On the Next Major Spoilers Podcast: Elmer

This week, on the Major Spoilers Podcast, Stephen, Rodrigo, and Matthew take a look at another talking animal book – Elmer by Gerry Alanguilan.

From Publishers Weekly

Jake Gallo is an angry young man, frustrated at his lack of employment and easily provoked by perceived slights. It is not until we are several pages into the book that we discover that he is also a talking, thinking chicken. He is no anomaly; decades earlier, all of chickenkind suddenly gained intelligence and speech; by the 2000s they are legally human. Jake’s father’s illness and subsequent death lead Jake to read his father’s account of the early days after the change; this in turn allows Alanguilan to show the reader the often horrific sequence of events that followed chickenkind’s sudden elevation to sapience. Used to seeing chickens as food or worse, humans are not shown at their best as they react, often violently, to this sudden alteration of the natural order.

As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.

Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us your thoughts, or if you want to share your thoughts on the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind drop us a line. Only the most awesome comments (positive and negative) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!

On the Next Major Spoilers Podcast: Maus II: And here my troubles began

This week on the Major Spoilers Podcast, the crew pick up the second volume of Maus by Art Spiegelman.

From Library Journal

Spiegelman’s Maus, A Survivor’s Tale (Pantheon, 1987) was a breakthrough, a comic book that gained widespread mainstream attention. The primary story of that book and of this sequel is the experience of Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, a Polish Jew who survived the concentration camps of Nazi Germany during World War II. This story is framed by Spiegelman’s getting the story from Vladek, which is in turn framed by Spiegelman’s working on the book after his father’s death and suffering the attendant anxiety and guilt, the ambivalence over the success of the first volume, and the difficulties of his “funny-animal” metaphor. (In both books, he draws the char acters as anthropomorphic animals– Jews are mice, Poles pigs, Germans cats, Americans dogs, and French frogs.) The interconnections and complex characterizations are engrossing, as are the vivid personal accounts of living in the camps. Maus and Maus . . . II are two of the most important works of comic art ever published.

As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.

Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us your thoughts, or if you want to share your thoughts on the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind drop us a line. Only the most awesome comments (positive and negative) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!

Major Spoilers Poll of the Week (POW!): SyFy Original Movies Edition

We all love Science Fiction movies, and the Sci-Fi SyFy Channel does a bang up job with cranking out some of the strangest original sci-fi movies we’ve ever seen.  Take Sharktopus and Gatoroid for example; a giant alligator and a shark-octopus hybrids. Champions both, showcasing the pinnacle of movie storytelling.

But it does bring up an interesting question; If Gatoroid and Sharktopus were put in a tank to fight it out to the death, who would win?

FIGHT!

Gatoroid vs. Sharktopus? FIGHT!

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On the Next Major Spoilers Podcast: Maus

Comics can be fun, and comics can be serious.  This week, the Major Spoilers crew takes a look at Maus by Art Spiegelman.

From the Wiki:
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, by Art Spiegelman, is a biography of the author’s father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek’s life in Poland before and during the Second World War and Vladek’s later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of New York City. The work is a graphic narrative in which Jews are depicted as mice, while Germans are depicted as cats. It is the only comic book ever to have won a Pulitzer Prize.

As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.

Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us your thoughts, or if you want to share your thoughts on the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind drop us a line. Only the most awesome comments (positive and negative) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!

On the Next Major Spoilers Podcast: I Kill Giants

This week, on the Major Spoilers Podcast, the crew of three take a look at I Kill Giants from Image Comics.

It’s a story about a girl who’s a bit of an outsider – she’s smart-assed and funny, but totally in our geekland: she’s obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons, she doesn’t have a lot of friends, she’s a bit of a social misfit. She’s taken her fantasy life a little far, and really only talks about giants to people. She’s convinced that giants are real and giants are coming, and it’s her responsibility to stop them when they show up. This weird little fantasy life that she’s going has started seeping into her real life, and as we see things from her point of view, we see that she sees pixies and she sees signs in the clouds and other things that might be telling her that bad things might be coming.

As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.

Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us your thoughts, or if you want to share your thoughts on the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind drop us a line. Only the most awesome comments (positive and negative) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!

Major Spoilers Poll of the Week (POW!): Johnny Quest Edition

When it comes to parody that goes to the next level, The Venture Brothers show that you don’t have to be a one gimmick show to make something work right… or something.  This week, the powers that be have taken Race Bannon and tossed him in the ring with Brock Samson to see which will make it out alive.

VOTE!

FIGHT! Race Bannon or Brock Samson?

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On the Next Major Spoilers Podcast (277): Okko: The Cycle of Water

This week, on the Major Spoilers Podcast, the crew takes a look at Okko: The Cycle of Water from Archaia.

The Cycle of Water was originally published as a two-issue mini-series by Delcourt in 2005, and has been reprinted by Archaia Studios Press as a four-issue mini-series (2006–2007).

The year is 1108 in the official calendar of the Pajan Empire. Far from the fields of battle, Okko the ronin heads a small group of demon hunters, wandering the realms of Empire. He is accompanied by Noburo, a mysterious giant who hides his face behind a red oni mask, and the whimsical monk Noshin, the saké lover with the power to summon and commune with the spirits of nature.

The young fisherman Tikku enlists the group’s help in finding his sister, the geisha Little Carp, who was kidnapped by pirates. But the quest will have a price, and will lead our four heroes much farther afield than they’d ever imagined…

As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.

Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us your thoughts, or if you want to share your thoughts on the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind drop us a line. Only the most awesome comments (positive and negative) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!

On the Next Major Spoilers Podcast: Saga of the Swamp Thing

This week, on the Major Spoilers Podcast, the crew take a gander at Alan Moore’s Saga of the Swamp Thing, Book 1.

From 1983 through 1987, a young British writer named Alan Moore revolutionized the American comic book. His groundbreaking tenure on DC Comics’ SWAMP THING set new standards for graphic storytelling and touched off a revolution in the medium that is still expanding today. Building on the title’s framework of gothic horror with a remarkably intuitive narrative style and an unprecedented depth of characterization, Moore’s vision was realized through the hauntingly beautiful artwork of such collaborators as Stephen Bissette, John Totleben, Dan Day and Rick Veitch. The result is one of comics’ most enduring masterpieces.

Now, for the first time, Moore’s entire run — including his never-before-reprinted debut issue — is available in archival hardcover editions. This first volume, collecting issues 20-27 of THE SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING, also features a foreword by famed horror author Ramsey Campbell and a new introduction by Swamp Thing co-creator and original series editor Len Wein.

As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.

Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us your thoughts, or if you want to share your thoughts on the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind drop us a line. Only the most awesome comments (positive and negative) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!

Major Spoilers Poll of the Week (POW!): Summer Comic Book Edition

There are a number of comic book movies headed to the big screen this summer.  The studios are trying to grab your dollars, and here’s your chance to give them an idea of what movie you are most looking forward to seeing.

VOTE!

What comic book movie are you most looking forward to in 2011?

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On the Next Major Spoilers Podcast: Hack/Slash: My First Maniac

On the next Major Spoilers Podcast, the crew takes a look at Tim Seeley’s Hack/Slash: My First Maniac from Image Comics.

Hack/Slash: My First Maniac explores 16-year-old Cassie Hack’s first case – she’s been forced to kill her mother, the undead murderer known as the Lunch Lady! Now faced with overwhelming guilt, she must decide if she can make a life with her foster parents and at her new school or if she should use her new-found slasher killing skills to save other screaming teenagers! But does the apple fall far from the tree?

As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.

Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us your thoughts, or if you want to share your thoughts on the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind drop us a line. Only the most awesome comments (positive and negative) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!

Major Spoilers Poll of the Week (POW!): The Green Edition

We’re all trying to be better stewards of the planet at Major Spoilers, but sometimes trying to be green leads to a bit of conflict – especially when Marvel and DC are involved.  This week it is the battle of the creatures from the bog; Swamp Thing and Man-Thing.

VOTE!

FIGHT! Swamp Thing vs. Man-Thing

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On the Next Major Spoilers Podcast: Aphrodite IX

This week, on the Major Spoilers Podcast, the crew returns to discuss all things comic book related, and dive into Top Cow’s Aphrodite IX trade paperback.

Aphrodite IX Trade Paperback collects issues #1-4 of the series of the same name as well as the hard to find issue #0 plus incredible bonus art by Marc Silvestri (Civil War: The Initiative, Hunter-Killer), Joe Benitez (Supergirl), and Michael Turner (Superman/Batman, Ultimate Wolverine). Aphrodite IX is the perfect weapon, only she doesn’t know it. She’s programmed to kill and then erases all memory of her mission and her former life, like a reset button was hit in her mind. Now the ideal assassin wants to know who programmed her and she won’t stop until she finds out!

As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.

Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us your thoughts, or if you want to share your thoughts on the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind drop us a line. Only the most awesome comments (positive and negative) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!