A prequel comic to the new True Grit film from the Coen Brothers starring Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon can be read for free at comiXology right now. It’s black and white and not a bad way to promote the film. There’s no credits in the Paramount commissioned comic itself but according to Bleeding Cool, it’s written by Dan Light and Ben Read with art by Christian Wildgoose. It’s also available in 7 languages.
69 mins. It’s our 25th podcast and we celebrate the occasion by looking at the 25th anniversary of the year 1986, and what a year it was. We talk about the comics of the time plus power ballads, being born, multiple Sheens, the popularity of the high-five, and the shock of seeing Transformers dying.
LISTEN TO IT BELOW, DOWNLOAD IT HERE, ON ITUNES OR MIXCLOUD
1:32 NEWS
Death of the Comics Code and the upcoming doco about it, death of the powerful comics magazine Wizard and Shaun Tan’s Oscar nomination.
11:22 WHAT WE’VE BEEN READING
Arrested Development, and the whacky shenanigans of Axe Cop Vol. 1 TPB.
21:30 1986-THE YEAR THAT WAS
We kick off with the year’s Top Ten grossing films, talk about dying Transformers, Steve Guttenberg, and then get to comics of the time.
John Byrne’s Superman: Man of Steel that revamped and streamlined Clark and co.
Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, that showed an aged Bruce Wayne putting on the cowl once more in a mad future that put Batman back into the darkness, where he belongs.
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
The British Invasion that saw English creators (such as Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman) getting huge success in America, particularly DC Comics.
The rise of the independent publisher such as Dark Horse Comics and Slave Labor Graphics.
Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winning Maus.
The formation of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
A few long running characters debuted including Booster Gold, Kilowog, Sodam Yat, Apocalypse and Eddie Brock (Venom).
For non-superheroes, 1986 saw the debut of Dylan Dog, Tintin and Alph-Art, Golgo 13, Area 88, Lone Wolf and Cub, Crying Freeman and Spirit of Wonder.
I’ve known about the sheer delightful insanity of webcomic Axe Cop for a while now, but only recently read the Dark Horse TPB collecting the first few dozen episodes in a wonderful 120 page collection. I yakked about it gleefully in our most recent Extra Sequential podcast (which will be up soon), but seeing as the series just celebrated its 1 year anniversary, it’s worthing mentioning and recommending.
As it’s written by 5 year old Malachai and drawn by his 29 year old brother Ethan (Chumble Spuzz) you know it’s going to be chock full of wild, rambling adventure, and it sure is. The Axe Cop TPB is the funniest comic I have ever read, bar none and beyond the zany stories, it’s filled with the delightful Ask Axe Cop features and intros from Ethan about how he works with his brother and just how crazy the huge success of the series is.
If you’re familiar with Axe Cop (if not, you should be!) then you’ll get a kick out of this great short, Australian made fan film. It’s amusing how it reminds me of Sin City with the earnest narration, but obviously with a much greater sense of fun. How awesome it would be to see a live action or cartoon Axe Cop on the small screen.
There’s also an interview at Newsarama, primarily with Ethan about March’s upcoming Axe Cop mini-series, Bad Guy Earth, but younger Malachai chimes in at the start:
Malachai: That’s all! Answer is never, never, never, never, never!
Nrama: Um, what was the question?
Ethan: You’ll never know.
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