A critical re-evaluation of comic books from about 1985 to 2000… including, of course, the boom and bust of the '90s! Go beyond the chromium covers and grim 'n' gritty cliches for a deeper look at one of the most divisive periods in comics history. Hosts Justin Zyduck and Jim Cannon share context, commentary, and a few laughs on the first and third Wednesdays of each month.
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ironageofcomics
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 2 days 7 hours 18 minutes
episode 33: Icon
Milestone Media’s Icon has a pretty punchy elevator pitch: “What if Superman was a Black Republican?” But with stories by Dwayne McDuffie and pencils by M.D. “Doc” Bright (both now sadly no longer with us), this book goes to some interesting and unexpected places...
episode 32: The Sandman: The Doll's House
Neil Gaiman’s complete reinvention of DC’s trademark on The Sandman is inarguably one of the most influential comics of the Iron Age…so why haven’t we talked about it much yet? And why are we starting with the storyline that’s popularly considered “Volume 2” of the series? We’re focusing on the collection that introduced The Sandman to the bookshelf market (which originally included the landmark “The Sound of Her...
episode 31: Animal Man by Grant Morrison — Book Two
We return to our coverage of DC’s 1989 Animal Man series—Grant Morrison’s first ongoing for the U.S. comics market—with a look at issues #10 through #17 (commonly collected in trade as “Origin of the Species”). Now that we’ve met Buddy Baker and seen him join the Justice League, we’ll follow his investigation into the mysteries of his secret origin (which, as it turns out, no longer fits into post-Crisis continuity)...
episode 30: Savage Dragon
While many early offerings from Image Comics were deliberately designed to appeal to their popular artists’ existing fanbases, Erik Larsen took a different approach, reviving a character he created at his kitchen table while making homemade comics with his friends as a child. And 32 years later, Larsen still stands apart from his compatriots as the only Image founder still regularly writing and drawing his original creation: The Savage Dragon...
episode 28: WildC.A.T.s and WildStorm Productions
Superstar penciler Jim Lee adopted less revolutionary rhetoric than some of his fellow Image founders after leaving Marvel Comics, but he became one of the most successful of the group, growing his WildStorm Productions imprint into a publishing empire. WildC.A.T...
episode 28: Ghost World
When Daniel Clowes was writing and drawing vignettes about two cynical teenage girls in his groundbreaking comic anthology Eightball, he wasn’t sure Ghost World would add up to anything in the end, but its balance of bitter ennui and painful self-reflection connected with readers and led to a standalone graphic novel and a 2001 film adaptation...
episode 27: Bone: Out from Boneville
With one foot in the world of DuckTales and another in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, Jeff Smith’s Bone is so confident and assured from its very first issue that it seems to have arrived fully formed, but it was actually the result of years of refinement...
Fifth Week Bonus #5: Mallrats
Anything goes on a fifth Wednesday, so in this episode, Justin and Jim look back at a blast from their pasts — Kevin Smith's comics-reference-heavy 1995 movie Mallrats — but arrive at somewhat different assessments about how it plays today...
episode 26: Justice League International
BWA-HA-HA! Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatties may not have originally set out to turn DC’s signature superteam into a workplace sitcom, but with artist Kevin Maguire they produced a screwball series still treasured by fans...
episode 25: Squadron Supreme
The story of a faux Justice League who seize control of the United States with the best of intentions only to be undone by the resulting ethical nightmares, Squadron Supreme is sometimes called “Marvel’s Watchmen”: a 12-issue series examining the impact of superheroes on society and deconstructing the genre...