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Saturday, Oct 24 2015

Issue #041: Alexander Hoffman

In Which Our Guest:

Alexander Hoffman, political cartoonist and webcomic creator, joins us to talk about comics… 1) Chickenhare by Chris Grine 2) Angora Napkin by Troy Little 3) Lazarus by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark 4) Optic Nerve by Adrian Tomine 5) Question Time: What would you recommend to someone who’s never read comics? 6) What we’re looking forward to next

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Show Notes for Issue #41 of the Comics Squee Podcast

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Welcome, lovely listeners and Precious Patrons of Pulp Pamphlet Parlay, to Issue 41 of Comics Squee. Each podcast our panelists, driving invisible boat jet-planes, discuss the comic books, graphic novels, and general sequential art geekery that excites them.

Our superpowers are tangents and tentacles.

Taking the revolving 4th chair this issue is our guest, political cartoonist and webcomic creator Alex Hoffman. His gag-a-week strip Tales of Absurdity is a fun, tongue-in-cheek lampoon of geeky subjects. My favorite is the William Tell one. Go ahead, read it. We’ll wait.

In this issue of Comics Squee we have: immortal guardians in a dystopian near future; a collection of tales from real life ; a girl band’s supernatural adventures ; and, lastly, the day is saved by a dead goat in a top hat.

  1. Chriss: Chickenhare by Chris Grine (starts at 00:02:23.812)

    Podcast-Track-Image-ChickenhareThis is a fun all-ages tale with black and white cartooning. The main character is named Chickenhare and he is part chicken and part rabbit. His best friend is Abe, a turtle with a beard. They get kidnapped and taken to a guy named Klaus who is a bit of a crazed taxidermist – that way his friends never leave him. They have to team up with two other captives in the House of Klaus and escape. There’s the ghost of a goat in a top hat

    It’s cute and clever and fun, not scary but just that little shadow of morbid that kids dig.

    Was published by Dark Horse but is now put out by Scholastic. There are two books in print, and a third that’s free online.

  2. Alexander Hoffman: Angora Napkin: Harvest of Revenge by Troy Little (starts at 00:05:58.667)

    Podcast-Track-Image-Angora-NapkinThe adventures of a Canadian girl band, a cuddle-core band. It’s funny and a bit anything goes. The first book is about zombies. This book, the second, is about a villain named Mr. Otaku. He has a revenge play he wrote back in highschool and wants to force everyone who laughed at him to watch. And he captures the band, using cunning tricks like a ham on a skateboard, with the plan of forcing them to act the play out. But they turn out to be all, “That’s awesome you should have just asked.”

    It’s pretty funny, with a kind of Scooby Doo vibe. The artwork has an interesting animation feeling art style. The writing takes a gag and then totally commits, bringing it back up later with a twist.

    • 2a) Tangent 1: Tacos (starts at 00:12:17.500)
  3. John: Lazarus by Greg Rucka (writer) and Michael Lark (artist), with some support from Tyler Boss (starts at 00:12:17.500)

    Podcast-Track-Image-LazarusAnother great Rucka title.

    This explores a near future where climate change has messed with our political system. It’s a bit cyberpunk, with the country divided into regions ruled by certain families. The population either is part of a Family’s fiefdom or they’re ‘the waste’. Each family has a champion, their Lazarus – each augmented in different ways depending on the Family’s specialty.

    Lazarus reminds John of Paolo Bacigalupi’s novel The Water Knife, in that they deal with the sociopolitical results of a near future of near depleted resources.

  4. Shelli Sannes: Optic Nerve by Adrian Tomine (starts at 00:20:03.667)

    Podcast-Track-Image-Optic-NerveThis series of views and observations on life is by a Japanese-American comic creator who grew up as a geek teen. The comics are in black and white and are published by Canadian company Drawn and Quarterly.

    Shelli loves the art in Optic Nerve and how it includes a diverse range of ‘normal looking’ people. She also digs that he includes comments about his books in the back.


Question Time: What books would you recommend to someone who’s never read comics before? (starts at 00:26:43.000)

_Podcast-Track-QUESTION-TIME

We all agree that it depends on what the person likes to read, if they’re interest in the MCU, what their age is, if they like fantasy, etc. And we recommend using the public library system to ‘try before you buy’.


What We’re Looking Forward to Reading Next (starts at 00:30:35.750)

_Podcast-Track-FORECAST

  • Shelli Sannes:

    Adriane Tomine’s next book from Drawn and Quarterly

  • Chriss:

    Little Miss Don’t Touch Me

  • John:

    Reading more Sixth Gun, and the new Star Wars movie coming out soon.

  • Alexander Hoffman:

    Walking Dead Compendium 3

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