ABC Podcast Episode #70 ON LOCATION UPSTATE BOYEEE and LOTS AND LOTS OF VISUAL AIDS

SO, ONCE AGAIN...pardon our appearance as we try out a new logo, please give your yeas and nays in the comments... This very special episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by Fun Facts About Rochester, NY, where we have recorded the show on location at (a hotel a few miles away from) the Strong National Museum of Play. In addition to an exhibit on American Comic Book Heroes and the National Toy Hall of Fame, the museum houses a fully stocked '80s video arcade, a supermarket just for kids, a fantastic interactive Sesame Street exhibition, and enough wandering toddlers to feed a medium-sized nation. Big winners in the comics department this week include Detective Comics, Wonder Woman, Beasts of Burden, Ares, Dominic Fortune, Angela Robinson's The Web, and New Avengers, and hilarious, exasperated furor is reserved for the likes of Blackest Night and JLA. Be sure to peruse the exciting visual offerings below, as there is far more this week than the typical.

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Cover(s) of the Week

Aaron's picks (tie), from Unknown Soldier #14, cover by Dave Johnson, and Beasts of Burden #3, cover by Jill Thompson:


Evie's pick, from Invincible Iron Man #20, cover by Salvador Larroca and Rian Hughes:


Panels(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from Dark Avengers: Ares #2, by Kieron Gillen and Manuel Garcia:


Aaron's pick, from New Avengers #59, by Brian Bendis and Stuart Immonen:


Bonus Crap of the Week Link: Here is way more than everything you will ever need to know in a thousand lifetimes about the film Lambada, relevant to this week's Crap of the Week discussion vis a vis Paco "Vibe" Ramone. God I want to die just writing all of that. Anyway, the link above is from something I wrote in 2004 after watching the movie, apologies for the hue and context and quality, etc. You'll know what I mean.

Choke on This Turktopus, Peter Parker: Lest you think Aaron and I are completely those crazy-comic-book-black-sheep-of-the-family types, here is what brother-in-law Chris spent several weeks and trips to Home Depot building for his Halloween costume this year, which we finally saw on Thanksgiving between potatoes and pie. Aaron's sister went as Black Cat, but we didn't ask her to put that on because Aaron would have thrown himself out the window, obviously.


Museum! Of! Play!

THESE ARE COCOONS HOLY SHIT



And finally, some of my favorite inductees in the National Toy Hall of Fame:

Dream On

This weekend is Book Expo America in New York, which is the largest book publishing trade show in the country—authors, publishers, retailers, librarians, and anyone tangentially interested in those things (such as, according to the program guide, the Embassy of Oman?), are gathering at the Javits convention center to talk and breakfast and panelize and exchange free shit, and it’s not open to the public, which makes it kind of like Comic Con with fewer giant cardboard cutouts and less Swine Flu.

There’s quite a bit of graphic novel-related activity going on there, as rounded up by Calvin and Heidi at Publishers Weekly, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund had a very lovely party last night, which I went to after covering the BEA keynote—a discussion between music/sports writer/novelist Chuck Klosterman and E-Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons, followed by a discussion between Klosterman and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler. Both musicians have autobiographies coming out in October, which is why they were speaking at BEA, and the convention had the bright idea to rock the place up a bit, and it was all very entertaining, except for the part where convention attendees rushed the stage when Tyler came out as if they were freaking FOURTEEN YEARS OLD and wouldn’t sit down even though this was a BOOK CONVENTION DISCUSSION and not an arena show. It was embarrassing. But then Tyler talked about orgasms and the cosmos and how white people clap on the ones and the threes, and 85 percent of the idiots who had rushed the stage were thinking “what does he even mean by that,” so the karma all worked out in the end.

Anyway, after the CBDLF party, I ended up at dinner at an Irish bar/restaurant (lots of U2 on the jukebox, mates!) with a whole pile of comics folk, including Image marketing chief Joe Keatinge, the Beat’s Heidi MacDonald, Top Cow’s Filip Sablik, Marvel assistant editor Alejandro Arbona, Archaia’s Mark Smylie, Stephen Christy and Mel Caylo, Marvel Noir artist extraordinaire Dennis Calero and his wife Kristin Sorra, Entertainment Weekly’s Marc Bernardin, artist Nikki Cook, and others that were either sitting too far away or whose names I didn't catch accurately enough to put here in good conscience, many apologies. Mel apparently uploaded this photo and others here to CBR, right then and there, because of technology—you can’t really see them, but it does look like we were telling ghost stories or something, which is always an impression I’m happy to leave.

SO OKoffkoffhackhookkaffAY!

O HAI. So the Con-SARS/plague/crud/deathbeast/whatever hasn't gone away, but I was back at work today, and after a few gallons of Starbucks Berry Chai (good tip, Heidi) and several dozen rounds of "Sunny" on repeat (seriously, it's like 2 minutes and 43 seconds of DayQuil a pop), I'm ready to share some tales!

1) My official round-ups of several Marvel/DC panels are here, the second, third and fourth news bullets. They're briefer than the Newsarama/CBR play-by-plays, but it's a different audience. And you've probably already read those. I'm not going to go into them here, beyond what I already said about DC Nation below, which has so far been the universal assessment. Marvel pretty much won this one hands-down, except I will say for the news that the Rucka/Williams Batwoman comic I was so worried would be some kind of placating mini is actually going to be a big long starring run in Detective Fucking Comics. So let's all raise a big hallelujah to that action.

2) The beard has definitively replaced the goatee in fanboy facial fashion. Which of course was replaced by bare skin in non-fanboy facial fashion about ten years ago, but you know whatever. Ok I take this back. With heightened awareness I did a little anthropological observation on my commute today, and unless 85% of the 25-42 year-old males in Manhattan read comic books, beards are apparently making quite a comeback in general.

3) Did I mention the Wonder Woman movie? Yeah, go buy it on March 3. It's tremendous.

4) The Beat's Art of Storytelling panel on Sunday was fascinating, especially for those of us who consider ourselves creative in some ways but do not at all get the kind of ideas that come to the minds of gifted creators (note I am speaking for myself, not Aaron--he gets those ideas all the time, he just needs to write one down some day). Moderated by Heidi MacDonald, it featured Marv Wolfman, Jim Lee, Carla Speed McNeil, Ben Templesmith and Terry Moore, so you know, people with big, crazy, awesome story brains.

5) Alright Lost is on now and I'm coughing up my spleen, so I'll give you the rest in some not-very-artful pictures:

Who chalks the Chalkmen!


The endlessly prolific Greg Rucka giving an interview to iFanboy's Ron Richards (whom I've spent more time talking with about Morrissey worship than comics, which is saying something)

Yeah you know I had to get Firestar's picture for Aaron, stat. She even has a Ms. Lion doll! (And did you hear? Ms. Lion is going to be a Pet Avenger!)

Hey, aren't pictures of panels the best? Greg Pak and Joe Quesada agree.

The girl in the Jessie outfit handmade these Team Rocket costumes (even though Team Rocket doesn't have a Furrett), and they made my day.


If you're going to go to karaoke at Sing Sing, get there early so your song wait time isn't three hours, which is too much. Laura knows this, and well. (From left: Popgun Vol. 3 co-editor Adam Knave, a girl whose name I didn't catch so sorry, the ubiquitous Jeff Newelt who took a knock-out turn on Shaggy's "Angel," Laura Hudson of Publishers Weekly/Comic Foundry/MTV.com/etc., Laura's friend Valery which I keep wanting to type as Valkyrie, Popgun co-editor Mark Andrew Smith, oh hi, Image Comics PR/Marketing emperor Joe Keatinge, who came down with the plague that Aaron and I are just now getting over about an hour after this picture was taken on Thursday).

DUDE.

If you want to know the specific kind of ninny I am, it's the kind that happens to be wearing a Flash t-shirt when she turns up for an interview and finds no one in the room but her subject, a photographer, and Stan Lee. Excelsioops! Ha! Omg I'm tired.