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 li ..read more

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 ..read more

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 de ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 com ..read more

In today's world, solving a crime often isn't the end. Everyone has their own version of events and the means to amplify that version, whether true or not. Nick Drnaso's eerie graphic novel "Sabrina" takes place in mundane environments: offices, homes, restaurants, but beneath it all is this feeling of incredible insecruity and of a world in upheaval. "Sabrina" is perhaps one of the most unconventional murder mysteries ever written ..read more

This week, Raman and I look at "Roaming," the latest graphic novel from our favorite comic creator cousins: Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. We previously reviewed their coming-of-age collaborations "Skim" and "This One Summer." "Roaming" is in fact three coming-of-age stories in one. Three young women take a trip together to New York City in 2009 (we say 2005 in the podcast. We are wrong). Two of these women, Danny and Zoe, are old friends who have planned this trip for a long time. The third, Fiona, is Danny's mercurial friend whose presence soon disrupts the entire trip ..read more

Q is also for QUEENIE, GODMOTHER OF HARLEM, Elizabeth Colomba and Aurelie Levy's historical graphic novel inspired by the life of Harlem's legendary mobster, Stephanie Saint-Clair. Queenie follows the life of Stephanie Saint-Clair—the infamous criminal who made herself a legend in Harlem in the 1930s. Born on a plantation in the French colony of Martinique, Saint-Clair left the island in 1912 and headed for the United States, eager to make a new life for herself. In New York she found success, rising up through poverty and battling extreme racism to become the ruthless queen of Harlem’s mafia ..read more

In our last episode, we looked at "On a Sunbeam," about an intense love through space. This week, we look at "Patience," about an intense love through time. Part romance, part mystery, and all sci-fi trippiness, "Patience" came out in 2016 and marks one of Dan Clowes's most ambitious graphic novels yet. Jack and Patience are young, very much in love, with a baby on the way. But one day, Jack comes home from "work" -- you can read the graphic novel to figure out why that's in scare quotes -- to find his wife murdered on the floor. For the next 17 years, he tries to track down her killer and, wh ..read more