Tonight I have the awesome opportunity to be interviewed live about my history of comic collecting by The Omnidog himself, Jess Bragg! I’m incredibly excited to field his question and discuss some of my favorite books, both past and present.
Crushing Comics
Crushing Comics S01E057 – Tomb of Dracula Omnibus, Vol. 1 & Vol. 2
Despite claiming that I’m not going to do much talking while I unwrap, I briefly talk about how I haven’t explored the weirder side of shopping in Wellington before opening up the classic pair of Tomb of Dracula omnibuses. To help explain how this series came to be, I give an explanation of one of my favorite increasingly-forgotten aspects of comics history -Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent. I also get to highlight one of my all-time favorite artists, Gene Colan.
Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.
Episode 57 features Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula Omnibus Volume 1 and Volume 2.
Crushing Comics S01E056 – Learning Vocabulary from Claremont + X-Men: Age of Apocalypse Companion Omnibus
Coming off of two episodes of unwrapping intense Claremont X-Men books, I talk a little bit about how reading classic comics built my vocabulary and how the loss of narration boxes has really limited the narrative power of comics. Then, I unwrap the Age of Apocalypse Companion and sift through its material to explain what is and isn’t essential in this tag-along book.
Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.
Episode 65 features the X-Men: Age of Apocalypse Companion Omnibus. For more on Age of Apocalypse, visit the Guide to Marvel Events.
Crushing Comics S01E055 – Why I can’t meditate + X-Men: Fall of the Mutants
As I unwrap today’s book, I talk about my inability to meditate in the traditional “relaxed mind” version of meditation. For me, meditation comes from engaging my brain in something. For some people that’s a zen koan, but for me it’s more like alphabetizing books or organizing files.
The book I unwrap after all that musing is X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, the “crossover that was not.” I explain how it began the unravelling of the main X-Men team and how it marked the highlight of Louise Simonson’s run on X-Factor.
Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.
Episode 55 features X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, covered in the Guide to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont.
Crushing Comics S01E054 – X-Men Inferno & Operation: Zero Tolerance (+ the vicarious thrill of natural disasters)
As I unwrap I talk about the combined thrill and terror of living through natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. I always said that Philly was relatively immune to such apocalyptic events, but now I live right on a fault line (and right on the water).
Then, I open what might be the most sought-after X-Men hardcover today – Inferno! Is the story worth all of the hype and high prices? I walk you through how it came to be, including a brief history of Madelyne Pryor, and speculate if it was Chris Claremont’s way of “fixing” his master plan after the debut of X-Factor. (I have much less to say about Operation Zero Tolerance.)
Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.
Episode 54 features X-Men: Inferno and X-Men: Operation Zero Tolerance, which are covered in the guides to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont and X-Men (1991), respectively.