The High Five Episode 4 – Five Incredible Black Comic Creators

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On this week, I’m celebrating Black History Month by running down five of my all time favorite black comic creators. This was a delightful trip down memory lane, but also a great look at some of the greatest comic writers and artists around. I hope you enjoy it!

If you’re interested in the links I mentioned in the episode, here’s the CBR interview I did about Goldie Vance. If you want to find out more about McDuffie being let go from Justice League of America, you can read the initial Lying In The Gutters column here and then the news itself about him being ousted here. Finally, enjoy a few pics I snapped while putting this episode together including the fantastic Kyle Rayner sketch Darryl Banks did for me!

The High Five Podcast Episode 2 – Body Swaps

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I threw all my plans out the window when I got a very cool package in the mail from a cool PR person! As a result, you’ll have to wait to find out more of my favorite 2020 film experiences and instead dive into my all-time favorite body swap stories from TV, animation, movies and comics!

The High Five Podcast Episode 1 – My Favorite Comics & Books Of 2020

Posted on by TJDietsch

Hi gang, as you can tell from the title here, I’m launching a brand new podcast called The High Five. The idea is that I love pop culture so much and want to get the word out to as many people as possible, so I’m creating High Five lists each week that celebrate the worlds of film, TV, comics, books, toys, music and even other podcasts!

To kick things off, I’m doing a series of episodes looking back on the very bad year that was 2020 with an eye towards some of the great media I put into my brain. This first one gets into my favorite comic and book reading experiences of the year. You might notice a lack of horror titles and that’s because I’m going to do a whole separate list focusing on just that genre for most of these categories because I absorb so much of it.

The High Five Podcast Episode 1 – Best Comics & Books Of 2020

I hope you enjoy the episode. If you’re looking for a rundown of what I talked about, hit the jump and see the comics and books as well as some other helpful links!

Continue reading The High Five Podcast Episode 1 – My Favorite Comics & Books Of 2020

Trade Post: Hellblazer & The Goon

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I really can’t understate how influential Wizard was to me as a budding comics fan. I’d been going to the comic shop for a few years by the time I discovered the mag at a mall book store. I started out reading Superman and Batman comics and added other DC comics because I knew about them from the house ads, but it wasn’t until Wizard that I really began to learn more about comics as a whole. I’ve always been pretty risk-averse and budget conscious, so it took an extra push to spend my limited funds on something new. With Wizard, I found a group of writers who opened up my world to all sorts of new books I’d never heard of including, but not limited to Hellblazer and The Goon, both of which I’m writing about here today!

Read on!

Halloween Scene: A 70s Marvel 5-Pack!

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Back in the day, I used to do recurring posts here on UM called The Box wherein I would grab some random comics from a huge box my inlaws gave me and give them a read. I thought it would be fun to do something similar, but with a somewhat narrower focus on horror comics from those same boxes (though now they have a special place on my comic shelves). As it turned out, I had a bunch of 70s Marvel horror comics, so I jumped right in with those! Horror had a nice resurgence at this time because the Comics Code loosened some of its restrictions. In these five comics I’ve got Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Son of Satan and all sorts of anthology tales!

Enter, if you dare…

Halloween Scene Trade Post: A Mike Mignola Trio

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I’ve spilled a lot of digital ink this season talking about how much I love Kelley Jones’ work, especially on Batman (in posts here and here), but there’s another artist whose work is synonymous with horror in my mind: Mike Mignola. The genius behind Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. has done all sorts of work in the comics world and this post will give some love to a few of his other works that are lots of spooky fun! Here are some interesting comics you might want to check out if you don’t want to dive too deeply into those sprawling epics.

Enter, if you dare…

Halloween Scene Trade Poster: The Darkness

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I can’t really understate how important Wizard magazine was to me during my formative comic-buying years in the 90s. I’d already become a die-hard DC fan before I discovered the magazine, but it became this window into a much larger comic landscape of companies ranging from Marvel and Dark Horse to those guys doing crazy things at Image (though this was admittedly a year or two after the initial boom). I still remember how much they hyped certain books, though, and The Darkness from Top Cow is one such example! I recently borrowed the first and second volumes of the Darkness Origins trades from Hoopla and had a fun time with them!

enter, if you dare…

Halloween Scene: Batman By Doug Moench & Kelley Jones Part 2

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I’ve been having a great time watching connected films and a variety of horror books this season, but it’s very possible that re-visiting the Batman run by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones has been one of my favorite experiences so far. As I mentioned in the first part, these post-KnightFall books were bedrock-forming for my knowledge of not just the Dark Knight, but also the imagery of horror as put through Jones’ incredibly capable lens. As good as the Batman developments are in these issues as he regains his life after the Bane and Azrael incidents, it’s equally exciting to see these two creators work their magic on a variety of villains and co-stars.

Enter, if you dare…

Halloween Scene: My Horror Toys Part 2

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Last week, I showed you all a detailed view of half of the mostly-monsters toys I lined up in my office this year to get into the Halloween spirit. The first batch included a Masters Of The Universe Classics giant, one of Jack Kirby’s hottest creations, Buffy, a trio of Stranger Things characters, my guy Beetlejuice, a pair of Hellboys and horror icons like Frankenstein’s Monster, Freddy Krueger and Pinhead! Want to see who else made the cut [cue cleaver chopping sound effect]?

Enter, if you dare…

Halloween Scene: The Supernaturals

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I’m sure like me, a lot of my fellow comic fans out there love stumbling across a book you’ve never heard of, but that feels right up your alley. I had that when I saw a book from 1998-1999 called The Supernaturals. From the cover I could see that this four issue mini included some of Marvel’s great mystical characters like Brother Voodoo, Ghost Rider and Satana. Cool. I love those guys and gals. I’m in! So, on the MyComicShop wish list it went and recently I grabbed them. How’d it go? Hmm…let’s find out.

Entre, if you dare…