Robots From Tomorrow!

Having just talked about the early days of 2000AD, we thought it would be fun to chat with someone with a strip running in the Progs right now. Starting with Prog 2367 was Book Two of the strip “Full Tilt Boogie”, the continuing adventures of teen bounty hunter Tee, her grandmother, and their cat as they criss-cross the galaxy. Drawn by Eduardo Ocana, colored by Eva de la Cruz, lettered by Annie Parkhouse, and written by today’s guest.

She is a multi-hyphenate creator whose CV would take the entire show to lay out in detail, so with her indulgence I will paraphrase. A writer of prose, comics, poetry, film and television, she is also a director and collaborator and obviously a multi-tasker of the highest order. She has mashed up the Archie gang with the Predator, worked with Duncan Jones, and edited an anthology of soldiers autobiographical stories about their deployments. While not afraid to roll up her sleeves and do all manner of creative jobs herself, her eye for collaboration has led her to working with such talents as Carla Speed McNeil (on No Mercy) and Erica Henderson (on the pulp horror Dracula Motherf**ker and the more recent Parasocial), as well as the aforementioned Ocana even prior to “Full Tilt Boogie”.

Greg tried to keep this episode’s conversation coherent but because today’s guest is Alex de Campi, with so many avenues for questions and straight-shooting answers, it was no mean feat. Find out how he did and more on today’s chat!

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Robots From Tomorrow is a comix podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at this link. Follow Greg and the show on Bluesky. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Today’s episode is the second of three looking at the best Superman stories of the Seventies to the mid-Eighties with the DC3Cast’s very own Vince Ostrowski! Vince & Greg dive into what makes the Superman of this era different than his more modern incarnation and start giving you gem after gem of Super-Tales of the post-Silver Age / pre-Crisis Man of Steel. Intercompany crossovers! Intracompany crossovers! History lessons! Horror on a superhero scale! All that plus a REALLY big missile and more on today’s episode!
  

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL 

Comics referred to in this episode are:

• Superman vs The Amazing Spider-Man
• Superman and Spider-Man
• World of Krypton #1-3 (of 3)
• DC Comics Presents #1-4, 26-29, 36
• DC Comics Presents Annual #1
• Superman Annual #9
• The Phantom Zone #1-4 (of 4)

The Phantom Zone and World of Krypton minis, as well as the DC Comics Presents issues, are available as individual issues on DC Universe Infinite.

Superman Annual #9 is not available digitally or collected in any English-language reprint.

The two DC/Marvel crossovers are also unavailable digitally, though they were reprinted at standard comic book size in both the Crossover Classics vol. 1 collection from 1992 and as individual reprints in 1996. They will both be included in the upcoming DC Versus Marvel Omnibus, and presumably available digitally at some point afterwards. 

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Robots From Tomorrow is a comix podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at this link. Follow Greg and the show on Bluesky. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

As part of his Someday Reading Project, Greg takes a look at the first dozen programmes of The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic: 2000AD! Do those early installments still hold up? Was Dredd the leader of the pack… or the runt of the litter? What controversial boys’ adventure comic paved the way for Tharg and all that Thrill-Power? All that and more on today’s bite-sized episode! 

 
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL 

Rebellion/2000AD’s First Stories Digital Bundle

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Robots From Tomorrow is a comix podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at this link. Follow Greg and the show on Bluesky. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Today’s episode is the first of three looking at the best Superman stories of the Seventies to the mid-Eighties with the DC3Cast’s very own Vince Ostrowski! Vince & Greg dive into what makes the Superman of this era different than his more modern incarnation and start giving you gem after gem of Super-Tales of the post-Silver Age / pre-Crisis Man of Steel.

Kryptonite No More! Must There Be A Superman! The Great One and the Greatest of All Time! Whiz Wagons! Clones! The Sweet Science! The Wedding of the Century! Hippie Bikers! More quotemarks than you can shake a stick at! All that and more on today’s episode!  

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SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL 

Comics referred to in this episode are:

• Superman #232
• Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133-141
• Forever People #1
• Superman #233-242
• Superman #247
• Action Comics #404
• Superman vs Muhammad Ali

Superman #232, 247, and Action Comics #484 are not available digitally as individual issues. Action Comics #484 is available digitally in the Lois Lane: A Celebration of 75 Years and Action Comics: 80 Years of Superman: The Deluxe Edition collections. Superman #247 and the main story from #232 (originally from Superman #141) are available digitally in the Superman: A Celebration of 75 Years collection.

Superman vs Muhammad Ali is available digitally but not through DC Universe Infinite.

The rest of the comics are available as individual issues or in the Kryptonite No More, Jack Kirby’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, or Jack Kirby’s The Forever People collections on DC Universe Infinite.

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Robots From Tomorrow is a comix podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at this link. Follow Greg and the show on Bluesky. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Greg kicks off The Someday Project looking at one of his early comics influences: a magazine-sized mind-bender (at least for someone of his age to read it) unlike anything else on the stands. HEAVY METAL? Nope. 2000 AD? Negative. Those are coming soon enough, but today Greg talks about the impact of David A. Trampier's "Wormy" from DRAGON magazine. Does it still hold up? How can you get a hold of it today? All that and more in today's episode!

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL 

The start of "WORMY" on the Internet Archive

"Wormy" ran in DRAGON issues:

• 9-20
• 29-34
• 36, 39, 42-44
• 47-52
• 54-58
• 60-128
• 130-132

Wormy: The Dragon's Dragon

Correspondence with Dave Trampier and A History of His 1985 Attempt to Crowdfund a "Wormy" Anthology

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Robots From Tomorrow is a comix podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at this link. Follow Greg and the show on Bluesky. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

The winter break is over, and Greg returns to give listeners a peek behind the curtain in this quick preview of what 2024 has in store for the show, including and most importantly, the lowdown on what has been referred to in hushed whispers around the office as... THE SOMEDAY PROJECT! What new devilry is this? All is revealed in today's episode!

Robots From Tomorrow is a comix podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at this link. Follow Greg and the show on Bluesky. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books. 

Today's guest is someone listeners of this show will be familiar with, as he name is mentioned often and in tones of reverence. For almost 30 years he has worked with such artists as Jae Lee, Jeff Lemire, Bill Sienkiewicz, JH Williams III, and BERNIE WRIGHTSON to bring color into their art in a way that always enhances, never detracts - no mean feat there.  He's also been a teacher/presenter/lecturer of art and illustration at such institutions as Towson University, Johns Hopkins University, the Institute for Contemporary Art in London, and MICA the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he currently a professor. Two of his most recent projects are his recoloring of the Bernie Wrightson's Swamp Thing run for the recent Absolute Edition, and the second volume of Dark Horse Comics' "Richard Corben Library", which collects Den: Neverwhere with his gorgeous restoration work giving it new life. He's Jose Villarrubia, and Greg is thrilled to have him on the show to talk about all of that and more.

Robots From Tomorrow is a twice-monthly comics podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Today's guest needs no introduction, but we have episode post space to fill so we're doing one anyway.  He's a creator whose balance of romanticism and pragmatism has kept him in the business and thrall of comics for almost 50 years. As an artist, a writer, and a cartoonist, he has almost certainly forgotten more about comics, history and storytelling than most of us will ever know. But thankfully, two of his latest projects are about giving that knowledge back to the comics community. The first is Hey Kids! Comics!, a roman a clef work from Image about the history of mainstream comics whose final issue just came out last month and whose trade collection is due next month. The other is COMIC BOOK U, a series of in-person seminars with writer/editor Mark Waid kicking off next Saturday, November 18th at UCLA that looks to give attendees "an immersive tutorial into the process and craft of creating comic books" . In addition to all of that, he is reviving John Benteen's early 20th Century soldier-of-fortune creation Fargo with an upcoming 96-page adaptation through the crowdfunding platform ZOOP. We are, of course, talking about Howard Chaykin, and Greg got a chance to chat with him about comic book know-how, the collision of past & future, musical theater as comic book inspiration, just how neat Jason Bernard was, and a lot more on today's episode!

Robots From Tomorrow is a twice-monthly comics podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

The last time today's guest was here for his own episode, it was July 2014, during the final days of the Kickstarter campaign for Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream, the Eisner-winning anthology title assembling a truly dream-worthy roster of creators to pay tribute to Windsor McCay's seminal comic strip. In the nearly ten years since then, he has gone on to found Beehive Books, where he and creative partner Maielle Doliveux continue to put out book after book, work after work that seem like artifacts from some other, better timeline. 

From Illuminated Editions pairing such literary classics as Crime and Punishment, Peter Pan, and The Kwaidan Collection with artists like Dave McKean, Brecht Evans, and Kent Williams, to documenting the continuing works of cartoonist Ronald Wemberly, to blanket tapestries from the likes of Michael DeForge, Jim Woodring, Yuko Shimizu, to a literal suitcase of period-accurate text & ephemera for the epistolarian horror classic Dracula, and so much more, my guest apparently hears the word NO as an invitation, not an obstacle. He is Josh O'Neill, and Greg is thrilled to have him back on the show after much too long an absence to talk about all things Beehive Books.

Robots From Tomorrow is a twice-monthly comics podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

There are many days working in the show that Greg is grateful to be an observer of comix rather than a creator of them, because the level of craft and skill his hypothetical output would have to measure up against already gives him the willies. That being said, today’s guest has already put together such a formidable resume and body of work (all before the age of 30) it makes even this comix-adjacent host wonder what the hell he's been doing with his life. 

With nearly 10 published works to her credit, Tillie Walden has already won 2 Eisner Awards, 2 Ignatz Awards, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, AND a Hugo Award nomination. She remains a faculty member at her alma mater, the Center for Cartoon Studies, and is currently in her first of three years as Vermont's Cartoonist Laureate. This episode has Greg peppering the cartoonist with a myriad of questions about her new book, the second volume in her Walking Dead trilogy about fan-favorite queer teen survivor Clementine, the boundaries of YA horror, how nothing brings out generation gaps like an apocalypse, just what it is in Vermont's water that makes it a cartoonist mecca, and much more!

Robots From Tomorrow is a twice-monthly comics podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Today's show brings another returning guest: a cartoonist so well-known for being in tune with the vibe of Jack Kirby in his own work that when he published his Kirby biography Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics in 2020, there's no doubt a large portion of the readership wondered what had taken him so long.

The delay was most likely due to the fact he was busy making a name for himself with such projects in the comics mainstream and independent arenas as The Myth of 8-Opus, G0dland, Transformers vs GI Joe, American Barbarian, Go-Bots, and many more. He also takes the time to not only be the fifth-Beatle-esque third Cartoonist Kayfaber on that popular YouTube channel, but co-host his own Total Recall Show with Matt Zeoli. But today, Tom Scioli is here to talk with Greg about a new collaboration between himself and The King (separated by 80-ish years or so) as well as his new biography on the other half of the Kirby-Lee partnership: I am Stan: The Graphic Biography of the Legendary Stan Lee.

Robots From Tomorrow is a twice-monthly comics podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Program warning: today's episode dives directly into Chris Claremont's original 16-year run on UNCANNY X-MEN, which means Greg will be once again talking about his all-time favorite run of comics (although this time with an expert to help out). Longtime listeners playing a drinking game based on him name-dropping these comics on the show would be wise to give that game a pass today, or risk massive liver damage. You have been warned.

In the epilogue to his Twitter account THE CLAREMONT RUN, Doctor J Andrew Deman wrote the following about that project and his decision to focus its attention on those comics: "What if they, contrary to every expectation, were (and always had been) profound and brilliant and worthy of literary analysis?" For over two years, Deman and his team did the work to prove he was right to see merit in those comics, posting thread after thread diving into analysis and discussion about Claremont's mutants and the highly influential yet still under-appreciated gems contained in those issues. While those posts are still available on the now-ironically-named social media site X, Deman's work on this subject will soon be available in bookstores with the publication of The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men, coming October 24th from the University of Texas Press. Deman has also tackled the British corner of Marvel's mutant-verse as 1/3rd of the hosts of the Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow! Podcast with Dr. Anna Peppard and Christopher Maverick, giving us an issue-by-issue rundown of the first volume of Excalibur, originally created by Claremont and artist Alan Davis. He also contributes with the aforementioned Dr. Peppard to the Sequential Scholars project over at sequential scholars dot com, which not only studies comics but aims to make the study of comics accessible to everyone. He is the expert referred to earlier and he's back on the show to talk about his upcoming book, publishing, and all x-things Claremont. 

Robots From Tomorrow is a twice-weekly comics podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

When someone is inducted into the Royal Society of Literature, they are invited to sign their names in a roll book dating back to the society's founding in 1820, using the pen of Lord Byron, T.S. Elliot, or George Elliot. Greg closes today's chat with writer Nikesh Shukla by asking what pen he chose, because not only is Nikesh writing the current Spider-Man: India miniseries (with issue #2 hitting shelves July 26th), but he was also inducted into the Society back in 2019, to join such fellow Fellows as Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Tom Stoppard, and roughly 596 other distinguished gentlefolk of English literature.

In addition to those two wonderfully dichotomous career achievements, Nikesh has written five novels, co-founded the Zhalak Prize for British or British resident writers of color, and edited two collections of essays called The Good Immigrant, which center around race, immigration, identity, and the experience of ethnic minority life in both the United Kingdom AND in the 2019 followup co-edited with Chimene Suleyman, the United States. These are issues and aspects of life never far from his thoughts or his work, as is the concept of Seva. Greg talks with Nikesh about all this and more on today's episode!

Robots From Tomorrow is a twice-monthly comics podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Orson Welles wore many hats in his day: filmmaker, actor, writer, producer, pitch man, raconteur . . .  the list goes on and on. But what can only be told now is that you can add ‘defender of the Earth’ to that list as well. 

According to Milton Lawson’s Orson Welles: Warrior of the Worlds comics project, illustrated by Renton Hawley and finally debuting from Scout Comics on August 16th, the thespian led a secret life keeping this planet safe from invaders from not only Mars, but all around the galaxy. Greg checked in with Milton to find out more about the book's long journey from idea to publication, and Welles’ life in general, both in front of and behind the camera.

Robots From Tomorrow is a twice-monthly comics podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Today's episode takes us back to a time when gods walked the earth. Oh sure, they may LOOK like four late 80's teenagers banging their way thru semi-coherent covers of rock songs, but they are, in fact, all that stands in the way of Jackson, TN suffering a biblical-level plague of . . . well . . . you'll find out in The Rock Gods of Jackson, Tennessee, the new OGN by Mike Norton & Rafer Roberts, now in comic shops from Dark Horse.

Greg talks with the duo about how to spin autobio soul-searching into the stuff of horror classics, pros & cons of working on a single release versus a longer serialized product, just what the hell a pre-press specialist does, the comics rhythm section of Allen Passalacqua and Crank!, staying focused over the long haul, and much more. All that, and the eternal debate of Metallica versus Megadeth on today’s episode!

Robots From Tomorrow is a twice-monthly comics podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

This episode was originally broadcast on February 17, 2017.

The boys are back this week, as Mike returns to the show from his sojourn abroad with thrilling tales of splendor seen and treasures purchased! He goes deep-dive into his experience at last weekend’s 2000AD 40th Anniversary Thrill Festival, both from behind the microphone and from wandering the convention floor. What kind of shindig does Tharg throw for his favorite Earthlets? How far does the American dollar go in picking up original Thrill-art? When was the last convention you went to where beer-related art accidents were a hazard to consider? Who was the artist ‘get’ of the show? All that, plus the differences in original art ideology on either side of the Atlantic, the many medias of Mark Buckingham, Rick Veitch tremor meeting Dave Gibbons sheen, recapturing comic shop wonder, solving distribution woes, and much more on today’s episode!

BONUS: Video of Mike’s “Building Worlds” panel, with Ian Edginton, INJ Culbard, D’Israeli, and Rob Williams.

Robots From Tomorrow is a weekly comics podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe & enjoy your funny books.

Today's episode returns the show to a topic apparently never too far from our thoughts: the galaxy's greatest comic 2000AD! After his recent chat with Mike Molcher where The Best of 2000AD was touched on, Mike suggested Greg reach out to today’s guest for a real deep dive into the subject. Some emails were sent, plans made, and here we are with Greg chatting with the Best Of maestro himself: Owen Michael Johnson.

The pair talk about Johnson's decidedly non-2000AD comics upbringing, the peril of curating stories from a 45-year catalog into 6 volumes, his quasi-trial-by-fire directing the 40 Years of Thrill-Power festival anniversary extravaganza for Rebellion in 2017, his colleagues at the Nerve Centre, what Big Two U.S. comics character he'd love to "Best Of", and much more! All that AND some Kirby Silver Surfer deep diving on today’s episode!

Robots From Tomorrow is a comix podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Today's episode takes us out to the farthest reaches of outer space and the even further reaches of the human emotional spectrum with the debut collaboration from illustrator Mimi Alves and writer Ben Crane: Cosmic Cadets, Vol. 1: Contact! from Top Shelf!

Greg chats with the couple about this all-ages OGN that follows a 'first contact' event for the children of the crew of the exploration vessel ESS Khonsu. Find out what goes into making all-ages material in this day & age, the importance of listening to others, the limits of universal translation, what happens when Star Trek meets Dr. Seuss, and much more! All that, plus the all-ages book that hit Greg right in the feels on today's episode!

Robots From Tomorrow is a comix podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Today's guest is writer, game designer, editor, and graphic designer Eric Trautmann. While his previous comics work has included such titles as DC's Checkmate  with Greg Rucka, Flash Gordon: Zeitgeist  with Alex Ross,  Red Sonja, Vampirella, and the Vertigo OGN Shooters with co-writer Brandon Jerwa and artist Steve Lieber, he's on the show today to talk about his new Image Comics series The Forged. Drawn by Mike Henderson, colored by Nolan Woodard, lettered by Ariana Maher, and co-written by the aforementioned Greg Rucka,  The Forged has been described by Rucka as "an over-the-top pulp adventure of sex, violence, and sci-fi inspired by Conan, Heavy Metal, and those other comics you tried to hide from your parents."

Greg gets a chance to chat with Eric about the series, its inspiration, the nature of pulp fiction in today's market, his background in roleplaying games (specifically the Star Wars license of the early 1990's), his collaborations with a wide variety of creators, how to make an evil dinosaur scientist's handwriting look real, and much more!

Robots From Tomorrow is a comix podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

Today’s guest is not only a man of his times, but several others as well. When he’s not re-enacting 17th century English civil warfare, he’s spreading the gospel of 2000AD, the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, as the now-Brand Manager of Rebellion/2000AD. But it’s his role as author of the new book I AM THE LAW: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future that brings him back to the show today. The book melds comics history with political, social, and policing scholarship to us how a comic series started in the 20th century about a lawman in the 22nd century is still showing us what we have to look forward to (and hopefully avoid) in the 21st century. It deserves to be on both college syllabi and fan bookshelves for years to come.

Nearly ten years after he helped the lads set up the Multiver-City One column that still goes strong each and every week, Michael Molcher sits down to chat with Greg about the book and all things Dredd, the surrealism of promoting his own work, the brilliance of cover artist Pye Parr, and just what the hell a Brand Manager does.

Robots From Tomorrow is a comix podcast recorded deep beneath the Earth’s surface. You can subscribe to it via iTunes or through the RSS feed at RobotsFromTomorrow.com. You can also follow Mike and Greg on Twitter. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.