Oct 10
House to Astonish Episode 24
Posted on Saturday, October 10, 2009 by Al in Podcast
Another three-week gap, caused by my holidays this time, but we’re motoring ahead with reviews of Planetary, Doctor Brother Voodoo and Haunt, and a bunch of gabbing about the Kirby lawsuits, Boom! Studios’ distributor switch and the announcement of Marvel’s Siege. We also discuss trailers for con panels, sweatshop-assembled comics and the perils of too much Swiss chocolate, and there’s a special all-Canadian instalment of the Official Handbook.
The podcast is here – let us know what you think, either by leaving a comment or by email, on Twitter or surreptitious note under the door.
Have you read The Pulse, Al?
Bendis’ favrtit Luke Cage street-stomps Osbogoblin for almost killing his baby and blowing up his girlfriend, right in front of Spider-Man (and the whole world), totally emasculating him?
Spider-Man is irrelevant, now. Too busy paddling in the shallow end with a succession of identikit women with the depth of the crust on a creme brulée.
I thought Planetary needed more technobabble (typed this before you said it! Ha!). And the Fictionaut? If he’s living in somebody else’s story…hasn’t the creator essentially abrogated any claim to the character? Isn’t he now public domain? Can we now all make comics starring Warren Ellis’ Violent Dipshit? Can we pass it around?
And worse – Snow kicks the feet out from under the technobabble. It’s like Spider Jerusalem all the hell over again! It Goes Right Because The Daddy Man Says It Does. And all the smart people look up to him Because He Knew It Would Work, and Hans Zimmer brings the band up and we all cry a little bit and furgylurgifarp.
The series is critic-proof. Out of its time. Out of its context. The second half was a sketchbook with brain damage. It wasn’t Ambrise that needed saving, but Snow, and the kids spectacularly failed to do so, but it all worked out anyway. But who cares? It’s like The Queen Mum stepping out of the Tardis. You could easily poke holes in her, but what would be the point? Planetary is over: would that we would all craft such folly.
Have you read Daredevil? Issue 500 had seven pages of DD: The List. DD: The List had seven pages of issue 501. What the hell? That’s like £1.50’s worth of stuff I’ve bought twice! Or a complete 40-page comic that someone could buy from me! (postage not included)
Deadly Ernest! He could turn the coffee shop into a pie shop! A pie shop with a Secret Ingredient! Don’t forget: his daughter Nemesis was Aunt May Does DeadPool, and she chopped him all up!
Good show!
//\Oo/\\
My two word review of Planetary “that’s it?”
Thankfully, it was the last Ellis book I was reading, so glad for that to be finished finally.
Just picked up the 1980s Marvel Handbook for .50 at Baltimore show and who is in it – Deadly Earnet. what a coinkidink.
I think Hembeck was quoted somewhere apologising to Brother Voodoo and his creators, and explaining that he was actually thinking of Brother Power…
If someone else had become the new Sorceror Supreme (someone who isn’t actually a doctor, say), would they have changed their codename? Doctor Wiccan? Doctor Grimm (Nico Minoru)? Doctor Son of Satan? Doctor Doo.. oh, wait.
(I expect at least one of these to be a What If? oneshot next year…)
Planetary 27 – I think that right around issue 15 Warren Ellis got sick of this storyline, which is a shame because it was in opinion his best series up to that point. Then he took 2 and a half years off or something and got back to it slowly, only to let another 2 years pass between the second to last issue and this one.
Certainly if you read Planetary start to finish it reads oddly in a way – a really well done slow burn set up, and then the pay off being rushed through at breakneck speed.
I can think of several Ellis projects over the last few years that I’d rather he’d have gotten bored with. Anna Mercury for example.
Freakangels is quite good though.
goddamn you guys, seriously. you’re the first comics podcast i ever delved into, and the only complaint i have is that you only do it once every two weeks. in the time between installments i’m forced to wade through the absolutely awful, unintelligent, fanboy podcasts out there looking for something as insightful and relevant as yours. i’ve come up with nothing but a headache. so thanks for setting the bar impossibly high for everyone else.
keep up the good work, guys.
Bryan – for the twixt episode House to Astonish blues, check out the excellent Word Balloon podcast, which is just one on one interviews with comics pros by the excellent John Siuntres.
http://wordballoon.blogspot.com/
Word Balloon allows creators a place to express their opinions, but John Siuntres can’t stop himself from fawning over everyone who comes on. Maybe he just likes everything, but I always get the sense that he’s not willing to say what he really thinks, which can make for a boring interview. On the other hand, he doesn’t (usually) parrot internet conventional wisdom like a lot of fanboy podcasts. I’m ambivalent about Word Balloon.
I like wordballoon, but it’s very much an interview show and the creators get a very, very easy ride.
If you like House to Astonish’s sense of humour, then you might also like War Rocket Ajax (http://warrocketajax.com), which has a similar contemptuous affection for a lot of the dafter ideas in superhero comics as Paul and Al do with the Handbook.
For my part, I got around the delays between episodes with the simple approach of leaving the latest one for so long that the next was nearly out. These last three days will simply fly by…
Huh, apparently the URL doesn’t work without the backslash at the end: http://warrocketajax.com/.
Ah, my kingdom for an edit button (my kingdom isn’t worth much).
While H2A is my favrit, OBVIOUSLY, there’s also “Wait, What?” by G-Dawg and the J-Unit.
http://savagecritic.com/labels/Wait%20What%3F.html
Please don’t tell them I called them that.
…I nearly done one, too, but it would have been about creating comics, rather than covering them. Too much of a distraction from doing the actual work, though.
Also, out of necessity, I had to record my pilots at five am. Which, you know, was fine, if a little bit like listening to a man in a bunker in a tinfoil hat with a weak lemon drink and no sleep but A LOT OF RED INK.
//\Oo/\\