House to Astonish Episode 100
It’s finally here – the hundredth episode of House to Astonish! We’re joined by Carrie Kennedy, Susi O’Brien, Stu West and Amal El-Mohtar to discuss topic suggested by friends, listeners and comics pros, encompassing digital comics, boycotts, the greatest comics out today, what Marvel would be like if they’d done right by Kirby, favourite superhero movies, reinventions of Marvel characters, the Eurovision Song Contest, pie, monkeys and what goes on inside the human stomach. We’ve got contributions from Reilly Brown, Jeff Lester of Wait, What?, Steve Morris of Comics Bulletin, Steven Sanders, Al Ewing, Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool, Heidi MacDonald of the Beat, Alex de Campi, Michael Kupperman, Stephen Wacker, Antony Johnston, Kieron Gillen, Justin Jordan, Lauren Sankovitch, Andy Khouri and Andrew Wheeler of Comics Alliance, Brandon Graham and Emma Rios. All this plus cake, booze, an alcoholic with a spanner, Wolverine vs Montessori and Wong’s hash brownies in our longest ever episode (by 25 seconds).
You’ll have noticed that we’ve had a spruce-up of our design – the immensely talented James Wendelborn has designed our new logos, and you may be pleased to learn that we’ve put those to good use already in our official House to Astonish Redbubble store – if you want to show the world your affinity for the show there’s now a way to do it! You can find it here – it’s the swankiest way to combine comics podcasting and sartorial excellence.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think of the show, either in the comments, on Twitter, by email on our Facebook fan page.
Thanks to everyone who’s contributed to the show or who’s enjoyed it so far – here’s to many more episodes.
Pretty sure Wonder Woman listens to Diamanda Galas.
Great podcast, more roundtables please.
Of all the projects Alan Moore has abandoned in a huff, Halo Jones is the one I’m most saddened by. I would love to see it completed.
Dave I have read in a somewhat biased history of Marvel that the company got the comics rights to Star Wars on the cheap after they pointed out to Lucas the similarities between Vader and Doom. I don’t believe it’s true, but it’s an interesting thought. Also, there were some Japanese comics and cartoons based on the Zoids franchise a few years ago, but nothing like the retro resurgence of the Transformers.
My introduction to comics was through Transformers, but I didn’t get into US comics until around 1998, as they were very difficult to get around my way.
Daibhid Ceannaideach, you are spot on about banoffee pie.
Congratulations House to Astonish on the #100. Do we get a renumbering and a new creative team next time?
It seems to me that the Orson Scott Card thing is not, as it stands, a boycott, but just another manifestation of people’s tendency to consider the enjoyment of art a kind of relationship with the artist. This is inherently fairly inconsistent, both in the kinds of opinions or faults that set you off, and who those opinions have to come from (no one has asked, or cares, about the political views of the editors, letterers, or inkers of any comic, or of the printers that produced them). I don’t see that that’s really a problem when it’s expressed as an essentially aesthetic position, rather than a moral one, which I think it was in this podcast.
Congratualations guys! Been a visitor since back in the X-Axis days, and can’t thank you enough for the countless hours of entertainment you’ve provided me over the years.
Cheers!
CalvinPitt and one of your guests are citing the same issue (It was part of Revenge of the Sinister Six in the adjectiveless Spider-Man book) but Peter was actually mocking Mary-Jane’s taste in music when he mentioned Fine Young Cannibals.
I’m pretty sure Image Central is technically a non-profit. Definitely, they get their money as a flat fee regardless of whether the book makes money or not – any profit beyond that goes to the owners of the book.
I second “bad wolf”‘s request for more “wife” episodes. If nothing else, Susi’s “Remember, when I go to see superhero movies, I go to see them with Paul”, was a treat for both myself, and my long-suffering fiancee.
Probably no one will read this by now but I wanted to say that this has been one of the most enjoyable podcasts I have ever heard. Would it be possible to make it into a semi-regular thing? General comics talk with guests, apart from the regular episodes. maybe every three months or something? And if it gets popular, you can continue, separately from the regular series
Loved the Great Big Sea reference, may try to use it to convince my wife to finally see the Thor movie. 🙂