Few people cast as unlikely a literary shadow over pop culture as H.P. Lovecraft, the New England resident and author of weird fiction who has since inspired video games, plushies, key chains and innumerable books, short stories and comic books. Providence is acclaimed comics author Alan Moore's entry into the ever-expanding cosmos of Lovecraft stories and Moore endeavors to leave no stone unturned. This is not only a sort of pastiche of Lovecraftian stories, but a story about Lovecraft himself ...
Mar 25, 2022•46 min•Ep. 50
The oldest relationships in the world might just be the relationship between animals and humans. Cattle, sheep dogs, horses, our animal buddies have always been there for us. But what would the animals say about it? Duncan the Wonder Dog asks the deceptively simple question: What if animals were people? What would they say to us? How would society be warped and transformed by this simple but all encompassing twist? Duncan the Wonder Dog , an award winning graphic novel published in 2010, tries t...
Mar 04, 2022•32 min•Ep. 49
Peplum , noun: a genre of Greco-Roman era costume adventure films, mostly made in Italy. See also: Peplum, a phantasmagorical fool's journey taking place in a fantasy version of Imperial Rome written and drawn by Blutch. It's Roman! It's dreamlike and ambiguous! It has beautiful black and white art! Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com Topic for this episode is Peplum by Blutch....
Feb 25, 2022•24 min•Ep. 48
Few names stand out in European comics illustration like Moebius, known for his highly imaginative and highly detailed sci-fi and fantasy art. Edena is a story that only Moebius could tell, about old classic cars, the human subconscious, nose diseases, insanity, and love. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com Topic for this episode is Edena and World of Edena ....
Feb 18, 2022•24 min•Ep. 47
There are few places more inaccessible in the world than North Korea, and while most of us will never visit the Hermit Kingdom, a handful of foreigners have gone there and back. One such account is the travelogue Pyongyang , written and drawn by cartoonist Guy Delisle. Pyongyang details his time working for a French animation studio that had a production office in the titular capital and the absurdities and oddities of living as a foreigner there. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter ...
Jan 21, 2022•28 min•Ep. 46
Somewhere between a psychedelic dream and an epic fantasy tale is Yragael and its companion story Urm the Mad. Beautiful visuals by French artist Philippe Druillet finds a pairing with a story that freely mixes myth, legend, and dream-logic. It's not every day you read a comic like this! Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com Topics for this episode include Yragaël by Philippe Druillet and Michel Demuth and Urm The Ma...
Dec 17, 2021•25 min•Ep. 45
Fear is the mind-killer! For fans of the science fiction novel Dune , there was no greater fear than another failed attempt at adapting Frank Herbert's un-filmable novel. Did Denis Villeneuve pull of the impossible? How does it stack up against the previous adaptations? Is the third time the charm for Dune movies? Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com Topics for this episode are Dune (2021), Dune (1984), Frank Herber...
Dec 17, 2021•44 min•Ep. 44
As the world spirals into political and economic chaos, many of us are faced with increasingly existential questions. How can we be happy in a violent and atomized society? Should anyone ever go on Reddit? How scared should we be of Facebook drones? These are the types of questions that The Hard Tomorrow, written and drawn by Eleanor Davis, grapples with in a near-future, slice of life setting. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www....
Dec 10, 2021•22 min•Ep. 43
What is Judge Dredd? Is it a cyberpunk dystopia action/adventure? A sci-fi satire? A cop story? The correct answer is "All of the Above". Join us in examining Judge Dredd: America, an acclaimed Dredd storyline from series co-creator John Wagner that tells a dystopian story about struggling for freedom in a totalitarian world that also doubles as a body horror sci-fi thriller. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the web at www.armyofcrime.com Top...
Nov 19, 2021•31 min•Ep. 42
Batman has a comically huge cultural footprint, from SNES games, to animated cartoons, Hollywood blockbusters and children's underwear. Did you know that there was even Batmanga ? Written and drawn by Jiro Kuwata, the three volumes of Batmanga tell sci-fi themed stories with original villains that have more in common with the Adam West TV show than Frank Miller. Should a curious Bat-fan check them out? I mean, do whatever you want, we're not the boss of you. We can help you make an informed deci...
Nov 05, 2021•26 min•Ep. 41
The X-Men were a sort of Lee/Kirby also-ran for many years, sitting awkwardly between the sci-fi family styling of the Fantastic Four and the superhero dynamics of the Avengers. Now the X-Men are a longstanding staple at Marvel, with innumerable spin-offs and series. What are they all about though? In God Loves, Man Kills, Chris Claremont attempts to tell the quintessential X-Men story as a stand alone graphic novel. God Loves, Man Kills tells a story of prejudice, extremism, and organized relig...
Oct 22, 2021•24 min•Ep. 40
Epic gods once strode the Earth in times of yore. I am, of course, referring to comics creator Jack Kirby. I could also be referencing the crimson hued tyrannosaur from Devil Dinosaur , a lesser discussed Kirby series from the late Bronze Age of comics. After his return to Marvel, with the Fourth World in the rear view mirror, Kirby returned to some of his familiar concepts like human deep history, the interplay between myth and supernatural figures as well as a love of big splash pages, ancient...
Oct 08, 2021•23 min•Ep. 39
When you think of samurai drama, what type of talking animal comes to mind? If the question sounds absurd, you may not be familiar with the long running Usagi Yojimbo series written and drawn by Stan Sakai. Combining funny animal characters with deep dives into Tokugawa era Japanese culture and samurai movies, Usagi Yojimbo is a masterfully crafted work of sharp swords and floppy ears, now going into it's third decade. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44...
Sep 24, 2021•26 min•Ep. 38
As the world slides further into the 21st century the themes of political isolation, revolution and the absurdity of authoritarian violence look to stay as relevant as ever. Perramus is a comic about South America in the Cold War that takes it's reader to movie sets, circuses, quests for missing teeth, and is applicable in it's larger themes to many other times and places, including ours. There is also a tremendous amount of bird crap. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcr...
Sep 10, 2021•25 min•Ep. 37
H.P. Lovecraft casts a long shadow over pop culture, in ways the author himself would never have been able to envision. A perfect example of this is At the Mountains of Madness , an adaptation of the titular Lovecraft novella by manga artist Gou Tanabe. Combining a fairly straightforward telling of the story with detailed black and white manga art, At the Mountains of Madness belongs to the unending tradition of re-inventing and refreshing works from the Lovecraft bibliography. Music is by Free ...
Aug 27, 2021•36 min•Ep. 36
Frank Miller's story Dark Knight Returns has long been considered a masterwork in contemporary superhero comics, and has put a stamp on the character of Batman that is still felt to this day. Almost twenty years later, Miller returned to the same well with Dark Knight Strikes Again. DKSA is a wildly different take on the character and garnered a wide range of opinions, dividing readers instantly. Is DKSA a late career misfire for Miller, or something wholly dissonant from DKR that must be reckon...
Aug 06, 2021•35 min•Ep. 35
The coming of age story is a ubiquitous staple of film and television decade after decade. Sunny, however, is a story about coming of age in a very specific time and place, namely Tokyo in the 1970s at a group home with an old beat up car in the backyard. Despite it's particular location and setting, Sunny hits at something universal to the human condition. It is, at times, funny, heartwarming, and tragic. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 or on the...
Jul 23, 2021•30 min•Ep. 34
The Man Without Fear started out as a second string Marvel hero, but over the years Daredevil has collected an impressive string of credited creators, including Frank Miller, Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack, Mark Waid, Bill Everett, Wally Wood, David Mazzucchelli, and a variety of others. Following after Frank Miller was a run of issues written by Ann Nocenti with primary art duties by John Romita Jr. that was only ever sporadically collected in volumes that quickly fell out of print. Nocenti w...
Jul 09, 2021•35 min•Ep. 33
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away the Rebel Alliance battled the Galactic Empire in Star Wars . The Tales of the Jedi comic series asks the question "What happened a long time before that?" Written by Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson, these comics attempted to depict galaxy-wide battles between the Jedi Knights and the Sith, in a mix of sci-fi and fantasy, set thousands of years before the Star Wars films. Did they succeed? In an age bursting at the seams with Star Wars content, is Tale...
Jun 25, 2021•33 min•Ep. 32
What is Akira ? Not only is this a question that characters in the eponymous story must decipher, it is a slippery question for a reader to answer. Is Akira a precursor to the cyberpunk genre, a landmark sci-fi manga, the basis for a much loved anime, or should we think of it more as Mad Max meets 2001: A Space Odyssey ? Maybe all of these, and more besides. Our freewheeling tour of the Modern Age of Comics continues with Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter a...
Jun 11, 2021•33 min•Ep. 31
Army of Crime returns for Season 2! The theme for our second season is "Attack of the Modern Age", and what better place to start a freewheeling tour of the modern age of comics than with Watchmen , the New York Times bestselling comic that catapulted Alan Moore into the pantheon of all time great comics writers. Join us as we attempt to read Watchmen with fresh eyes and disentangle the comic from the cultural legacy that has grown up around it. Music is by Free Rap Beats. Find us on Twitter at ...
May 28, 2021•43 min•Ep. 30
All pods have been cast for Season One here at Army of Crime headquarters. Our retrospective episode looks at Hellboy, Nat Turner, Hellblazer, the upcoming Dune film and uh, cattle. Your interprid hosts are heading back to the workshop to get started on Season Two. Stay alive out there, kids. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 and on the web at armyofcrime.com. Topics for this episode include Hellboy, Hellblazer, Dune, Nat Turner, First Cow....
Feb 28, 2020•34 min•Ep. 29
La Marseillaise is a 1938 French film from director Jean Renoir about the French Revolution. Wolverine/Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection is a 1989 graphic novel by Archie Goodwin and Howard Chaykin. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 and on the web at armyofcrime.com. Topics for this episode include La Marseillaise, The Rules of the Game, Wolverine/Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection, Judge Dredd: Judgement Day and Copra....
Feb 14, 2020•41 min•Ep. 28
This episode we look at two starkly different takes on historical fiction. Unconquered is a Technicolor epic from 1947 directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gary Cooper and Paulette Goddard. This film represents an extremely Anglo-centric history of the United States, ostensibly telling the story of Pontiac's War from the perspective of a frontiersman and an indentured servant. Nat Turner is a four issue mini series written and drawn by Professor Kyle Baker about a violent slave uprising led...
Jan 31, 2020•41 min•Ep. 27
The Star Wars saga began over 40 years ago with the release of Star Wars (later re-titled A New Hope) in 1977. Now, decades later, Star Wars has spanned nine films in the main storyline, multiple spin offs and countless TV shows, video games, books, and comics. Rise of Skywalker certainly represents a technical and cultural achievement, but is it any good? Join us as we try to parse out the end of the Skywalker saga and decipher what exactly has made Star Wars such an unstoppable juggernaut of p...
Jan 17, 2020•38 min•Ep. 26
This episode we look at the black and white historical fantasy comic book Mort Cinder and the Taiwanese New Wave film The Terrorizers . These works together show a variety of people's lives subject to the invisible gears of historical and social processes, as well as pirates, jail breaks and even the Battle of Thermopylae. Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Twitter at @armyofcrime and @dustin44444 and on the web at armyofcrime.com. Topics for this episode include Mort Cinder, The Terrorizer...
Jan 03, 2020•42 min•Ep. 25
Hell is other people. Hell is also ourselves. It is also, I suppose, a magical realm where evil creatures and the like live. This episode we examine the Steven Soderbergh joint Unsane , which is possibly about an insane person, corrupt institutions, and how awful people can be for twisted reasons. Then, we take a journey through the Roger Stern written and Mike Mignola drawn Marvel story Dr. Strange and Doctor Doom , which involves a titanic team up of gnarly neophyte necromancers into a mystic ...
Dec 20, 2019•34 min•Ep. 24
Hell will no hold no surprises for you after listening to our episode about the 1971 film The Devils , directed by Ken Russell. Repeatedly censored and often out of print, The Devils is a searing and phantasmagorical look at early modern witchcraft trials, demonic possessions, church-state power and the depths of human viciousness. Fascinating, outrageous and offensive to many, The Devils is not a film easily forgotten. Note: As this film is based on real events that happened in France in the ea...
Dec 06, 2019•50 min•Ep. 23
This episode we look at Other Mothers and other types of dangerous characters. From witch haunted American woods to the Nazi controlled streets of Paris, nothing is what it seems in Coraline and Flight of the Raven. Coraline is a stop motion animation film adapted from a Neil Gaiman novella and directed by Henry Selick. Flight of the Raven is a beautifully illustrated story of La Résistance written and drawn by French comics creator Jean Pierre Gibrat. Talking cats! Fast talking cat burglars! Ju...
Nov 22, 2019•39 min•Ep. 22
Hellboy returns! Wakanda Forever! This episode we check out the Hellboy Animated films, featuring the voices from the 2004 live action film and an assortment of vampires, witches and monsters. Then the King of Comics gives a guided tour of Wakanda, home of the Black Panther. It's Bronze Age Kirby at his most artistically powerful in a lesser known run on the character he created decades earlier. Immortal samurai, vampires, monsters and punch ups abound! Music is by Free Rap Beats . Find us on Tw...
Nov 08, 2019•34 min•Ep. 21
