AuthorBrandon Schatz

Quite Quiet.

And he disappears for a while. Of course he does.

  1. A couple of weeks ago, I posted a piece on Archie Comics over at Comics Beat and the damn thing disappeared. There are reasons for this that I may or may not discuss later, but keep an eye out for a similar article to go up early next week.
  2. This weekend, I will be attending my sister’s wedding, and man, I’m already stressing. I’m not even a big part of the wedding. Or well… I think I’m supposed to play a piano song at some point and I’m definitely supposed to MC the supper. So there’s that. But as for planning? Not so much. Anyway, still a little stressed, as we have this wedding and another to attend before we head off on our vacation and time is… condensing? I think. It’s weird.
  3. I’ve set some impossible goals to hit in terms of content. I think it will help me focus on doing some things, if not all things, and help me keep on track. I mean, if I aim for the impossible, but can be pleased with what amounts to a decent amount of content, that’s still good, right? Right.
  4. I started Variant Edition last week, and I didn’t post about it here. There will be something more substantial about it tomorrow, mark my words. MARK THEM.

And I’m out. We’ll talk soon, I promise. Almost definitely. Probably. Maybe.

Doctor Whooch // Episode 030 // Hand of OHMAWGAHD

In which we anger the liquor gods for the sake of your entertainment.

In this week’s episode, we reach the end of the line in our exploration of the first eight Doctors with the Slyvester McCoy serial “Remembrance of the Daleks” where the Doctor and his companion Ace fight the OH MY GOD IS THAT GEOFFREY FROM THE FRESH PRINCE??!?? It is!!!

…I’m sorry, where were we? Oh. Yeah, um, the Doctor and Ace fight Daleks and racism in the 60s during Doctor Who’s 25th year on the air, and it’s a whole thing. We talk about it. Then we talk about Guardians of the Galaxy a whole lot, because… you guys, it’s pretty rad. And we like space travellers.

Outro music is “Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone.

Podcast picture is by GIRL NAMED SHIRL PHOTOGRAPHY

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Doctor Whooch // Episode 029 // Getting Blitzed

In which we’re dying for your entertainment!

On this episode, we finally get to the end of Torchwood Series One with the episodes “Captain Jack Harkness” and “End of Days”. One of them was really good, and one of them was something else. We’ll give you a hint as to which was which: Captain Jack Harkness featured two Jack Harkness’ making out a little, and the other one was dumb.

Outro music is “Blitzkrieg Bop (feat. Chepito)” by Glambeats Corp.

Podcast picture is by GIRL NAMED SHIRL PHOTOGRAPHY

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Comics // Selling (Or Not Selling) Batman

(In advance of a longer article over at Comics Beat.)

In October, DC’s current best selling title (Batman) will be starting a new story arc. What can you tell us about the story, DC?

From the superstar creative team that brought you a new start to the Caped Crusader comes the story that could end him.”

Hmm. Okay, sounds… well, sounds like every superhero story out there, but we’re at the first sentence. Surely you’ve got a good hook coming down the line.

Be there in October for the biggest, deadliest and most epic story yet from writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo – ‘Batman: Endgame’ begins here!”

…um… right. Cool. That’s it? Wait, surely the cover has more information… or at least a cool tease…

Batman #35

Huh.

Okay, yes, I get it that the new Batman arc is going to sell because… well, Batman is currently selling – but the goal should always, always be to move more copies. This solicit gives me no information to sell the book with, so I will inevitably be selling it to the customers who are currently buying Batman – which is a shame, because this will be the first opportunity to sell new readers on the book in over a year.

(And no, I’m not counting whatever ridiculousness DC’s September Future’s End event will bring – that issue, as with all the tie-in issues, will have little if not nothing to do with the ongoing story lines within Batman. So.)

I get that it’s Batman, and I get that you’re going to move copies, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to be lazy. This book could be doing even better with the right marketing. Someone please make this happen.

C!TB // Currently Reading Transmet

So today I wrote a brief ramble about how I’ve yet to read Transmetropolitan all the way through and how it’s effecting me today. I’ve been toying with using Comics! The Blog as more of a catch all service about what I’m currently reading and enjoying about comics, with the occasional deeper article, and it’s the first article using that line of thinking. We’ll see where it goes.

Introducing // Variant Edition

So I’ve finally announced Variant EditionIt’s something that’s been a long time coming, having it’s roots in the #YEGgeek hashtag that I started spreading after receiving a bit of local attention quite a few years ago. Originally, the hashtag was going to be a prelude to an organization. This failed to happen for a myriad of different reasons, but the idea still stuck with me. So yeah, now it’s Variant Edition, a one-man operation bent on recommending comics to the masses without judgement or back biting. The site officially launches on August 1st (my birthday) and there’s a lot of prep work to be done between now and then – but man, am I excited for what’s to come.

A few secret tidbits for those who follow this blog: during the opening week, I’m going to be showcasing a great up and coming talent who has a mini-series coming out from a small publisher in the coming weeks, and as a cool bonus, I’ve been given the go ahead to hand out their first published work for free on the site as we promote the new book. Crazy, right? Whelp, that’s the kind of thing we’ll be doing. Crazy shit. Are you ready?

Elsewhere: Summer Reading on Terra Informa

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A few months back Chris Chang-Yen Phillips of Terra Informa stopped by the store to talk about some sci-fi series that had something the say about The Future and various effects on the environment – and this past week, the episode unspooled on CJSR.

Head over here if you want to hear my dulcet tones talk about Wasteland (by Antony Johnston, Chris Mitten, and a smattering of others), The Massive (by Brian Wood and others), and Deadenders (by Ed Brubaker and Warren Pleece). My bit starts about… 10 minutes in? Or hey, you can just give the whole show a listen. I highly recommend it.

Doctor Whooch // Episode 028 // A Wahlberg-Lawrence Production

In which we discover who our Funky Bunch is.

While watching (and we use the term watching loosely) the Sixth Doctor serial Vengeance on Varos we got really tipsy and lost track of this episode pretty early on. Want some talk about JTT? How about Devin Sawa? Or hey, what’s Mark Wahlberg been doing lately? (While we were editing this episode, we discovered that Mark Wahlberg is not hungry, but is a movie starring giant metal Care Bears which did pretty okay. Who knew?) The answers to this AND MORE, on this week’s episode!

Outro music is “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” by Afrocentrixxx.

Podcast picture is by GIRL NAMED SHIRL PHOTOGRAPHY

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State of Vague and Menacing Events

Not quite a month away from the personal blog. Sadly, this is better than my usual attempts. Shall we?

01. July sees the building of personal insanity to a fever pitch. I’ve become quite enamoured with using my birthday as a personal launching point of sorts, taking the opportunity of ticking ever closer to the unending void to regroup and conquer a new year. In the past, the results have been mixed. I suspect this year will be more of the same. However.

02. Keep an eye on Variant Edition for some very exciting news. As it stands, I’m counting down to the site’s launch on August 1st on various bits of social media. In the five days running up to the launch, I’ll be unleashing the premise of the thing, and what I hope to accomplish with it… for the immediate future, anyway. As always, stay tuned for more.

03. My articles over at Comics Beat keep running. I usually aim for one in depth piece a week, alongside several smaller bits, as it fits my purview. Expect links to a piece on how and why some launches and relaunches work, and why others explode on the runway.

04. As for Comics! The Blog? It’s still humming along. You’ll notice that many of the regular features have disappeared slowly over the past while. I doubt that will change any time soon – the creative juices, they are changing, and there are some personal circumstances that are preventing the blog from functioning at full capacity. I should note: this doesn’t mean things won’t keep going there, nor does it mean that James and I still aren’t interested in doing the bloggity things or hanging with each other. Nothing has changed on the WHY we do the site, just maybe the HOW. Look for bigger and better as we go.

05. As for this blog? I think I’ll finally start using it for what I intended – a catch all for my stuff, as well as the occasional exclusive article. It looks like more and more of my efforts will be focused on a wider variety of sites soon enough, so it will be nice to have a place that acts as a nice firm glove, catching all the… articles that… baseball metaphor. But yeah, like I said, we’ll see how that goes. Until tomorrow, good folks…

Doctor Whooch // Episode 027 // Christmas Feels

In which Torchwood treats us to a nice holiday tale of assisted suicide.

We’re back with Captain Jack in this week and things get… happy? No, no, this is Torchwood, so things gets sad and sexy and sadnsexy. It’s like schadenfreunde, but less German. Anyway, we watched “Out of Time” (Series One, Episode Ten) and “Combat” (Series One, Episode Eleven) and drank and laughed until we cried and cried and cried.

Outro music is “September” by Sisqo and Vitamin C. Yeah, you read that right.

Podcast picture is by GIRL NAMED SHIRL PHOTOGRAPHY.

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