Archive for July 24th, 2008

ReadComics Podcast #012

July 24th, 2008 by Martin

We’re back! We wrangled Jason, Mike, Marty and Florence back into Marty and Florence’s dining room for podcast number twelve, in which we talk about: Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, musicals in general, comic book musicals, Batman, Ultimate Comics, What if..?, Superman: Red Son, Ant Man’s Big Christmas, Lobo/Authority: Holiday Hell, The Underburbs, Hereville, Castle Waiting: The Curse of the Brambly Hedge, Warren Ellis, Black Summer, Valerian, Soleil, Sky-Doll, Watchmen Motion Comics, the Watchmen movie preview, The Spirit movie preview, Neuromancer, Snow Crash, and comic adaptations versus movie adaptations versus any other sort of adaptation ever made.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #012 (34 MB, 73 minutes)

Black Summer, Issues 0-7

July 24th, 2008 by Martin

Well, the new Black Summer came out today, and it’s time I finally wrote some kind of review about the series.

When I first read issue #0, it really floored me. I’d never been that surprised and excited about a comic, I don’t think. At least, not right off the bat. What happens in that first issue is something I consider to be the stuff of legend. Honestly, I have no idea if other comic books have done it before. Hell, maybe it’s commonplace for comics to be this anti-government, but this was the first I’d seen of it. Anyway, as you can probably see from the Issue 0 wrap-around cover shown here, in that first issue, we see the President of the United States of America, killed by a superhero.

And at first, the premise alone was enough to get me to read the comic. But, as the story wore on, honestly, I started to lose interest. Yes, it’s still good, but in comparison with that one first deliberate act of insane marketing prowess, the rest of the comic honestly just fails to live up to it for me. And that was never more true for me than in this final issue.

Read on for continued discussion of Black Summer, including spoilers. (more…)