Time Codes: 00:00:26 - Introduction 00:03:07 - Setup 00:04:47 - Hasib and the Queen of Serpents: A Tale of a Thousand and One Nights 00:33:52 - Moon Face 01:14:41 - Wrap up 01:15:34 - Contact us On the July episode of the Euro Comics series -- actually being released in early August -- Pascal and Derek discuss two beautiful texts. They begin with David B.'s Hasib and the Queen of Serpents: A Tale of a Thousand and One Nights (NBM Publishing), an incredible adaptation of one of the tales in the c...
Aug 06, 2018•1 hr 19 min
Michael and Derek are back at Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, in Charlotte, NC, for the first of their planned August on-location episodes. And as the Two Guys have been doing with their new format, Michael highlights recent mainstream publications and Derek focuses on more indie or non-DC and Marvel titles. Michael starts the ball rolling by discussing the recent work of Ta-Nehisi Coates, specifically his current writing on Captain America (Marvel Comics). He specifically focuses on the politics em...
Aug 03, 2018•1 hr 7 min
Time Codes: 00:24 - Introduction 02:16 - Setup of interview 04:20 - Interview with Jules Feiffer 58:54 - Wrap up 59:26 - Contact us In 2014 Jules Feiffer published Kill My Mother (Liveright Publishing), a noir crime narrative set in 1933 -- and then later moving forward into 1943 -- involving not only hard-boiled characters, but also their exploits within the entertainment industry. Feiffer followed that up in 2016 with Cousin Joseph , the second book in what was now projected as a trilogy. That...
Aug 02, 2018•1 hr 2 min
Time Codes: 00:00:50 - Introduction 00:03:32 - It's our 6th birthday! 00:09:03 - The Seeds #1 00:36:02 - Euthanauts #1 00:54:51 - The New World #1 01:09:38 - Unnatural #1 01:24:00 - Bone Parish #1 01:40:02 - Wrap up 01:41:15 - Contact us This is a special episode of The Comics Alternative , as it's the guys' sixth anniversary! The podcast began on August 1, 2012 , and Paul and Derek discuss some of the things they've done over the past six years, the number of episodes they've published, the amo...
Aug 01, 2018•1 hr 47 min•Ep. 288
Time Codes: 00:00:28 - Introduction 00:02:26 - Why we do the manga series 00:05:31 - My Solo Exchange Diary, Vol. 1 00:39:50 - Grand Blue Dreaming, Vol. 1 01:09:24 - Wrap up 01:10:28 - Contact us Radically Different For July, Shea and Derek discuss two works of manga that are radically different, one from the other. They begin with Nagata Kabi's My Solo Exchange Diary, Vol. 1 (Seven Seas Entertainment). This is the follow-up to her previous autobiographical work My Lesbian Experience with Loneli...
Jul 31, 2018•1 hr 14 min
Time Codes: 00:00:29 - Introduction 00:03:13 - Almost four years! 00:07:22 - Daisy Blackwood: Pilot for Hire 00:22:44 - Moby Dick: Back from the Deep 00:40:32 - Hana and the Firebird 00:59:41 - Wrap up 01:01:05 - Contact us For the July webcomics episode, Sean and Derek discuss three unique titles. They begin with Ryan Howe's Daisy Blackwood: Pilot for Hire . This is a series of short stories featuring an Indiana Jones-like figure whose job as a pilot introduces her to a variety of adventures. A...
Jul 30, 2018•1 hr 4 min
Time Codes: 00:00:33 - Introduction 00:03:10 - 2018 Eisner Award winners 00:10:38 - Nobrow 10: Studio Dreams 00:29:19 - Love and Rockets, Vol. 4 #5 00:54:56 - Last Mountain #4 and #5 01:14:34 - Wrap up 01:15:42 - Contact us This week Paul and Derek discuss three unique titles that help define our understanding of what comics can be. They begin with a visual anthology that is, arguably, not a comic at all. Nobrow 10:Studio Dreams (Nobrow Press) is a series of 70 gorgeous illustrations by a variet...
Jul 25, 2018•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 287
Time Codes: 00:00:34 - Introduction 00:02:44 - Setup of interview 00:04:38 - Interview with Carol Tyler 01:36:12 - Wrap up 01:38:15 - Contact us On this interview episode, Gene and Derek are excited to have Carol Tyler back on the podcast. Her new book Fab4 Mania has recently been released from Fantagraphics. It's Carol's memoir about her time growing up as a Beatles fan, covering the early years of the mop tops and especially The Beatle's presence in America. As Carol reveals, she was a devotee...
Jul 23, 2018•1 hr 41 min
Time Codes: 00:00:23 - Introduction 00:02:38 - Setup of interview 00:04:02 - Interview with Nate Powell 01:19:33 - Wrap up 01:22:26 - Contact us Paul and Derek are pleased to have Nate Powell back on the show. This time they talk with him about his new book Come Again , just released from Top Shelf Productions. They discuss the genesis of this project, the significance of the story's setting, the unsteady balance between needs for personal isolation and the importance of community, and the narra...
Jul 19, 2018•1 hr 26 min
Michael and Derek are back at Heroes Aren't Hard to Find for the first of two July on-location episodes. They visit the shop on Independence Day, and they use the occasion to discuss current trends and titles in the comics industry. Mike explores recent manifestations of The Avengers and Justice League , focusing on Marvel and DC through what he calls the "classic Coke" approach. His discussion takes him across the writings of Jason Aaron and Scott Snyder, and then circling back to Tom King's cu...
Jul 06, 2018•1 hr 13 min
Time Codes: 00:00:24 - Introduction 00:02:18 - Setup of interview 00:03:49 - Interview with Julian Hanshaw 01:04:39 - Wrap up 01:05:08 - Contact us Many U.S. readers were introduced to Julian Hanshaw through his book Tim Ginger , released in 2015 from Top Shelf Productions, an imprint of IDW Publishing. It’s the story of man in his later years coming to terms with the decisions he’s made, including his choice to remain childless. As Julian discusses in this interview, the text was largely autobi...
Jul 05, 2018•1 hr 8 min
Time Codes: 00:00:24 - Introduction 00:02:25 - Setup of interview 00:04:11 - Interview with Luke Healy 01:04:50 - Wrap up 01:05:30 - Contact us Luke Healy was first on The Comics Alternative at Small Press Expo in 2016 , where he briefly spoke with Derek about his provocative self-published minicomic The Unofficial Cuckoo’s Nest Study Companion , which was nominated that year for an Ignatz Award. A couple of months later Luke came back on the show , this time for a long and more in-depth intervi...
Jul 03, 2018•1 hr 8 min
Time Codes: 00:00:27 - Introduction 00:02:32 - Back on schedule! 00:04:24 - Claudine 00:40:45 - Tokyo Tarareba Girls, Vol. 1 01:13:49 - Wrap up 01:15:01 - Contact us This is the June manga episode, and unlike Shea and Derek had been doing the past couple of shows, this month's manga episode actually comes out on the appropriate month...on time! And on the June show, the Two Guys discuss Riyoko Ikeda's Claudine (Seven Seas Entertainment), a shōjo narrative set in historical France. The titular fi...
Jun 29, 2018•1 hr 18 min
Time Codes: 00:00:27 - Introduction 00:02:37 - Setup 00:04:06 - A Strange and Beautiful Sound 00:39:45 - Inside Moebius, Part 2 01:19:19 - Wrap up 01:21:02 - Contact us On this month's Euro Comics episode, Pascal and Derek discuss two recent French-language translations. They begin with Zep's A Strange and Beautiful Sound , the second of his books released through IDW Publishing. This is a story of a Carthusian monk who, because of a dead relative's last will and testament, reenters the everyday...
Jun 28, 2018•1 hr 24 min
Time Codes: 00:00:26 - Introduction 00:02:30 - Media attention! 00:05:16 - XTC69 00:27:16 - Soft X-Ray/Mindhunters 00:48:16 - A Western World 01:07:00 - The Ideal Copy 01:16:21 - Winter's Cosmos 01:30:43 - Somnambulance 01:51:28 - Wrap up 01:54:48 - Contact us The Two Guys with PhDs are back with another publisher spotlight, this one focusing on the spring releases from Koyama Press. (In fact, this is the third spotlight on Koyama, with the guys having previously discusses their seasonal release...
Jun 27, 2018•1 hr 58 min•Ep. 285
Time Codes: 00:00:24 - Introduction 00:02:23 - Setup of interview 00:04:03 - Interview with Sean Karemaker 01:04:51 - Wrap up 01:05:23 - Contact us Sean Karemaker’s comics are a different kind of reading experience. He illustrates in a highly detailed textured style, and his stories flow in a dreamlike manner, free from the constrictions of sequential paneling. In fact, he creates many of his comics in a scroll-like manner, writing out his narratives across a broad horizontal field, and then lat...
Jun 26, 2018•1 hr 8 min
It's another on-location recording at Heroes Aren't Hard to Find in Charlotte, NC. But with this episode the podcast is doing something different. The on-location show will be going up twice monthly -- schedules permitting -- and joining Derek on these Heroes shows will be Michael Kobre, another guy with a PhD talking about comics. On their on-location shows, Mike and Derek will discuss very recent comics, those being released in the week or two before the recording, that have caught their atten...
Jun 25, 2018•1 hr 13 min
Time Codes: 00:24 - Introduction 02:16 - Setup of interview 03:40 - Interview with Erin Nations 51:50 - Wrap up 52:14 - Contact us In December of 2016, Top Shelf Productions published the first issue of Erin Nations’s Gumballs , the one of four issues that would be released over the course of the following year. This quarterly ran as a one-personal anthology, a collection of stories and observations, many of which were autobiographical in nature. Gumballs stood out among its peers in that it rec...
Jun 22, 2018•55 min
Time Codes: 00:00:26 - Introduction 00:02:17 - Panel context 00:04:01 - "How to Read Nancy" panel 01:04:50 - Wrap up 01:05:19 - Contact us "Draw, you varmint" This past weekend was HeroesCon 2018, and while there Derek was a part of two different scholarly panels. One was about the relationship between print and digital comics texts, “Between Pen and Pixel,” a recording of which was released earlier this week . The second was a panel based on the book by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden, How to R...
Jun 21, 2018•1 hr 8 min
Time Codes: 00:00:25 - Introduction 00:03:07 - Listener mail! 00:05:44 - Michael Chabon's The Escapist: Amazing Adventures and Michael Chabon's The Escapist: Pulse-Pounding Thrills 01:10:37 - Wrap up 01:11:16 - Contact us This week, Pascal (of the Euro Comics series ) joins Derek on the weekly review show to discuss the two omnibi collections of The Escapist from Dark Horse Books. They look at both Michael Chabon's The Escapist: Amazing Adventures (which was released this past February) as well ...
Jun 20, 2018•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 284
Time Codes: 00:00:27 - Introduction 00:02:27 - Aaron Kashtan provides context 00:07:11 - "Between Pen and Pixel" panel 01:08:58 - Wrap up 01:09:55 - Contact us This past weekend at HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC, Derek was on a panel based on a recent book by Aaron Kashtan, Between Pen and Pixe l: Comics, Materiality, and the Book of the Future (Ohio State University Press). Aaron pulled together several comics scholars -- in addition to Derek, his former cohost, Andy Kunka, and Craig Fischer -- alo...
Jun 19, 2018•1 hr 13 min
Time Codes: 00:00:25 - Introduction 00:02:10 - Setup of episode 00:03:16 - Rich Tommaso 00:13:31 - Steve Conley 00:18:55 - Milton Lawson 00:27:11 - Naomi Franquiz 00:31:53 - Dave Chisholm 00:41:45 - James F. Wright and Jackie Crofts 00:49:57 - Scott Wegener 00:58:57 - Natalie Andrewson 01:09:08 - Michael Eury 01:17:05 - Wrap up 01:17:43 - Contact us This past weekend was HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC. It was a great convention, organized by the folks at Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find . And as Derek lik...
Jun 18, 2018•1 hr 21 min
Time Codes: 00:00:27 - Introduction 00:05:33 - Adamant 00:35:54 - Scurry 01:00:58 - The Phoenix Requiem 01:26:04 - Wrap up 01:26:55 - Contact us This month Sean and Derek look at three very different webcomics. They begin with Mike Exner III, Ian Waryanto, et al.'s Adamant , a superhero narrative that spins the genre in fascinating, and parodic, ways. After that they turn to a beautifully rendered tale, Mac Smith's Scurry . While the story is solid, the guys point out that the art is this webcom...
Jun 15, 2018•1 hr 30 min
Time Codes: 00:00:25 - Introduction 00:02:26 - Setup of interview 00:03:56 - Interview with Max de Radiguès 01:01:11 - Wrap up 01:01:47 - Contact us Arthur Fellig, better known as Weegee, was a street photographer for New York's popular press during the 1930s and 1940s. He worked primarily in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and he developed a signature style that captured a gritty, unflinching view of urban life. What’s more, he was, famous, or rather infamous, for adjusting his tableau, in particu...
Jun 14, 2018•1 hr 2 min
Paul and Derek are back with another look at the latest Previews catalog. And for the month of June, they find a variety of fascinating title...and several of which they even resist mention on mic, in the interests of keeping the show containable and relatively short. Among the many publishers and titles that they focus on are: Image Comics - Leviathan #1, Perdy, Vol. 1 , Crowded #1, Hey Kids! Comics! #1, and Lil' Donnie, Vol. 1 Dark Horse Comics - The Seeds #1, Black Hammer Library Edition, Vol...
Jun 13, 2018•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 283
Time Codes: 00:00:24 - Introduction 00:02:55 - Setup of interview 00:04:07 - Interview with Dean Haspiel 01:09:43 - Wrap up 01:11:07 - Contact us Welcome to New Brooklyn Gene and Derek are happy to have Dean Haspiel on The Comics Alternative to discuss his new book from Image Comics, The Red Hook, Vol. 1: New Brooklyn . This is the first in a planned trilogy introducing readers to his universe of New Brooklyn. The Red Hook is a reluctant hero. Once a super-thief, his unlikely encounter with the ...
Jun 12, 2018•1 hr 15 min
Time Codes: 00:00:32 - Introduction 00:02:47 - Broken promises 00:04:09 - Dead Dead Demon's De De De De Destruction, Vol. 1 01:01:16 - The Troublemakers 01:58:46 - Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku, Vol. 1 02:20:52 - Wrap up 02:22:11 - Contact us Fully Loaded On the last episode in The Comics Alternative 's monthly manga series -- a show that was supposed to be the May episode, but was actually a late April show -- Shea and Derek promised that they would provide an additional manga episode at the ...
Jun 11, 2018•2 hr 25 min
Time Codes: 00:00:23 - Introduction 00:02:22 - Setup of interview 00:03:31 - Interview with Karl Stevens 01:03:39 - Wrap up 01:04:05 - Contact us A Pope Cat and A Floating Gandhi Head Derek first talked to Karl Stevens in February of last year, and during that discussion he had mentioned that he was working on a new project for Retrofit/Big Planet called The Winner , and now we have the book out, being released on May 23. The two discuss Karl's new work, its very autobiographical quality -- no m...
Jun 08, 2018•1 hr 7 min
Time Codes: 00:00:29 - Introduction 00:03:26 - Updates 00:7:14 - Sabrina 00:59:00 - The Unsound 01:25:22 - The Last Siege #1 01:43:32 - Wrap up 01:44:57 - Contact us "We're not about the cool factor. We're about the cool analysis" On this episode podcast, Paul and Derek discuss Nick Drnaso's Sabrinba , Cullen Bunn and Jack T. Cole's The Unsound , and Landry Q. Walker and Justin Greenwood The Last Siege #1. Their conversation his great! Although be warned, there may a couple of spoilers on this s...
Jun 06, 2018•1 hr 48 min•Ep. 282
Time Codes: 00:00:31 - Introduction 00:03:19 - Setup of the discussion 00:05:04 - Nominees in the Best Publication for Early Readers category 00:51:47 - Nominees in the Best Publication for Kids category 01:31:45 - Nominees in the Best Publication for Teens category 02:20:32 - Wrap up 02:26:03 - Contact us On this episode of the Comics Alternative Young Readers Show, Gwen and Paul detail the three categories of the Eisner Awards that focus on children and teens: Best Publication for Early Reader...
May 28, 2018•2 hr 30 min
