Shows / Deconstructing Comics
Episodes
- Deconstructing Comics
#852 Dan Schkade and “Flash Gordon”
In 2023, King Features Syndicate decided to bring Flash Gordon, originally created by Alex Raymond and first published in 1934, back from rerun purgatory with…
- Deconstructing Comics
#358 Carl Barks, “The Good Duck Artist”
From 1942 to 1966, many of the Donald Duck comic books published by Dell Comics were written and drawn by Carl Barks. Like most comic book creators at the…
- Deconstructing Comics
#851 Jack Kirby’s “Cap and Falcon” 212-213: “I love you, baby!”
Captain America and the Falcon #212 concludes the Arnim Zola/Red Skull storyline in somewhat perfunctory fashion, and gives a living castle with big teeth much…
- Deconstructing Comics
Critiquing Comics #245: “Joe Mallard” 4-6 and “Dream Machine”
Joe Mallard, a favorite of Tim and Jason’s from a year ago, is back! Creator Asante Amani has sent us issues 4-6 of this crime series. Did it go over…
- Deconstructing Comics
#850 “Fantastic Four: First Steps” (2025): Did it live up to the hype?
We’ve been building up to it for months with our reviews of previous Fantastic Four movies. Now it’s here, the FF’s debut in the MCU…
- Deconstructing Comics
#849 “Almost Sunset”: Wahab Algarmi on growing up Muslim in America
This week, Koom interviews Wahab Algarmi, author of Almost Sunset, a graphic novel about a Muslim American boy’s search for balance between his family…
- Deconstructing Comics
#848 “More Weight”: Ben Wickey talks Salem witch trials
Ben Wickey has created a graphic novel, More Weight: A Salem Story, that gives us a very deep dive into the Salem witch trials: why they happened, who was to…
- Deconstructing Comics
“Spider-Man 3” (2007)
The film is bloated, it’s busy, it showcases numerous failures at human communication, and doesn’t hit some points it needs to. And yet, Spider-Man…
- Deconstructing Comics
“Spider-Man 2” (2004)
To this day, Spider-man 2 is considered one of the best superhero movies. How does it stand up to Tim’s first viewing, after watching all the MCU movies…
- Deconstructing Comics
“Spider-Man” (2002)
Tim and Mulele begin reviewing the Sony (pre-MCU) Spider-man movies with a look at 2002’s Spider-man, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire…
- Deconstructing Comics
Critiquing Comics #244: “God Summoner” and “The Keluarga Cable Ship Company”
This week, a look at two great new comics submitted by their creators: God Summoner, by Dio Zogaris and Manos Laouvardos, is a story in the fantasy genre. Tim…
- Deconstructing Comics
#780 Jim Shooter interview
FLASHBACK! Jim Shooter, who was Marvel Editor-in-Chief from 1978 to 1987, passed away on June 30. He wrote a number of comics published by Marvel (including…
- Deconstructing Comics
#847 “Angel and the Ape”: Forgotten, but not gone
In the 1960s, both Marvel and DC tried publishing humor books, often in a style reminiscent of MAD Magazine. One of these was DC’s Angel and the Ape…
- Deconstructing Comics
#846 Pow! Crack! Breaking down comics sound effects
Art by Don Martin POW! ZAP! Comics may not be for kids anymore, but they still have sound effects! Our own Patrick Ijima-Washburn noticed that Japanese…
- Deconstructing Comics
#845 Jack Kirby’s “Cap and Falcon” 209-211: An Uncle Sam Person
While the last three issues of Captain America and the Falcon we looked at were rather underwhelming, issues 209 to 211 give us all the kooky science fiction…
- Deconstructing Comics
#844 The Fantastic Four on Film: “Fant4stic” (2015) pt 2: WTF does Doom want??
We conclude our look at 2015’s Fant4stic, directed by Josh Trank. Trank’s behavior on the set (and on Twitter) have been nothing but bad for his…
- Deconstructing Comics
#843 The Fantastic Four on Film: “Fant4stic” (2015) pt 1
Should a director re-interpret a property when nobody wanted it re-interpreted? 2015’s Fant4stic, directed by Josh Trank, turns getting superpowers into…
- Deconstructing Comics
#842 Struggling with Kit Anderson’s “Second Shift”
After the (connected) short stories of Safer Places, Kit Anderson‘s new book is a full-on graphic novel called Second Shift (again from Avery Hill) which…
- Deconstructing Comics
#633 “Eileen Gray: A House Under the Sun”
FLASHBACK! Eileen Gray: A House Under the Sun is a slim graphic novel by Charlotte Malterre-Barthes and Zosia Dzierzawska, about the titular famous Irish…
- Deconstructing Comics
#841 Ken Krimstein on Einstein, Kafka, and comics in general
Ken Krimstein‘s Einstein in Kafkaland: How Albert Fell Down the Rabbit Hole and Came up with the Universe builds on the fact that these two stars of the…
- Deconstructing Comics
#840 Joe Sacco’s books on the Middle East
Joe Sacco has been covering the Israel-Palestine conflict in varying forms since 1991: first in Palestine, then in Footnotes in Gaza, and most recently in War…
- Deconstructing Comics
#385 The Legacy of “Starman”
FLASHBACK! The 1990s DC series Starman is one of comicdom’s most fondly remembered series. Interestingly, says series author James Robinson, it seems to be…
- Deconstructing Comics
Critiquing Comics #243: “Fables of Fear” and “Black Plastic”
Fables of Fear is an anthology horror title by Karl Brandt and David Parsons. Tim and Adam discuss; there are some good short stories here, but maybe…
- Deconstructing Comics
#559 Drawn & Quarterly and Canadian comics
FLASHBACK! This week a wide-ranging discussion between two Canadians, Koom and Ian, about comics in Canada. The talk centers on Montreal-based publisher Drawn…
- Deconstructing Comics
#210 Jillian Tamaki interview(s)
FLASHBACK! Skim is a coming-of-age graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki, and drawn by her cousin Jillian Tamaki. Jillian works primarily in the field of…
- Deconstructing Comics
#839 The Fantastic Four on Film: “Rise of the Silver Surfer” (2007)
This week we look at the movie that was based on the “Galactus Trilogy” of Fantastic Four #48-50, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. How…
- Deconstructing Comics
#838 The Fantastic Four on Film: The Galactus Trilogy
One of the most famous Fantastic Four stories is the “Galactus Trilogy” from Fantastic Four 48-50 in 1966. This story has been adopted more than…
- Deconstructing Comics
#837 Jack Kirby’s Captain America 206-208: The Tiger, the Swine…and the Fish
When Steve and Sam foil an attempt by police from south of the border to arrest their friendly waiter, the cops decide to arrest Steve instead! Hey, beats…
- Deconstructing Comics
#836 “Clyde Fans” reviewed by two fans
In Clyde Fans by Seth, two brothers run a fan company for fifty years. One might expect it to be prosaic, but instead it’s an immersive and epic…
- Deconstructing Comics
#835 “Raised by Ghosts”: A time capsule, but relevant to anyone who’s been a teen
Briana Loewinsohn, who got a lot of praise two years back for her graphic memoir Ephemera, is back with a new book, Raised by Ghosts. It’s a slightly…
- Deconstructing Comics
#834 Jack Kirby’s “Cap and Falcon” vs a bodybuilding corpse
What’s that Kirby Crackle octopus chasing Cap and Falcon? And didn’t it used to be an oddly muscular, bald (naturally) corpse? It’s Agron…
- Deconstructing Comics
#833 Jack Kirby’s “Cap and Falcon” 201-203: Who are “the Night People”?
The Night People are looking for a superhero. But who are the Night People? Where do they come from? And what does one have to sacrifice to become their…
- Deconstructing Comics
#832 Michael Cohen: Comics price guides, “Peanuts”, and more
Michael Cohen has created comics such as Strange Attractors and Tangled River, and is credited with helping to create the first known comic book price guide…
- Deconstructing Comics
#831 The Fantastic Four on Film: “Fantastic Four” (2005) pt 2: What does Doom want?!
While the 2005 film Fantastic Four gives us, debatably, a well-casted group of heroes, with plenty of comics-accurate details, the script does no favors to Dr…
- Deconstructing Comics
Critiquing Comics #242 “The Star Tide Shores” vol. 1
The Star Tide Shores is an action space adventure comic that isn’t afraid to get a little deeper emotionally than, say, Star Wars. Tim and Adam enjoyed…
- Deconstructing Comics
#830 The Fantastic Four on Film: “Fantastic Four” (2005) pt 1: “I am hot, and I’m not afraid to cry”
After the fiasco of the 1994 unreleased Fantastic Four movie, development proceeded on a big-budget FF film, which finally hit theaters in 2005 — a…
- Deconstructing Comics
#829 Jack Kirby’s “Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles”
Captain America was the obvious choice of a character to help Marvel celebrate the USA’s bicentennial in 1976. The job of doing that went to Jack Kirby…
- Deconstructing Comics
#828 Japan’s mythical “oni” in manga
Oni are mythical monsters similar to the ogres of Western tradition. Like many of the legendary Japanese creatures, their characteristics are often adopted for…
- Deconstructing Comics
#827 “Cross Game” Omnibus 2: Subtle Shifts
The second omnibus volume of Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game focuses largely on a scrimmage between the varsity team and the “portables”, which…
- Deconstructing Comics
#826 Hugh D’Andrade’s “The Murder Next Door”: Your trauma is your trauma
When Hugh D’Andrade was ten years old, his next door neighbor was mysteriously murdered, and he saw the body. In his forthcoming graphic memoir The…
- Deconstructing Comics
#825 Brad Guigar talks promoting your webcomic, even (especially?) if it’s NSFW!
Brad Guigar, creator of Evil Inc., has been putting his comics on the Web for over 20 years, and this week he’s here to talk about how he made that his…
- Deconstructing Comics
“Spider-Man: Far from Home” (2019)
Tim is now completely caught up with the MCU! Mulele joins him to discuss the most recently released (as of this episode’s recording) Marvel Cinematic…
- Deconstructing Comics
#824 “Eternals” (2021): Where it went wrong (and right!)
Now that we’ve become familiar with Jack Kirby‘s original Eternals comics, repeatedly referring to the 2021 MCU film along the way, it’s time…
- Deconstructing Comics
Critiquing Comics #241: “The Shapes” #4: El Puro
Samuel Edme’s comic The Shapes is… a bit hard to pin down. It looks like notebook scribblings, it has its faults, but it seems to have found an…
- Deconstructing Comics
#823 Jack Kirby’s “Eternals,” #17-19: Lots o’ Ikaris (or Ikarus?)
We’ve reached the end of Jack Kirby‘s Eternals series. Sure, it was a weird series, but introducing a Hulk robot apparently did little for the…
- Deconstructing Comics
#822 The Fantastic Four on Film: “The Fantastic Four” (1994) (part two) Why wasn’t the film released?
The 1994 film The Fantastic Four seems to have been made with the expectation, at least from producer Roger Corman on down, that it would be released. While…
- Deconstructing Comics
#821 The Fantastic Four on Film: “The Fantastic Four” (1994), a Roger Corman production (part one)
By the early ’90s, Superman and Batman were blockbuster movie franchises, but Marvel had yet to find a way to get a big-budget film made based on their…
- Deconstructing Comics
#820 Jack Kirby’s “Eternals,” #14-16: The Coming of…. The Editor!
Jack Kirby‘s The Eternals was not a conventional superhero book. It didn’t even seem to take place in the Marvel Universe. By issue 14, it appears…
- Deconstructing Comics
#819 We catch up with “The Re-up” and “Amazing Tales”
This week we catch up with the work of two DCP favorites, Chad Bilyeu and David Dye! Chad’s series The Re-up, about his time as a pot dealer 20 years ago…
- Deconstructing Comics
#818 Requiems: “Ghost Band” and “Grimm’s Assistant”
If you’ve ever felt like your city left you before you left your city, Jason McNamara’s Ghost Band is for you. Tim and Emmet discuss this…
- Deconstructing Comics
“Avengers: Endgame” (2019)
Tim gets ever closer to catching up with the MCU! Tim and Mulele discuss Avengers: Endgame‘s time-travel explanation (and problems), Captain…
- Deconstructing Comics
#437 “Real” is a slam dunk
FLASHBACK! Sports have rarely been subject matter for comics in the US; perhaps comics’ inherent static-ness has seemed antithetical to an activity with so…
- Deconstructing Comics
Critiquing Comics #240: “The Night Brigade” and “Joe Mallard”
Most Americans know little about the Crimean War (1853-1856). Adam McGovern and Bruno Letizia’s The Night Brigade may go some way toward filling us in on that…
- Deconstructing Comics
#817 Jack Kirby’s “Eternals”, 1977 Annual + #13: Fun “Eternals” stories with few Eternals
We left the Eternals joined together in the Unimind. The 1977 Annual doesn’t clearly fit into continuity, but features only one Eternal, Thena, together…
- Deconstructing Comics
#816 Chester Brown interview: “Paying for It,” the movie
Chester Brown’s work has come up on this show a number of times over the years. We’ve discussed Ed the Happy Clown, Louis Riel, and Paying for It. He’s…
- Deconstructing Comics
#593 “Reading ‘Nancy’”, plus “Cat and Mouse”!
FLASHBACK! A comic strip gag can be a deceptively simple thing. Once you take it apart — “deconstruct” it, one might say — you find…
- Deconstructing Comics
Critiquing Comics #239: “Let’s Go, Coco” and “Digital Bardos”
What does an 11-year-old do when her “only friend” moves away? In Coco Fox’s “sorta” memoir Let’s Go, Coco, she joins the…
- Deconstructing Comics
#338 Everything’s Archie!
FLASHBACK! It’s been more than 70 years now since the debut of Archie comics, featuring (though not quite from the beginning) America’s favorite love triangle…