newsarama

Things get savage on the Hypothetical Island when Reilly and George are visited by writer David Pepose. Listen in rapt attention as they discuss the benefits of being an imaginary friend,  post apocalyptic travels down under,  the pitfalls of journalism, verbing your own name, and  creating your perfect Avengers team.

Visit our Patreon page to see the various tiers you can sign up for today to get in on the ground floor of AIPT Patreon. We hope to see you chatting with us in our Discord soon!

NEWS

1. A New Publishing Platform for Comic Books Will Give Creators a Greater Stake
2. Marvel teases ‘Destiny of X’ era of the X-Men
   1. And 3 more on Friday!
3. Newsarama reports Luke Cage may not be 100% canceled
4. Dark Horse signals final ‘Norse Mythology III’ chapter coming February 2022
5. Vault Comics announces ‘Heathen’ Vault Reserve reprint for 2022
6. Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen announce ‘Little Monsters’ for March 2022

Standout KAPOW moment of the week:

Nathan - The Me You Love in the Dark #5 (Skottie Young, Jorge Corona)

Dave - Amazing Spider-Man #80 (Cody Ziglar, Michael Dowling)

Our Top Books of the Week

Dave:

1. Gotham City Villains Anniversary Giant (2021) #1 (Various)
2. SIR EDWARD GREY: ACHERON ONE-SHOT (Mignola, Dave Stewart)

Nathan:

1. The Death of Doctor Strange: Spider-Man #1 (Jed MacKay, Marcelo Ferreira)
2. Amazing Spider-Man #80 (Cody Ziglar, Michael Dowling)

TOP BOOKS FOR NEXT WEEK 

• Dave: Hellions #18 (Zeb Wells, Ze Carlos)
• Nathan: One-Star Squadron #1 (Mark Russell, Steve Lieber)

JUDGING BY THE COVER JR.

• Dave: The Swamp Thing #10 (Bolland cover)
• Nathan: Justice League Infinity #6 (James Stokoe cover)

Segment: Interview with Cody Ziglar! 

1. Cody, what a year of comics and announcements, thank you for being on the AIPT Comics podcast! You’re part of the “Beyond Board” writing crew on ASM, can you walk us through how (and when) you were asked to join the team?
2. You’re no stranger to writers rooms with your work at Robot Chicken and Rick and Morty season 7, how does writing for comics in a writers room compare to being on the Beyond Board?
3. What do you think the secret is for Ben dialogue vs. Peter dialogue vs. Miles dialogue? How do they each quip?
4. ASM 79 and 80 have some insane hallucination sequences. What do these look like in the script - was there any moment where the final page went above and beyond what you expected?
5. Michael Dowling has crushed on ASM, is there a page that came back that blew you away?
6. The upcoming What If imagines Miles in a number of different major hero roles. What is it about Miles’ character that makes him work in all of these different settings?
7. You’re also a gamer, right? I’m assuming you’ve put some hours into Insomniac’s Spider-Man games?
8. Favorite What If story?
9. What comics are you reading right now?

OFF-TOPIC TOP SHELF: Guitar and making a punk EP

NEWS

• Diamond announces “comeback” plans for May 20
• DC eliminating preview days for LCS
• DC's GENERATION Event Absent from JULY Schedule
• DC releases July schedule
  • Batman: Three Jokers set for August
  • Dark Nights gets 2 tie-in issues, additional 7th issue, and a September break
  • Supergirl #42 is going digital-only
• Rose City Comic Con Cancelled 
• James McAvoy, a dozen other stars join Sandman audio drama
• Jeff Lemire bringing Sweet Tooth back to DC, RDJ bringing it to Netflix
• Marvel starts revealing August/September schedule
  • Maestro is getting an origin story
  • X of Swords is coming...in September
  • Mark Waid + Neal Adams collaborating on FF

AIPT BOOKCLUB: Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels

• The Story So Far: Molly and Hank Nonnar, a lovingly close elderly couple, undergo a cloning/physical perfection process called Upgrade Cell under the care of a legally shaky and potentially unethical group of scientists eventually coming face-to-face with a different, seemingly perfected version of themselves. Philosophically, dramatically and narratively dense Upgrade Soul touches on what it means to be human, beauty, family, intelligence, science, transhumanism, and ultimately love in a deft equally horrifying and beautiful story that eschews the common “what if you could be your best self” question of Superman comics and instead asks “what if you met your best self”
• What Works: Body language and set dressing, hidden intentions, lettering, balance of horror and beauty
• What Doesn’t: Frequent flashbacks confuse narrative structure, don’t see much of Molly/Hank’s younger life 
• Favorite Artistic Moment: Molly visiting Manuela, 4 grid comparing the two
• Favorite Narrative Moment: Henry at grave, 
• Where We Think This is Going: Optioned for a movie, Daniels now working on BTM FDRS

Segment: Interview: Chris Arrant - Newsarama Editor

1. Walk us through a day in the life of a Newsarama editor.
2. Can you think of a time in comics that have been as tumultuous today and with news changings so quickly? How do you keep all the different things straight?
3. The 5,000 dollar question...where do you see comics for the second half of 2020? How about 2021?
4. What do you think the comics industry can learn from overcoming this hurdle? How would you like to see publishers, distributors, and retailers react and change? 
5. What did you want to be when you were little?
6. If you could interview one comic creator living or dead for as long as you wanted, who would it be? 
7. If you could choose one comic to come out regularly during quarantine times, which would it be?
8. What comics are you reading right now?
9. You’re super active on Twitter and I’m curious, is that part of being editor at Newsarama, or is that a private endeavor?

OFF TOPIC TOP SHELF: Chris Arrant - Gardening, magazine reading