Awesomed By Comics

This QUADRUPLE-SIZED episode of the Awesomed By Comics Podcast, which is nearly 50% longer than usual, is brought to you by the Awesomed By Comics 30-Word, Non-Pandering, Juggling-Inclusive, Bananarama Fanfiction Challenge! Here are the rules:

1) Entries must be 30 Words.

2) Entries must be fanfiction of some kind (regardless of what you're writing about).

3) Entries must include the act of juggling.

4) Entries that include blatant pandering will be disqualified.

Send your entries to our email address, with the subject line "Bananarama"

(note: fanfiction should not be about Bananarama.)

The winner will receive an AWESOMED BY COMICS PRIZE PAK (haha) which includes two (2) comics written and signed by Greg Pak, and an Apple iPad picture, drawn by me. It may or may not also include some cat food.

We go over our winners and losers from the past two weeks in comics, AND the New York Comic Con! Big wins for Unwritten, Journey Into Mystery, Batman, Birds of Prey, Pokemon Cosplay, Bake Sale, Wonder Woman, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Trevor Cahill. Big losses for those chicks changing into their robot maid outfits in the bathroom.

Download/subscribe to the show here or in the right sidebar, andleave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, and please always remember that you are more than welcome to list your own winners for our categories in the comments. Hell, you can list your own categories for our winners, for all we care. Or list your own winners for your own categories, from your own books. Whatever you want to do. And if you feel like donating, there's a button over there with which you can do just that!

This episode of the Awesomed By Comics Podcast is brought to you by Evie's Birthday, with a special message from her mom! As usual, big wins for The Unwritten and Echo, Bruce Wayne's back before he's gotten back, Aaron can't understand why he doesn't hate Walkin' Supes as much as he probably should, and the new Knight and Squire knocks Evie base over apex and makes her want to shove madam palm and 'er five sisters in the map of tassie, innit? But the book's banging on about faff gives Aaron the habadabs.

Download/subscribe to the show here or in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, and feel free to suggest your own winners for our categories.

Cover(s) of the Week: 

Evie's Pick, from Amazing Spider Man Presents: Black Cat #4, cover by Amanda Conner and Christina Strain



Aaron's Pick, from Justice League: Generation Lost #11, Cover by Cliff Chiang:


 Panel(s) of the Week: 

 Evie's Pick, from New Avengers #5 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen:


 Aaron's Pick, from Strange Tales 2 #1, by Nick Gurewitch

 NYCC leftovers are down here, under this thing.

This episode of the Awesomed By Comics Podcast is brought to you almost entirely by the contents of New York Comic Con. (Comicon? Comic-Con? Spiderman? Spider-Man? Spader-James?) We take a break from our usual format of handing out awards to the week's books, and instead hand out awards to the weekend's events, with a smattering of books sprinkled in.

Whoa damn, lightning storm here is NUTS.

Download/subscribe to the show here or in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, and feel free to suggest your own winners for our categories.

Many photos coming tomorrow, but it's late, so check back for more. Also, I hear u liek Mudkipz.

So we had a whiz bang 3+ days at New York Comic Con, and met a lot of people and took a lot of pictures and read almost no comic books this week. As a result, we will of course have a show, but will probably record it tonight, and talk about things that aren't strictly straight from the page. I was going to post a teaser picture here from our trip to Mars 2112 last night with a whole mess of great people that many of you will recognize, but then realized they're all at home. The pictures, not the people. Or the people may be at home, but not my home. Anyway. Stay tuned.

Today Laura Hudson wrote about a feud between Daily Cross Hatch and Rob Liefeld based on the fact that DCH's Brian Heater interviewed Liefeld at NYCC and made a statement in the post that perhaps Liefeld does not have the piles upon piles of fans that he once did. Liefeld said "NUH UH HOSER" (or something like that), because raararraaarrrar.

The Liefeld drawing of Captain America that Laura included with her post was, as all Liefeld drawings are, breathtaking (meaning that I imagined all of that weight on my chest and panicked and could no longer breathe). This prompted Aaron to direct me to Progressive Boink's 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings, and I am now crying and hyperventilating from laughing so very hard, so I just thought I would recommend it on the off chance you haven't visited. I've never met the man, and so I will admit to forming my opinion of him based only on the evidence accumulated on the internet, which, you know, could be an unfair charicature (unfair charicatures being something about which Liefeld is quite knowledgable, I'm pretty sure). But as Laura says in her post, it's sort of nice when people save you mental energy by meeting all of your expectations, and I think those expectations are excellently summed up by the Progressive Boink guys thusly:

The man is a pair of blue jeans with a face. He has on a backwards cap, and when he turns it around, it's still backwards.

UPDATE: Laura actually linked to Progressive Boink in her post as well, I was just too stupid to notice. Anyway.

This week's episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by Cheeseburger Facts, whereas last week's episode was not brought to you at all by orthomyxoviridae. Demons dominate with awards for Hellcat and Hexed, and Neil Gaiman makes everyone happy again. Aaron and Evie recap New York Comic Con ever so concisely and rave about the animated Princess of Paradise.

Download/subscribe to the show in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

Cover(s) of the Week

Evie's picks, from Batman #686, cover by Andy Kubert:


And from Vixen: Return of the Lion #5, cover by Cafu:


Aaron's picks, from 3 Geeks Slab Madness #2, cover by Rich Koslowski:


And from G.I. Joe #2, cover by Adam Hughes:


Panel(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Captain Britain and MI13 #10 by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk:


Evie's pick, from Hexed #2 by Michael Alan Nelson and Emma Rios:

Best line overheard on convention floor:

"Hey, let's go over to that place I was telling you about, Don Henley's Universe or whatever."

O HAI. So the Con-SARS/plague/crud/deathbeast/whatever hasn't gone away, but I was back at work today, and after a few gallons of Starbucks Berry Chai (good tip, Heidi) and several dozen rounds of "Sunny" on repeat (seriously, it's like 2 minutes and 43 seconds of DayQuil a pop), I'm ready to share some tales!

1) My official round-ups of several Marvel/DC panels are here, the second, third and fourth news bullets. They're briefer than the Newsarama/CBR play-by-plays, but it's a different audience. And you've probably already read those. I'm not going to go into them here, beyond what I already said about DC Nation below, which has so far been the universal assessment. Marvel pretty much won this one hands-down, except I will say for the news that the Rucka/Williams Batwoman comic I was so worried would be some kind of placating mini is actually going to be a big long starring run in Detective Fucking Comics. So let's all raise a big hallelujah to that action.

2) The beard has definitively replaced the goatee in fanboy facial fashion. Which of course was replaced by bare skin in non-fanboy facial fashion about ten years ago, but you know whatever. Ok I take this back. With heightened awareness I did a little anthropological observation on my commute today, and unless 85% of the 25-42 year-old males in Manhattan read comic books, beards are apparently making quite a comeback in general.

3) Did I mention the Wonder Woman movie? Yeah, go buy it on March 3. It's tremendous.

4) The Beat's Art of Storytelling panel on Sunday was fascinating, especially for those of us who consider ourselves creative in some ways but do not at all get the kind of ideas that come to the minds of gifted creators (note I am speaking for myself, not Aaron--he gets those ideas all the time, he just needs to write one down some day). Moderated by Heidi MacDonald, it featured Marv Wolfman, Jim Lee, Carla Speed McNeil, Ben Templesmith and Terry Moore, so you know, people with big, crazy, awesome story brains.

5) Alright Lost is on now and I'm coughing up my spleen, so I'll give you the rest in some not-very-artful pictures:

Who chalks the Chalkmen!


The endlessly prolific Greg Rucka giving an interview to iFanboy's Ron Richards (whom I've spent more time talking with about Morrissey worship than comics, which is saying something)

Yeah you know I had to get Firestar's picture for Aaron, stat. She even has a Ms. Lion doll! (And did you hear? Ms. Lion is going to be a Pet Avenger!)

Hey, aren't pictures of panels the best? Greg Pak and Joe Quesada agree.

The girl in the Jessie outfit handmade these Team Rocket costumes (even though Team Rocket doesn't have a Furrett), and they made my day.


If you're going to go to karaoke at Sing Sing, get there early so your song wait time isn't three hours, which is too much. Laura knows this, and well. (From left: Popgun Vol. 3 co-editor Adam Knave, a girl whose name I didn't catch so sorry, the ubiquitous Jeff Newelt who took a knock-out turn on Shaggy's "Angel," Laura Hudson of Publishers Weekly/Comic Foundry/MTV.com/etc., Laura's friend Valery which I keep wanting to type as Valkyrie, Popgun co-editor Mark Andrew Smith, oh hi, Image Comics PR/Marketing emperor Joe Keatinge, who came down with the plague that Aaron and I are just now getting over about an hour after this picture was taken on Thursday).

So many millions of apologies, but the podcast will be late this week... I am dying with a 102-degree fever, which is coming on top of already being behind on this week's books from being at NYCC all weekend--I would have crammed but then this is all on top of the fact that I have coverage to file. We will do our very best to have it in the next 48 hours, but I do so hate letting you down.

Ok, I'm running out the door to the convention center, but since I didn't get to post after yesterday, wanted to tell you these things:

1) If you are going to NYCC at all this weekend, please be sure to stop by the Comic Foundry booth in Artist Alley--I forget the number but it has an orange table cloth, a "2008 Eisner Award Loser" sign and is across from Peter David--and pick up the $1 16-page preview of the next (and last, sniff!) issue of the magazine, out Feb. 18. Not only does it have lengthy interviews with Bryan Lee O'Malley and Grant Morrison, but Aaron and I wrote the first story, a Valentine's-themed ditty that you will probably enjoy. And you can imagine how much fun we had coming up with those candy hearts.

2) Saw the new animated Wonder Woman movie last night (produced by Bruce Timm, co-plotted by Gail Simone), and HOLY HERA was it fantastic. In general I'm a pretty big Timmverse junky, but I didn't much like the recent Superman Doomsday movie, and Wonder Woman certainly could have gone wrong. But it was pitch perfect, so satisfying. It's on DVD March 3rd, three days before Watchmen is out, so you know, whatever.

3) Marvel very much would like you to think about the fact that Hope, the messiah mutant baby currently being raised by Cable, has RED HAIR AND GREEN EYES, and that she will cause Cyclops to have a VERY COMPLICATED YEAR. Not to spoil anything of course.

4) Dan DiDio spent most of the DC Nation panel apologizing. But Greg Rucka proved an eloquent spokesman, and he could probably convince me to forgive all of DC's implementation issues if he were so inclined. But he also seems to know what's worth defending and what isn't.

5) I did not slap Joe Kelly, but I did get a chance to tell him how lovely I Kill Giants was, and that was very nice.

Alrighty, I'm off!

This morning I checked into NYCC for a brief Publishers Weekly meeting, and stayed to see Art Spiegelman's keynote address at the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference. He said a lot of funny and interesting things, of course, but my biggest take away was learning that "Goethe was the Oprah of his time." (Also, heads up: if you have a lot of liberal-artsy friends, posting a nugget like this to your Facebook page is a little like throwing the first tray of potatoes in a middle school cafeteria).

Maybe you've heard, New York Comic Con starts tomorrow, and that's pretty jazzy. I'm very much looking forward to seeing/meeting a bunch of people that I mostly/only communicate with over the onlines or phone interviews or what have you, plus conventions are just a big fat fun nut farm. Aaron and I decided we'd be too busy/poor to get a table in Podcast Alley, but I'll be spending a shift or two at the Publishers Weekly and Comic Foundry booths, trying to get to many panels and just generally running around with a tape recorder and some sweet little Awesomed By Comics, uh, "business" cards that Aaron got printed up. I know for a fact that we'll be camping out to get into the Wonder Woman animated movie debut on Friday night, and I also plan to hit the CBLDF party Thursday night, which is nowhere near the convention center but very close to my office. I realize that's not a very helpful "come say hi" schedule, but I will be wearing a press pass that I assume will have my name on it (maybe? I forget how they do them), so it's not an impossible feat. Haven't decided if I want to have my laptop with me, probably will not unless it turns out I need it for a specific story, but I'll try to post when I get home at nights. And if I don't, you can assume I'm in jail for slapping Joe Kelly.

Aaron is working ultra-late tonight covering the final night of the DNC, so I'm watching it at home with my computer and my cats and a very interesting selection of foodstuffs, getting moist around the eyes at everything frickin thing up to and including Rachel Maddow's white-girl booty shake to "Signed, Sealed, Delivered". Historic night, this. But there are many places you can go to read about that, so I'm going to use commercial breaks to make a note or two about Virgin Comics.*

Back in April, I walked into a panel room at the Jacob Javits Convention Center during New York Comic Con, and found it empty save two people--a photographer and Stan Lee. I was there to interview Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan about his company's Voices line, which existed to give various celebrities entree to the comics industry, with the idea to develop name-branded properties that would ultimately be adapted to film, theater, etc. I was writing a story for Billboard about the swelling crop of music-comics industry crossovers, and Virgin was theoretically a key player given their deals with Eurythmics' Dave Stewart, Duran Duran and some supposed unannounced others. Devarajan found me standing there, looking googly-eyed at Stan Lee, and said they'd just finished announcing that Stan would be developing a whole new superhero universe for Virgin, and would I like to interview him first. Needless to say I said fuck yeah, even though I knew that it had nothing to do with my assignment and would not likely see print. But I got a nice 10 minutes of Stan Lee's excited voice on my recorder, and a kind of tragicomic photo, and Devarajan's suitable enthusiasm for having made such an all-star deal.

Now, I'll admit that the first thing I thought was "huh, I'm not sure I'll be feeling a 'new generation' of Stan Lee superheroes," but the deal did give me the sense that Virgin put Stan Lee on same the level of celebrity get as Guy Ritchie or Nicholas Cage, and that was to their credit in terms of their approach to the medium. On the other hand, in grooming and manner Devarajan was sort of the anti-DiDio, so it was hard to tell the extent of his comics background--was his enthusiasm for comics themselves or for the idea of doing well with them?

Ultimately, I came away with some doubts about the viability of their multi-media model--as a comics reader I didn't feel hugely moved to collect their product, although I thought their celebrity collaboration might get some traction outside of the direct market if they effectively capitalized on the general public's heightened curiosity in comics. But one thing I did have some hope for was that they saw the comics as more than just marketing opportunities tied to a brand name. Said Devarajan about musicians crossing into comics: "There are two ways to go. There's the model of perpetuating the brand of the talent, where the actual musicians are in the comic, running around doing their thing. But the model we encourage is to just use this as another playing field to create your lyrics. Let's create something totally new—a fictional property defined by you, but like your music, will exist for generations beyond you."

So regardless of the ultimate goal for those properties, they should have an artistic integrity that rests on more than merchandising against a name. That view fit somewhat with what Rantz Hoseley had told me about Tori Amos's approach to Comic Book Tattoo--that she was treating it as her major release of the year. While it was made by professional cartoonists and comics writers, she was just as personally invested in the project as in a studio album, and marketed it accordingly. So ideally, according to Devarajan, a musician (or director or, uh, actress) would channel their existing storytelling skills into the medium of comics, even just in concept.

But of course, we know how that turned out in practice, both for Amos (great) and Virgin (not so great). And I'm not comparing the actual projects, because they're vastly different--but I thought the similarities in their publicly expressed crossover ideas were sound. It's a shame, because in theory, Virgin could have been a conduit for new, curious readers in this "comics are hot" environment. As others have said, one of the main problems likely rest in the model of creating comics specifically as stepping stones to other media. It's like dating someone to make their friend jealous--a healthy relationship does not tend to follow.

*I actually wrote about half of this after the speech, so if something doesn't make sense, blame it on awe and Chris Matthews

If you want to know the specific kind of ninny I am, it's the kind that happens to be wearing a Flash t-shirt when she turns up for an interview and finds no one in the room but her subject, a photographer, and Stan Lee. Excelsioops! Ha! Omg I'm tired.

1) Geoff Johns may have gotten the most audience questions and ass kissing at the DC Nation panel (deserved, he's rad), but Gail Simone got the most introductory applause, including a standing ovation by a handful of dudes. Who were mostly gay, but it's a start.

2) Geoff Johns is the hottest guy in comics. Which in theory isn't saying anything at all, but in his case it is. He obviously, like, works out and stuff. Even my fiance commented on his fineness over our post-Con cupcakes.

3) Geoff Johns doesn't really understand why everyone always calls him "Geoff Johns" to his face instead of "Geoff." But seriously, how can you not? It's like my friend Judy Wu, why on earth would you ever not say that whole name together.

4) Ok apparently I have a mini-crush on Geoff Johns.

5) Gail Simone is all the awesome I knew she was, and I'm really looking forward to interviewing her, which I am actually going to get away with doing for work.

6) There are some fanboys who think it's a real snooze that people keep bringing up how great Jaime Reyes is because he's the only really authentic, positive Latino superhero. God, how annoying and boring, they should just be happy that they get to have jobs and read comic books and stuff. It's almost as bad as those girls and gay guys who are always going on about how awesome Gail Simone is. SNORE.

7) The coworker I ran into at the convention center "never would have guessed in a million years" that I was a comic book fan. I will confess that more than 50 percent of me is taking that as a compliment.

8) Young women in comics get kind of uncomfortable when older women in comics start talking about feminism, because they've "never really had to think about it." Based on the young women's stated ages, I think there was some kind of bizarre reboot of socio-political continuity between my birth and my fourth birthday.

9) DC is going to launch a series about Supergirl in eighth grade. Despite any number of reasons for concern, I've tentatively decided that this rules.

10) There aren't many things cuter than little boys accompanied by their dads stepping up to a microphone and asking Joe Quesada if there's any chance that the Sentry could be a Skrull. Ok, if I meet a little girl who's being kept up at night by that question, that might be a little cuter.

Happy tax day, everyone. I'm bang-deep in work at the moment, but I will be at NYCC this weekend, so if you see a girl with a press pass and a slack-jawed, concerned expression, give a thumbs up. I won't actually be concerned, that's just the involuntary default state of my face. It has confused many a teacher and employer, and enabled repulsive candid photos.

Anyway, I unintentionally walked by Jim Hanley's Universe in Midtown yesterday, and the line was around the block to sit cross-legged at the feet of Brian Bendis and Matt Fraction. I had read about the event and considered going, but the pen I use for having my thigh autographed was out of ink. According to their posts on the Bendis board, Brian and Matt were "not invited" to the New York Comic Con, and so were just in town for last night's event. I'm guessing that "not invited" means "not given an award or had a panel named after them," since clearly, they would be welcome to attend and, I don't know, autograph thighs.