Join our hosts Mike Gold and Bob Harrison as they talk about all things Pop Culture tonight. There will be special guests, including PCS’s own Ed Catto, and comic book creator and artist Jamal Igle.
You can watch the stream below, and we are also broadcasting live on our Facebook and YouTube pages.
Join our hosts Mike Gold and Bob Harrison as they talk about all things Pop Culture tonight. There will be special guests, including PCS’s own Marc Fishman, and comic writer extraordinaire Phillip Kennedy Johnson.
You can watch the stream below, and we are also broadcasting live on our Facebook and YouTube pages.
Getting an opportunity to talk with veteran comic creators is definitely one of the exciting parts of this job, but talking with up-and-coming, newer creators is equally rewarding. In the latest episode of the Pop Culture SquadCast, we spoke with Fell Hound about her upcoming graphic novel And We Love You.
This book, which will be published this month from Scout Comics, is the second book in the universe of Commander Rao. Her first book generated Ringo Award nominations, and both of them started as crowdfunded projects on Kickstarter and were subsequently picked up for widespread release by Scout.
And We Love You is a prequel to Commander Rao, and it takes place about ten years before the first story. As you will hear in the conversation with Fell, I was absolutely blown away by this comic. It is full of emotion and poignant scenes.
It was great getting a chance to talk to Fell about this excellent book.
We hope you enjoy the SquadCast below as well as our review of the book and some preview pages:
And We Love YouOriginal Solicitation:
In the throes of a violent dystopian war, a young soldier perishes on the battlefield and begins to bleed out all her memories. Mixing heart wrenching emotions with stunningly gripping visuals, this is the tale of one woman’s life, death, and the love which transcends both. A brand new epic from the world of the Ringo-nominated Commander Rao!
PCS Review: Continue reading “Spotlight SquadCast Interview and Review with Fell Hound about And We Love You”
In the latest episode of the Pop Culture SquadCast we sat down with a pair accomplished comic creators and talked about the book that they are creating together.
Both Tim Seeley and Tony Fleecs are known for creating excellent and inventive comics over the past couple of decades, and this one is off to a great start.
The two cartoonists are creating a book called Local Man that focuses on a superhero who is at a low point in his life and has to go back to his hometown and solve crimes without using his super powers.
Local Man is being published by Image Comics and issue one comes out next month.
We spent some time in our conversation talking about the interesting way that Seeley and Fleecs have worked together to create this comic. Since both have been writers and artists and letterers on comics, they are able to divide up the work in creative ways.
We also talked about their take on the state of the comic industry and what being and independent creator means today.
We hope you enjoy the conversation.
Pop Culture Squad: Let’s start off with Local Man. How fun is making this book?
Tony Fleecs: It’s pretty great. Like, I’ve done a lot of collaborating and Tim’s done a lot of collaborating and co-writing and working with people, and it’s always fun working with somebody who’s also
a writer/artist because it’s sort of like both of us. We both do things differently, but we both can sort of do the, the whole thing, which is neat. I can send something to Tim and just be like, “Can you draw on this? Or can you fix this writing or whatever?” Continue reading “Spotlight SquadCast Interview with Tony Fleecs and Tim Seeley about Their Upcoming Book Local Man”
Happy New Year! It is that time of year for renewed hope and fresh starts; so bring on the sparkles and butterflies!
The past few years have started with varying degrees of optimism for the future, and they often left the hopeful disappointed. Therefore, I have decided that this year’s resolution is to “not let 2023 suck”. I know that is ambitious, but it put’s some responsibility on me to make things happen while hoping that the magic genies send good juju my way.
I already know it is going to be an eventful year, but before we get to what’s to come, let’s look back at what we accomplished in 2022.
As we are in our fifth year of existence here at Pop Culture Squad, we had some milestones in 2022. We reached our 100,000th page view and published one hundred and twenty-three articles.
Personally, I ran some numbers, and this is what I came up with.
I will take that as a win.
Throughout my travels, I met some amazing people and had incredible conversations about comics. Some of those people have become good friends and I am better for it. Continue reading “Continued After The Next Page #021: It’s Time for Sparkles and Butterflies”
We are happy to bring you our latest spotlight interview. In this episode, we spoke to a pair of creators who have a very cool comic project coming to shops soon. Writer Cavan Scott and artist Nick Brokenshire will be debuting Dead Seas from IDW Publishing in December.
This pair of longtime collaborators have a massive list of comic work between them. We have already reviewed the first issue of their new creator-owned book Dead Seas, and we were super excited to get the opportunity to talk about it with them.
Cavan has written quite a bit of Star Wars content in novel, audio book, and comic form over the years. He also has written for properties such as Pacific Rim, Transformers, Doctor Who, Adventure Time and more. His creator owned comics include Shadow Service from Vault Comics and The Ward from Dark Horse Comics.
Nick is an comic artist who has worked on Star Wars, Transformers, and The Once And Future Queen among others.
We talked about the process of making their latest collaboration and spent some time talking about the differences of growing up a fan of the comic media in the UK verses America.
We hope you enjoy the SquadCast below and check out some of the transcribe interview even further down the page.
Pop Culture Squad: Where did this book come from?
Cavan Scott: It comes from my love of old disaster movies shown on a rainy Sunday afternoon on British television. Things obviously like Towering Inferno and the direct inspiration, The Poseidon Adventure. I love these films, and I’ve watched them many, many, many times. But as with most things, I think most things would be better if there were ghosts and monsters.
I was literally watching The Poseidon Adventure, which was linked into another project I worked on, Star Wars: The High Republic. It was one of our touchstone movies that we watched before we started working on it. And I was watching it and, and I was looking at this amazing bit of cinema and all these wonderful characters that you fall in love with, and then you lose about ten minutes later.
I started to think, “Wouldn’t it be cool if some of those came back as ghosts, as the ship was going down?” And that was where the idea came from. So, in Dead Seas you have a haunted prison ship, which at some point in the future the series will start to sink. No spoilers there really, I think we’re quite open about that.
Yeah, as there’s already ghosts on board, that number will increase, and it all came from watching that movie on that rainy afternoon.
PCS: What can you tell us about the setting of this story? Continue reading “Spotlight Squadcast Interview: Cavan Scott and Nick Brokenshire Talk About Dead Seas”
Our latest spotlight SquadCast interview is with comic editor and publisher Shelly Bond. She is a returning guest and we were able to spend some time talking about her latest project Fast Times in Comic Book Editing.
Her latest effort from Offregister Press, the company that she runs with her husband Phillip Bond, is part memoir and part editorial handbook focusing on her time working on the Vertigo Imprint at DC Comics.
She had a hand in some of the most important comics of the 90s and that helped shape her into the superstar comic editor that she is today.
We talked about Shelly’s projects including the recently completed Filth and Grammar: The Comic Editor’s Secret Handbook, and Geezer. We also talked about comic books in general and why they became her passion.
The latest book, Fast Times, is currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter and you can find out more about that project below the SquadCast recording.
We hope that you enjoy the conversation.
A Love Letter to New York City in the ’90s.
A collection of stories and comics that chart the rise and fall and rise of a career-driven editor working in New York City in the ’90s, who’s in over her head as she tries to secure a place in the male-dominated comic book industry.
FAST TIMES IN COMIC BOOK EDITING is told through a series of short comics, photo/visual montage timelines, prose, and experimental art including a satirical TTRPG “How to Climb The Corporate Ladder From Hell.” Guest writers and artists including Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson, Paul Pope, Michael Allred, Steven T. Seagle, Mike Carey, and Peter Gross provide brief encounters along the way.
At its core, FAST TIMES celebrates the hustle of monthly comics and the rustle of feathers and heart chambers—the universal love for story and longing to connect through words and pictures. Continue reading “Spotlight SquadCast Interview with Shelly Bond about Fast Times in Comic Book Editing”
A couple of weeks ago, we caught up with rising superstar comic writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson. We talked about a bunch of cool topics and published that interview on our Pop Culture SquadCast: Interview Edition. Johnson is super busy creating comics, but we talked about the three biggest announced projects that he is working on.
Recently, it was revealed that he will be writing the new series of James Bond from Dynamite Entertainment, with artist Marco Finnegan providing the visuals. That series begins next month in August.
We also spoke about what is going on in the pages of Action Comics from DC Comics where Ricardo Federici, Johnson’s partner in crime from the Last God has taken over primary art duties from Daniel Sampere.
As is usually the focus of our comic creator chats, we spent quite a bit of time talking about Phillip’s writing process and techniques. Some of that highlighted the excellent work that he has been doing on the Marvel Comics series Alien with artist Salvador Larroca.
It is always illuminating to talk to Phillip and we have transcribed some of the interesting newsy bits of the conversation below the jump. Give the SquadCast a listen and let us know what you think.
Pop Culture Squad: Let’s talk about James Bond. Congratulations on writing the new James Bond series with Dynamite Entertainment. Before we get into the series, I want to talk about who is “your James Bond” Which actor is the one that you are always going to watch.
Phillip Kennedy Johnson: Daniel Craig, for sure.
PCS: Okay, good. I personally don’t have a favorite. I love them all. What was the first Bond movie that you saw?
PKJ: <laugh> I honestly don’t remember. And the reason is it wasn’t like there was just one that came on. This one time I was staying with my stepdad’s mother for the weekend, and there was this Bond marathon on TV.
PCS: So, you watched them all at once.
PKJ: Seriously. I watched like a dozen of them probably. I fell asleep during one of them. I was like, “Oh, I guess I’m going to go to bed.” And, at the time, I remember liking Sean Connery a lot. I thought like “This guy’s super cool.” And I still feel like he’s probably the coolest of the old Bonds of the pre-Craig Bonds.
A big part of the comic and entertainment convention scene is the presence of people cosplaying as their favorite characters. It adds an exotic and textural dimension to the shows. You can see a massive variety of costumes from store bought to incredibly intricate custom made versions.
We got a chance to chat recently with one of the most iconic cosplayers at the con circuit, especially at east coast shows. Harry Crosland is a imposing figure and his long dreadlocks are as unmistakable as his infectious smile. A Maryland native, he has been cosplaying at shows for over a decade along with his wife Gina. He also is professional photographer specializing crafting fantastic and inclusive artistic representations of people cosplaying.
This interview was fun and covers topics that are important to deal with regarding respect and acceptance at our favorite nerdy gatherings. Harry (or HC or Aitch Cee) is a fantastic ambassador for geekdom and if you ever run into him, you will be glad you did.
You can listen to the audio of the interview below. We also included some of the key interactions in the conversation transcribed below.
Pop Culture Squad: I wanted start off with you telling your origin story in cosplay. What, when and how did you start getting into cosplay?
Harry Crosland: Okay, so I’m going go way, way, way back to half past 2007-ish, I would say 2007, 2008. Gina [Harry’s wife and partner], I were just starting to date and Halloween was around the corner and she’s asking me, “Well, what are you gonna dress up in?” I was like, “What do you mean what I’m gonna dress up as? You know, grown people don’t do costumes like that.” Then, I thought about it for a little bit. I wanted to do something cool. Let me just kind of test the water. So, I decided to do a Matrix costume where she took Neo’s long coat from The Matrix, and she did a hell of a job on that coat, and believe it or not, I still have it. That was my first costume.
It wasn’t until about 2008 or so when I discovered Baltimore Comic-Con. I had just started getting back into comic books at that point. I had a friend of mine who literally was calling me every week kept saying, “Man, you need to understand what’s going on in Secret Invasion.” You know what, I thought, “Let me go see what this is all about. Where can I go to talk to other people about this?”
So, in August 2008, I’m at my very first comic con in Baltimore. Of course I’m not in costume. And that’s when I started meeting other folks, Fred Holt, being among them. And at that point, that’s when I started seeing, okay, there’s a place for cosplay for grown adults. And I said to myself, after going through Baltimore, seeing all these, you know, grown folks from all different walks of life, shapes, sizes, colors, whatever, have you? I said, you know what, I’m gonna Coplay next year.
Yeah. 13 years later. So much time has gone by. And then, I got Gina into it. I got my best friend when into it.
PCS: What was it that, that drew you into saying, “I need to make this cosplay a big part of my life”? You travel for it. You put a lot of thought, a lot of effort, I’m sure, a lot of money in it.
HC: I probably got really excited in cosplay because I saw not only what it can do for myself as far as like being able to enjoy going to some of the venues, but I like inspiring other people as well. Like seeing younger folk than I, who are nerdy, who are of different backgrounds, be it black, white, Asian, Latino, heavyset, skinny. I kind of used to be tall, awkward, and gawky, and it’s like, I want to be able to do this too. How can I do the things while it’s possible? You just put your mind to it. And, and that’s one of the biggest enjoyments I get out of this.
And I believe that if you go in it really just to have fun and to take a weekend and kind of blow some steam while also, you know, dressing up as your favorite characters, you can really, really get into it, enjoy it. And if you’re someone who does happen to find an avenue to be able to profit off of it, or, or establish yourself, or make a name of yourself by all means, do it. Just remember, you gotta put work into it. This isn’t something that you’re just going to say today. “I’m just gonna throw on the costume and the entire world was gonna recognize me and my works and that’s the end.” No, no. You got to, you got to put blood, sweat and tears into this.
PCS: Can you talk about the cosplay community. As a regular attendee, but still an outsider to the community, it seems welcoming and supportive on the whole. Continue reading “Spotlight Squadcast Interview with Cosplayer and Photographer Harry Crosland”
