lot, but it's because I believe it a lot. They're not just going to get rid of their revenue. Mike:  It was the same thing with that college campus, with the mad scientist professor who was, he was in a wheelchair for no really defined reason, he just was. And then apparently he's just creating an army of [00:24:00] man-animal hybrids. Which, again, I was sitting there and I'm like, man, I took biology classes in college and they were never this cool, like, are you creating an army of mutant supermen at your college? Yeah, sign me up. I'll pay that tuition. I'll take out a loan. Jessika: Well, and it was happening in this way that wasn't really logical, to where they were kind of meshing into this larger, like alligator with massive arms and walks around like a human, but then I don't know. It was strange. He was making them come apart with his, God-light. Like they could become two separate things. Again, it wasn't like he was chopping things up and sticking them back together or making a new creature. I don't really understand how this was supposed to be happening, from a scientific aspect.  Mike: His powers were really, ill-defined like he, he could fly and he could shoot light. And then I guess, theoretically add super strength, but. Yeah, that whole, like God-light separating the things out, but then it turned out it killed them because they'd been bonded too long to get, I don't know, whatever [00:25:00] it was, it was fucking dumb. Yeah. So that was the thing was Trisha goes to a crystal store where it's apparently a front for a demon cult. And again, I'm like, I don't know, man,  if I went to a crystal store and they told me that I could traffic with demons, I'd be much more likely to buy one of their ridiculously expensive geodes. Because I've been taken on a date to a crystal shop, because I was sick and my date wanted to buy me a healing crystal and I was. Oh, God, Jessika: That's, that is very sweet.  Mike: I did not respond well to this.  Jessika: I'm sure you did not.  Mike: Which. I'm sure does not surprise you, but. Jessika: No. Mike: I'm just saying if he'd instead offered to induct me into a cult where they hung out with demons, I might've actually gone out for a second date with him. Hmm. [00:26:00]  Do you have any more thoughts on Illuminator before we move on to our next entry? Jessika: I mean, I didn't care for this comic. Other than the first one that was establishing his origin story, it felt like the same story in each of the three issues. It was some demon character sucking the life out of people that were making bad choices. It was literally the same story each time, not even well masked. Mike: Yeah, exactly. Jessika: And, it was hard to follow and it was hard to figure out the incredibly vague, read not there, ties to Christianity that this character and his actions and powers were supposed to have, like we were talking about. It felt like a stretch at best.  Mike: Yeah. They were just trying to shoehorn it in at the end where he would go talk to, the guy's name was George, I think, where he would go and talk to his mentor at the church.  It felt like a very kind of vague, well, if you look at it this way, this could be your lesson from Jesus. [00:27:00] Jessika: Yeah, exactly.  And you were bringing up another point that I also didn't like, they were just making fun of other religions, for example, naming someone Chakra, and mocking other spiritual practices with crystals, it was really disrespectful and in poor taste.  Mike: Which, I mean, I can't say I'm really surprised given how evangelical culture typically goes these days.  Jessika:  Christianity, isn't the only religion and I'm tired of mainstream society being okay with Jesus-washing everything, and then being offended when any other religion is given any space.  It's deplorable.  Mike: Yeah. And then also, these stories just felt very lazy and dumb. The big one that I keep on thinking about is, again, that second issue where he's at a college campus and there's the mad scientist and it's revealed the mad scientist kidnapped a football player, like the star football player from the university's team, and then [00:28:00] turned him into, I think, the alligator hybrid that we were talking about.  Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: I was sitting there going my dude. You're mad that they pulled your funding. What do you think they're going to do to you when you remove their giant cash cow of college football from the campus? Jessika: Yeah, exactly. And like, do you not know the cardinal rule of  picking people who don't have people looking for them? Mike: Right? Jessika: But, like, I'm not planning on doing anything bad and even I know that. Yeah. So, yeah. And other than just the audacity that Andy has making assumptions that he and Trisha are gonna get together based on the fact that he saves her from what he perceives as a bad situation.  Mike: He's a nice guy. He is that proverbial nice guy trope. Jessika: Hint to everyone out there: Don't you ever slide into my DMS and say you're a nice guy, because you will be [00:29:00] blocked so quickly.  Mike: On that note, what do you say? We move on to the next books in our discussion.  Jessika: Let's mosey.  Mike: So, I mentioned the Life of Christ comics that were single issues. These are the two issues that were put out to retail; the Christmas and Easter stories. They were both written by Louise Simonson and illustrated by Mary Wilshire, as well as Eisner award winner Coleen Doran, she apparently helped with the Easter issue. Simonson is a major name in comics alongside her husband, Walt. She co-created the character, Cable, from the X-Men; she helped launch the long running series, Superman, the Man of Steel; and she was one of the major stakeholders in the death of Superman storyline. And she also helped out, if I remember right, I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that she was a major [00:30:00] part of Walt Simonson's really acclaimed run on Thor, to the point where both of them appear in cameos in the original Thor movie. Like I think, I  think they're both featured at the end when they're celebrating at the hall of heroes, or whatever it is. But  it was a nice little nod because they created a lot of stuff like Thor: Frog of Thunder, and, Beta Ray bill, if I remember right.    Likewise, Mary Wilshire did a ton of stuff for Marvel in the eighties and nineties. She was best known for her work on Red Sonja and Firestar. And then Colleen Doran, goddamn, she's this incredible illustrator who's worked on a ton of properties. I always associate her with Neil Gaiman's Sandman. So.  Jessika: I just started reading that.  Mike: Yeah, like all three of these women are Legit Big Deals, like capital letters at the start of each of those words.  And that's why it's so weird to see their names in these issues. I can't believe how bland and [00:31:00] boring everything about them felt. Like, is that mean? Am I going out of line?  Jessika: No. No. I'm surprised to hear about the acclaim that these illustrators have, because it felt very elementary. Am I supposed to have received this as a coloring book?  Mike: Yeah, it's really flat, like, okay. So for comparison, here is a painting that Colleen Duran did for Sandman. Check it out.  Jessika:  Oh, wow. This is cool.  Mike: Right? Jessika: Wow. Okay. There's a lot going on. So I'll just describe this really quick.  There's a ton going on. So at the very top, there's a Swan couple swans, a swan and a, some sort of a harp, maybe a harpsichord thing. And you've got some planets and moons and a dude gargling some blood, it looks like. Mike: I [00:32:00] think that's supposed to be Orpheus. Cause he, if I remember right, he was Dream's son and then Orpheus is eventually ripped apart by the Bach the Bachinal. I dunno, whatever there. Jessika:  And then there is a legit goth lady who has this amazing, I'm not too far into it, obviously, as you can tell.  Mike: Right. So  that is death. That is Dreams sister. I mean,  Jessika: That's great.  Mike: Yeah. If, if you're not too familiar with it, I don't want to spoil all the elements for this, but this painting features a ton of major characters from throughout the Sandman series, which she provided a lot of illustration for. And it's a beautiful piece of work. Jessika: It's a feast for the eyes, honestly. I mean, there's so many different elements, I mean, part of it looks like it's supposed to look like stained glass and other parts of it, don't look that same way. It's very interesting.  Mike:  Yeah. So it's very [00:33:00] much not what we got. Likewise, I want you to look at some of Mary Wiltshire's art, here. Jessika: Oh, wow. See, that's fun.  Mike: Right? Jessika: Red Sonia. See, I want to read some Red Sonia.  Mike: Yeah. The 80's series is fun. I think Marvel might have the rights back, because it's part of the Conan properties. Oh no, wait, I think Dynamite has Red Sonia. I don't know. You can probably find some books on Hoopla if nothing else. Jessika: This is great. I mean, the color vibe is great. There's all this shading, which there really wasn't in that other one at all. Mike: Yeah, I noticed that, too. It was just flat color, other than they used some crosshatching within the illustration, but  that was kind of all they did, except for Jesus's hair. That was such a, like, it was a choice, I guess, they just, the only thing that had any sort of shading was, like, Jesus's hair looked like it was a tie dye masterpiece, so, [00:34:00] oh, wow.  Mike: Both of these books feel very, for lack of a better term, very paint by numbers. Jessika: Yes, very much. So.  Mike: I mean, we've all heard these stories before, too. There wasn't really anything new. The most exciting artwork for both of these books was on the cover. And, the one weird thing that really stood out to me, was that the Easter book felt kind of anti-Semitic, I don't know if I was just reading a little too much into that. Jessika: No, you you're. I've I read that too. Yes. Mike: I feel like  there was an abnormal focus on making Pontius Pilate into not being the bad guy. And instead of keeping the blame on the Jewish elders, it felt very weird and very gross.  Jessika: It did. Mike: And it's, I know that is an argument that is somewhat popular with certain extreme right-wing sectors of evangelical Christianity, too, is that the Jews killed Jesus, [00:35:00] which, I don't know how to respond to that. Like it, it just, just. Jessika: It felt very much like they were saying, yes, we know the Romans did it, but it's your fault, Jews. And it's like, what? No, no, no, no. Mike: Yeah. It was very uncomfortable to read. Jessika: Absolutely. Yeah. I agree. A hundred percent.  The other thing that bothered me from the birth issue was the angels. Like, I've read what angels are supposed to look like. If it's not some beautiful human woman with wings floating down gracefully from the clouds. It is a terrifying multi-eyed creature that shows up in some really jarring way. The whole situation seemed way too peaceful for what I've read from the actual Bible. Like, I have read the Bible in its entirety.  I was bored at [00:36:00] 13,  don't ask, but yeah. So, but that's not the vibe. Like, people are always really terrified when angels come down and there is a reason.  Mike: Yeah. And that's something that I remember is that when I was growing up, you know, I was presented with the very, kind of Renaissance style angels. And so I never understood when I was reading as a kid or having the stories read to me, why are people scared of the angels? Because you know, they're just glowing people with wings. And then later on it was, oh, oh, they're fucking monsters. They are, they are straight out of HP Lovecraft. Okay. I get it now. Jessika: Yeah. Because technically the humans are supposed to be the ones that are like, what? In God's image. There's nothing about angels being so. Mike: Nope. We're the, we're the mud people.   Jessika: Yes. Mike: Well, moving on from that, aside from those aforementioned single issues, Nelson Comics published, [00:37:00] what was dubbed the Christian Classic Series, which are comic adaptations of kind of big name Christian literature.  I was able to track down digital copies of the Pilgrim's Progress and In His Steps; What Would Jesus Do? Let's talk about that one first. I had actually heard of iIn His Steps before this, because it took that titular phrase and it kind of brought it into the popular culture. It was originally written in the late 19th century. It's basically about a reverend who is moved to challenge his congregation to use the question when making life decisions. It's a dry book and the comic was super dry as well. It just, it felt like a lot of expository dialogue set in late 19th century settings with a bunch of very prim and proper white people who, for the most part feel pretty monied and pretty privileged.   Jessika: Yeah. Mike: There's occasionally some sort of [00:38:00] over-the-top situations where our Christian heroes are facing persecution, but it's like, it's made up persecution. It's that idea where Christians are like, we're the victims, people don't like us. And I think maybe because you're assholes, I don't know how to respond to that otherwise. Jessika: Yeah. Maybe it's not about your religion. Maybe it's just you. Mike: Yeah. If everyone's telling you you're an asshole, maybe it's not anything else, maybe it's just you. I agree. But yeah, it's just, it's a boring slog and it took me way longer than it should've to get through this. Jessika: They were awful. I'm not gonna lie. I read them, but I skimmed them because I couldn't sit there and like, let that infest my brain.  Mike: No. There's also a sequel novel that they didn't adapt.  Jessika: No. Mike: But basically, I think if I remember right, the sequel novel has Jesus actually showing up, like, it's like the second coming of Jesus. If I remember right. I  Jessika: Man, they already got so close to that in this one, because they had that one [00:39:00] dude show up who is a scraggly stranger.  And then the reverend has a dream that Jesus is actually lying in the bed and he's like, oh my God, it was Jesus all along.  Mike: Yeah. Oh God, that was. Jessika: So heavy handed. Smacked me across the face with that message. Jeez.  Mike: Oh, and what is it? The tramp has a daughter who the reverend and his wife take in to raise as their own. Jessika: Oh yeah.  Mike: On what planet…? Jessika: Because apparently. Mike: Ugh. Jessika: No, it's awful. No, we all know that Christians don't care about the children once they're born. Mike: We, there are so many signs around my town, at least in our area because we live right near a Catholic church where it's the pregnancy crisis centers. And I keep on, resisting the urge to go spray, paint them or something, they're so gross. Jessika: Oh, we have the ones up that have a picture of a baby that say my eyes are formed after blah, [00:40:00] blah, blah days or whatever.  Mike: Gross. Jessika: Yeah, I know they're awful. And every once in a while they do get spray painted.  Mike: Good. Jessika: Obviously I have nothing to do with that, but I walk past and I go, okay. Yep. Yep. Yeah.  Mike: Side tangent, completely unrelated to comics, but there was a Reddit post within the last year, I think, from some guy who was really upset about how his girlfriend would go and deface, the local pro-life billboards that would go up near their house. She would add things like citation needed for some of the claims, or just cross them out, or whatever. And he was saying, would I be justified in breaking up with her? Because I feel like, she's putting herself at legal risk doing all this. And literally every response was yo dude, you should break up with her and then give her my number because she sounds fucking rad. Jessika: Seriously. Oh my gosh. That's great. Mike: Anyway. Jessika: Hero of heroes.  Mike: Yeah, the hero we need. [00:41:00] So, turning to the Pilgrim's Progress. This is a Christian allegory novel from the 1600's that's extremely surreal. I'd actually never heard of this book before now, and I had to do some basic research just to see how close they mirrored the plot. And I'm really bummed that actually, the comic is a pretty faithful adaptation of the source material. Which means there is a giant prose novel that is just this dumb and insane, but without at least the somewhat arresting visuals that we got. Jessika: It's basically Pinocchio.  Mike: Yeah, I mean, it's not far off, except there's a second act where the dude's sinful family follows him, which. Jessika: Oh my God. They just kind of get abducted into the nether though. They don't do anything.  [00:42:00] He's the one that does everything and then they're suddenly just there.  Mike:  Before we get into this discussion. It's about a protagonist named Christian, on his pilgrimage across this metaphorical landscape, where he confronts temptation and he learns, I don't know, moral lessons, I guess. I wasn't entirely certain about a lot of those, but whatever.  And then after he makes it to heaven, his wife and kids follow him, because he couldn't convince them to come with him originally. This was written in the late 1600's, originally it is updated and adapted to what's supposed to be modern day, New York. And there's a lot of like really thinly veiled criticism being leveled at environmentalists for some reason, which I did not understand.  Jessika: It was really strange. I don't know where that came from. I read that, too.  Mike: Yeah. And then in the novel, after he makes it to heaven, confronting all these challenges, [00:43:00] his wife and his kids follow him. And then they have a sort of angelic guardian, who helps protect them along the way, who she shows up in the comic book, it's whatever, the kids, and this was actually kind of a weird diversion from the novel in the novel. The kids become adults throughout the journey, cause it's a long journey and they get married and they have families of their own. And so at the very end, they don't go with the wife, but they stay behind. And, basically they're living Christian lifestyles. And in the comic book for some reason, and it's not really explained well, they're left behind with their aunt who was also on the journey with them.  And then the mom was just like, okay, bye. I'm going to go off to heaven now with your dad. Jessika: Yeah, he just like sticky handed her up there or something, like you earn the right to  snatch your wife from earth. Maybe that was the rapture. Mike: Yeah, maybe. Well, and then at the very end, his friend, who was like, oh no,  [00:44:00] you know, we're, we're doing our part. We're recycling and taking care of the planet. He's denied access to heaven by St. Peter for some reason, that's not really explained. Jessika: Which was so strange. Like, yeah, please, don't recycle friends. What, what a strange takeaway from this whole thing. Mike: It just, it feels kind of like this religious acid trip with occasional detours into misogyny and racism. Correct me if I'm wrong. Jessika: Not at all. Very, very same page as you.  Mike: The one piece of praise that I can offer these books is that they definitely have the best art of the Nelson comics line. Jessika: It was decent. Yeah.   So I found for both of these comics, both In His Steps and the Pilgrim's Progress, unsurprisingly, they keep replaying the same messages that have been consistent with these comics: be faithful against these huge temptations that are supposed to bombard you every day.  I would expect there to be women and men of loose morals [00:45:00] falling at my feet to tempt me constantly is all I'm saying, like, let's make it happen. Disappointment.  Mike: I'm, I always see these things talking about like women have loose morals or, or ill-repute,  I clearly was not hanging out in the right neighborhoods. Jessika: That's what I'm saying.  Mike: Yeah. Bums me out, man. Jessika: There's always some messages about staying on the path of God, which is always very vague and sometimes literally a path, which come on. And Beelzebub constantly shows up, because the only real villains are the devil and your inability to resist temptation, apparently. Once again, though, didn't see any queer people, which is fine because the Bible really doesn't say anything about them anyway. And I guess God didn't really start hating us in mainstream media until later on then. Huh?  Mike: Man, I don't know. I mean, [00:46:00] like, there's that whole thing about Sodom and Gomorrah, and how we're all sodomized or whatever, but I don't know when, when it became really okay for Christian people to hate on the gays. Jessika: Yeah. I don't know. They need to step back. Oh, did I say that out loud? Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: They're right behind me, aren't they?  Mike: Not yet, at least. Jessika: And also, why is it such a theme that these main characters, low key become cult leaders every single time  Mike: Right? Jessika: It's like, yikes, Catholicism, have some awareness about what a cult-vibe you give off, just like, generally. All in all, the religion is so forced in there that the plot lines of these stories rarely made any sense. It felt like the comics were a game of tug of war, trying unsuccessfully to write a cohesive storyline while still shoehorning in religion, which ultimately caused the comics to feel frenzied and disorganized.  Mike: Yeah. On top of that, these are just [00:47:00] so dry. They're so dry. I get the Thomas Nelson was trying to adapt, quote unquote, major works of Christian literature. But, I can't think of anyone who really reads these books, let alone kids. I'm not really familiar with the whole Christian allegory genre of fiction, but there's gotta be better stuff out there than these books. I know the Thomas Nelson for this line, they also had CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters turned into a comic, I couldn't find it to read, but I'm kind of wondering why they didn't try adapting some of his other work, like the Lion, the Witch, the Wardrobe, you know, Aslan is very much a Jesus' allegory and - Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: It just, it doesn't make a lot of sense not to do something with more name recognition. I mean, hell, Thomas Nelson has an entire collection of fictional books in their catalog. I just scoped out their website today, and I don't understand why they didn't do a comic adaptation of something from there. But, [00:48:00] don't know, I guess that probably would have required extra effort involving research and the author's permission. And it seems - Jessika: Oh no. Mike: Like no, I mean, that, honestly, that seems like more work than the publisher really was interested in committing to this whole endeavor. Jessika: Fair.  Mike: You know, and unsurprisingly, the Nelson comics imprint wasn't long for this world. And it was abandoned by 1994, reportedly due to low sales. Between the quality and the apparent lack of marketing and also the high price points, I can't say I'm surprised. I did find it really funny when I was looking at their website, they have  some limited edition of Dracula on their website and Shakespeare, and I'm like, those things are not Catholic friendly, or evangelical friendly.  Are these edited, are these just like, did he just decide to do like limited edition reprints? I don't know.  Jessika: That's interesting.  Mike:  Weirdly though, Thomas Nelson's recently gotten [00:49:00] back into comic books with Bible Force, which was a comic or a graphic novel that went on sale this year. Here, take a look at this cover, just check it out and tell me and me what you think. Jessika: Yeah, let's see. Oh, oh, wow.  Mike: Right? Jessika: Okay. So, who's supposed to be the dude in the middle? Mike: I don't know. I don't  Jessika: Okay. So there's like some dude, there's some dude in the middle, he's got a sword, and it's thrusting out towards the viewer. There's. What is it? Joseph and his Technicolor coat, I'm assuming that's what that was. Um,  Mike: That's what it looks like. Jessika: Uh, it's what it looks like. It's a color, her coat there's there's Noah's Ark. There's definitely Jesus with arms outstretched. Although, of course, white Jesus, because why be historically accurate? All of these people are Caucasian. I might add in this entire comic, all of these people were Caucasian, except for a very few in the Jesus [00:50:00] episodes. And those were just  people from far away, quote unquote, everyone else was very, very light-skinned. Mike: Also, if you're going to give us white Jesus, can you at least give a shirtless white Jesus? I want to see some washboard abs. Jessika: That's what I'm saying.  Mike: Right? Jessika: That's what I'm saying. So yes, this is just, it's very exciting. Says, Bible Force, the First Heroes Bible. I think that's Probably. Mary as well on the front. It's a woman also Caucasian, and she's got a head scarf of some sort on, it's pink, which they absolutely had magenta back in Bible days. I am sure, absolutely feasible. I'm there. Believe it.  Isaac Mizrahi's in there like designing, designing Mary's outfit. Oh honey, you're going to look great in this.  Mike: He is all about the [00:51:00] timeless looks, isn't he? Jessika: Yes.  Mike:  So, I mean, that's the Nelson comics. Short-lived imprint. Do you have any final thoughts? Jessika: Well, can't say I'm surprised that these didn't continue on. I can't imagine that they were really keeping kids' attention, or giving them any type of cohesive and thoughtful messages.  Mike: No. I mean, probably not. I don't think many comic retailers were carrying them either because this was right at the height of my teenage collecting years, and I don't remember seeing any of this stuff in any of the shops that I frequented. Jessika: Yeah, it was pretty much like here: look at the colors. Oh, and have some antisemitism, enjoy.  Mike: And some casual misogyny. It's fine. Jessika: Yes. Yes, exactly.  Mike:  If you could sum up the titles from this imprint [00:52:00] in one word, what would you use? Jessika: Confused.  Mike: I was going to go soulless, but that's also good. Jessika: Oh, yours is better.  Mike: Now is the time of the show where we discuss our Brain Wrinkles, which is the one thing comics or comics-adjacent that has been just stuck in our head for the last couple of days that we just want to talk about. I guess we should talk about the recent Highlander casting news. Would you like to take that away? Jessika: Oh, oh certainly. Certainly. Oh my goodness. So, during our Highlander episode, Mike, you mentioned that there has been a Highlander reboot in the works since 2008 Mike: Yep. Jessika: And we were speculating on who would be good to cast. Well, there is a reboot in the works, but we were both incorrect about casting, and sorry about that, Chris Pine and Channing Tatum, because either of you [00:53:00] would have been most fabulous in this role, but it landed and it turned out to be Henry Cavill who will be our new next Highlander. And I'm sure he'll have a new name because that's kind of how we trend with the Highlander series, which is good.  Mike: Yeah, they haven't announced the actual role that he's playing yet, but it's assumed that he's going to be the MacLeod who's the main character. Jessika: I would think so. Wouldn't it be interesting if he was like the Kurgan or something that would be really funny.  Mike: Yeah. I think I mentioned this, supposedly Bautista is going to be the Kurgan, but that he'd signed on, I think back in 2015. So it's been six years since then? Jessika: Well, I have to say though, I'm not all that upset about this turn of events. What about you, Mike?  Mike: No, not at all. I just tore through the Witcher series on Netflix last week, over the course of a couple of days while I was working, I had it on in the background. And it was really nice to see Cavill in a role that wasn't [00:54:00] Superman, which is, you know, I use the term, unfortunately, he is just so associated with that role right now. And, honestly, I like him as Superman, I just wish they gave him better scripts and movies to work with.  Jessika: Yeah. And it's hard to feel typecast as well. You don't, you know, you don't want to be Daniel Radcliffe, you know, playing Harry Potter for 20 years and then not being able to do anything else, although he's done very well. So I, can't say that. Mike: I was going to say I actually really -  Jessika: You know, not a good example, I suppose.  Mike: I love the choices that the Daniel Radcliffe has made since Harry Potter, Jessika: Yeah, me too. Mike: He has chosen so many insane roles. It's great.  Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Um, yeah, no, like, you know, honestly, Cavill. First of all, I just, I really like Henry Cavill, like, he's given the interviews where he's talked about how playing Superman makes him want to be a better person, because he is portraying this character who is a role model for so many, especially the little kids. And that just [00:55:00] makes me really fond of the dude.  Jessika: That's so sweet.  Mike: He seems like another Chris Evans, and I'm, fine with that. That said, he is fucking grumpy in the Witcher, and it's really fun. He basically just has this very surly charisma throughout the entire show. And he's still jacked, but he's not as yoked as he is for the Superman rules. Like he doesn't look like a bodybuilder, he just looks like an incredibly fit dude, and I'm fine with that.  Also, he does action scenes really well. The guy who's handling the reboot is Chad Stahelski, who did the John Wick movies. Dude knows his way around an action scene. And if you ever want to see an example of Henry Cavill in good action scenes, watch the Witcher or the Mission Impossible movie that he was in, where he literally does that thing where he reloads his arms and then puts up his Dukes. I can watch that scene on repeat for hours. It's great. Jessika: Nice. I'll have to watch that. I haven't seen the Witcher [00:56:00] yet.  Mike: Yeah. It's fun. We'll talk about that later on, but it's good. I really liked it even coming into it without having any real familiarity with the games or the books that it's based on. Also, I got to say that Highlander heart group that we were in, some of those people were grumpy at the casting. Jessika: Yes. Some people were very grumpy. It was, it was a mixed bag. Some people were very excited and some people were very, very, very grumpy.  Mike: And even - Jessika: Okay.  Mike: To their credit, even the people who were unhappy, weren't toxic, like in some other groups we've seen. Jessika: Oh, correct. Yes. That was very refreshing, cause, you know. Mike: Yeah. the backstory to your listeners is that we have been a part of other Facebook groups that are just heinously toxic nerd culture groups. And we swipe left pretty quick when we're in there. Jessika: Yeah, I don't want to feel like I can't like things or I don't want somebody telling me the amount of a fan. I am the type of fan I am.  Mike: Exactly.  Jessika: Gatekeeping is awful. Don't do it.  Mike: Yeah, don't be a jerk, [00:57:00] I have to say the news that has been coming out about the reboot for Highlander sounds pretty promising. So fingers crossed that it doesn't suck but, we'll see. Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: I believe that's it for this episode, so we'll be back in two weeks, and until then, we'll see y'all in the stacks. Thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes. Accessibility is important to us; text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website.  This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazer and Mike Thompson, written by Mike Thompson and edited by Jessika Frazer. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson-Johnson of Bay Area Sound. Our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan MacDonald and it was purchased with a standard license from PremiumBeat. Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank, who goes by cut_thistles on Instagram. Jessika: If you'd [00:58:00] like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us about how we got something wrong, please head over to tencenttakes.com or shoot an email to tencenttakes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter, the official podcast account is @tencenttakes. Jessika is @jessikawitha, and Jessika is spelled with a K, and Mike is @vansau V A N S A U.   Mike: Stay safe out there. Jessika: And support your local comic shop. 

This is it, folks, the longest Mortal Kombat review on the internet! We don't know that for a fact, but at 3 hours and 40 minutes long, who could argue? In this episode, Steve is joined by Bronwyn Kelly-Seigh, and comics creators Jeremy Whitley, Ben Kahn, L.A. Chavez, and Kathleen Kralowek for an in-depth review of New Line's Mortal Kombat!We cover everything from our personal Mortal Kombat histories to Paul W.S. Anderson's 1995 classic to Simon McQuoid's reboot and more!The Comic Book Podcast is brought to you by Talking Comics (www.talkingcomicbooks.com) The podcast is hosted by Steve Seigh (JoBlo.com assistant EIC & news editor), Bob Reyer, Joey Braccino, Aaron Amos, and John Burkle who weekly dissect everything comics-related, from breaking news to new releases. Our Twitter handle is @TalkingComics and you can email us at podcast@talkingcomicbooks.com

As a special treat, the good folks over at the Progressively Horrified Podcast have asked our own Steve Seigh to join them for a special episode focusing on Paul W.S. Anderson's 2002 horror film Resident Evil. We hope you enjoy this special crossover event and be sure to check out the Progressively Horrified Podcast wherever fine podcasts are available!https://progressivelyhorrified.transistor.fm/The Comic Book Podcast is brought to you by Talking Comics (www.talkingcomicbooks.com) The podcast is hosted by Steve Seigh (JoBlo.com assistant EIC & news editor), Bob Reyer, Joey Braccino, Sarah Miles, Aaron Amos, and John Burkle who weekly dissect everything comics-related, from breaking news to new releases. Our Twitter handle is @TalkingComics and you can email us at podcast@talkingcomicbooks.com.

Books talked about in this episode: Not If I Save You First by Ally Carter Caster by Elsie Chapman How We Roll by Natasha Friend Killing November by Adriana Mather American Royals by Katharine McGee Imposters by Scott Westerfeld Library Wars: Love and War by Kiiro Yumi (manga) Seven Deadly Shadows by Courtney Alameda and Valynne E. Maetani Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone Slayer by Kiersten White Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young Girl in the Arena by Lisa Haines Front Lines by Michael Grant Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger Last Girls by Demetra Brosky Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda We Are the Wildcats by Siobhan Vivian Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young Princeless Book 1: Save Yourself by Jeremy Whitley

Comics with my Kids Episode 27 My Little Pony: Nightmare Knights Issues 3 Written by Jeremy Whitley & Art by Tony Fleece On our 27th episode of Comics with my Kids, we continue our journey through the My Little Pony Universe with Nightmare Knights issue 3. Melody explains to Matt the plan that our reformed villains take to save Luna's powers back, and save her sister. Melody gives the general outline for the the story. She also tells us about the evil "Hench-horse" Evil Celestial. We also learn who is the coolest looking bad guy in the series and what Melody thinks of her. What will come of Princess Celestial? How does Capper sneak into the throne room of Princess Eris? So grab a bale of hay and a bucket of oats as we roll into Nightmare Knights issues 3. Theme song provided by Bensound, Visit Bensound at Bensound.com Again we want your opinions and questions so: Email the show at comicswithmykidspodcast@gmail.com

On this week's live show, we're welcoming guests Jeremy Whitley ("School for Extraterrestrial Girls") and Steve Orlando ("Commanders in Crisis")! Plus prizes, Q&A and more. SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Time Codes: 00:00:27 - Introduction 00:02:11 - Setup of Sumter Comic Arts Symposium 00:05:19 - Sophie Goldstein and Carl Antonowicz 00:54:35 - Jeremy Whitley 01:32:20 - Wrap up 01:34:13 - Contact us Our Man in Sumter As listeners of The Comics Alternative know, Andy oversees the annual Sumter Comic Arts Symposium every spring, and this year is no different. And this time, not only has he organized the entire event, but he also took time out of his duties to interview several of the creators who appeared at the symposium. First, he speaks with Sophie Goldstein and Carl Antonowicz at the local Waffle House -- the sound quality isn't ideal, but the breakfast ambience is palpable -- and then he conducts an interview with Jeremy Whitley, talking primarily about his recent work with Marvel Comics. Be sure to check out today's companion on-location episode where Derek talks with several artists and publishers at Fan Expo Dallas 2017!

In the second of two on-location interview episodes recorded at last weekend's HeroesCon -- the first episode went up yesterday -- Derek talks with a variety of artists tabling in Artists Alley. He begins with a conversation with Nate Simpson, discussing the recent release of Nonplayer #2, the long gap between the first and second issues, and Nate's plans for carrying the title forward. Next, Derek talks with Ed Piskor about the upcoming release of Hip Hop Family Tree, Book 3, Fantagraphics' landmark decision to release his title as a monthly series, and Ed's gold watch. After that, he discusses the webcomic Vattu with Evan Dahm, along with the artist's plans for eventually releasing the entire saga in hardcopy. Then Derek heads to the shared table of Gabriel Dunston and Aaron Walther -- which is almost next to The Comics Alternative's table! He talks with Gabe about Kickstarter and his work on the second Purgatory Pub book, and then he learns about Aaron's series, Zero's Heroes and Science Hero. Then, in one of the highlights of the con, Derek makes Ryan Browne laugh before learning the sad news that God Hates Astronauts will soon be going on hiatus. Following Ryan's talk, Jamal Igle discusses the new Molly Danger series as well as his work at Action Lab Studios, and then Frank Barbiere shares some word about the secrets to his prolific output...Five Ghosts, White Suits, Black Market, and Solar: Man of Action, anyone? Then, in the last hours of this year's HeroesCon, Derek is able to talk with Kyle Starks about his experiences after Sexcastle, with Jeremy Whitley about Princeless and ethnoracial issues in comics, and with Matthew Roberts about art and the success of Manifest Destiny.

On this Comics Alternative interview show, Gene and Derek talk with Jeremy Whitley, the writer of the Eisner Award-nominated Princeless series and the outgoing Director of Marketing at Action Lab Comics. Jeremy talks with the Two Guys about the genesis of Princeless, his upcoming work on My Little Pony for IDW, the place of all-age comics, and the representation of women — especially in its impact on girls and younger women — in comics today. He also shares his experiences in marketing for Action Lab over the years, as well as his hopes for his new role as the publisher's Education Outreach Director. All in all, Gene and Derek have a great time talking with Jeremy about his work as a creator and his efforts behind the scenes at Action Lab.

Writer Jeremy Whitley joins us to talk about his book 'Princeless', how he became the Marketing Director for Action Lab Entertainment, Gus Fring from 'Breaking Bad', video games, and more. (59:45)

Pants traveled down to Charlotte, NC for Heroes Con this past weekend and did several interviews. Listen to talks with Vivek Tiwary writer of the upcoming Dark Horse book 'The Fifth Beatle', Buzz, Eric Nolen-Weathington from TwoMorrows Publishing, Jeremy Whitley from Action Lab Entertainment and more. (1:30:23)