Quarantined Comics Quarantined Comics

Raman joins longtime friend of the pod Josh (whose past episodes include Dune, Black Science, and Red Son) on HIS podcast RABBIT FIGHTERS. The topic? their long, complicated relationship with the band WEEZER - alongside fellow Rabbit fighters Greg and Brian. Rabbit Fighters is a show where three friends revisit the movies and music that shaped their past - but one of them has never explored it. sound familiar? Subscribe to RABBIT FIGHTERS wherever you get your favorite podcasts - for weekly shenagins while you wait for Ryan and Raman to get their act back together.
RabbitFighters.com - It's like the world has turned and left me here.

Edel Rodriguez is a Cuban American artist, activist and author who’s created more than 200 magazine covers for the likes of Time, The New Yorker, Newsweek and Der Spiegel - which are singular and striking given our current political climate. Edel’s latest work is the graphic memoir "Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey" - telling the story of his childhood in Cuba and his family's decision in 1980 to join a hazardous flotilla of refugees, the Mariel boatlift. This may be one of the best (comic) books Raman read in 2023, so on his other podcast MODERN MINORITIES, he reached out for a chat. In WORM - which is a term Castro used for Cubans who chose to leave the country - Edel uses his own life to capture what it's like to grow up under an authoritarian government and to sound a caution - from the runup to the 2016 US election to January 6, 2020 — to the future we are facing THIS election year. In our conversation we go deep into - and beyond Edel’s personal story - to get at the why for his activism and storytelling approach...



BOOK: Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey - goodreads.com/en/book/show/57771211
COVERS: https://illoz.com/edel/portfolios/Magazine-Covers/
AUTHOR: edelr.com

to close out 2023's alphabetic soup of comics, we're closing the year with a cheat and reading “XYZ Comics,” by cartoonist legend R. Crumb. “XYZ Comics,” published in 1972, is more of a 28 page pamphlet that reflects Crumb’s rather interesting state of mind at the time. Crumb was a few years out from doing a massive, year-long LSD trip that began in 1965. It greatly impacted his work. He was already known at the time for strips like Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural and Angelfood McSpade - much of which is quite problematic. Starting in the mid-1960s, Crumb's work really started to reflect what he described as the seamy side of America's self-conscious, and drawing these strips almost as stream-of-consciousness. As he said in his eponymous documentary "it didn't have to make sense, it could be stupid, it didn't make any difference” — and “XYZ Comics” really magnified all this because it was created literally while Crumb was on a road trip, which is, “partly why it’s such a jumble of disconnected images.” So close out the year with us with an LSD trip of a comic, and bring your toothpaste.

No one was more influential in pushing what sequential storytelling can be than Will Eisner, the so-called godfather of the graphic novel. His legendary body of work started when he was just a young buck in the 1940s trying to capture the superhero craze with "The Spirit," through the early 2000s when he was exploding the comics form, all while telling rich, nuanced stories of people messily colliding in New York City. In this episode, we'll take a look at the impact of some of Eisner's most powerful graphic novels and comics.

V is for... VISION, 2016's Eisner award winning series by writer Tom King and artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta. King should be a familiar name to you by now, as we've read more than a few of his works on this podcast, including Mister Miracle and the Human Target, two stories about troubled superheroes. And this book is no different. The Vision actually debuted in the Avengers way back when in 1968, when he was first designed to kill Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, but soon became one of them...falling in love with the Scarlet Witch along the way. This same story arc also played out on the big screen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where the Vision was played by Tom Bettany...and pretty much had his girlfriend rip his brain out of his head...


But this isn't really a story about WandaVision, in THIS comic Vision just wants an ordinary life ― with a wife and two children, a home in the suburbs, perhaps even a dog. So he built them. Sound familiar? Only this time Vision literally built his wife, kids, and dog. As in they are sentient robots. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

do you want to hear a scary story? well have we got a Halloween treat for you! U is for...Uzumaki. Uzumaki is manga legend's Junji Ito's seminal horror series from 1998. The entire populace of a small seaside town becomes obsessed with spirals. If you're into bodily, psychological, and cosmic horror, then step into the fog-shrouded streets of Kurozu-cho and see how long you can hold your mind - and your body - together.


this is an oldie but a goodie — a replay of one of our very FIRST episodes from the beginning of the 2020 pandemic. what's even scarier? how new we were to podcasting about comics we love — before i knew better than to trust Ryan to NOT freak me out. but this would be the first of many comics we'd come to love from Junji Ito. and boy is this a creepy one. make sure you read - and listen - with the lights turned on...