Episode 1715 Talkback - A Cornucopia of Comic Conversation 2018

Adam_Murdough

Come, ye thankful listeners, come and join our CGS extended family at the banquet table of banter for a Thanksgiving feast of comic talk, just like Mother used to make! The main dish is our extended salute to the life and legacy of Stan 'The Man' Lee, followed by a group review of The Green Lantern #1 by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp, a ton of TV and movie talk, Five Minutes of Anime, and assorted giblets and gravy. Dig in! (2:39:58)

Listen here. Pass the potatoes!

nweathington

Great to hear your voice again, Kevin!

UltimateThor

I concur, great to hear Kevin on the podcast again, made my day! Thanks to the rest of the geeks and Ian as well, fun episode!

TheMarvelMan

To everyone in CGS Land, I wish you the happiest and healthiest of holiday weekends! And if you're not listening in America, I hope that your weekend is even happier and healthier than mine!

jaydee74

Awesome episode guys. I wanted to chime in on "The Green Lantern" issue. I really enjoyed it myself. A few things of note. So, at least what Grant Morrison had said, the reason for the title was that if you look at all of the Earth Green Lanterns, most of them are talked about or to by their name. Kyle Rayner is called Kyle or Guy Gardner is called Guy and so on. Only Hal Jordan is called "Green Lantern". He's the only one that people use the title so that's why Grant called the book "The Green Lantern.

Also, as far as the virus Green Lantern, Leezle Pon, he was created by Alan Moore in 1985. Just like Rot Lop Fan aka, the F-Sharp Bell.

As for my favorites, I've always loved Hal Jordan. He was my first Green Lantern and I have always loved the character. I have always found Hal to be the Captain Kirk of the DC Universe for a bunch of reasons. Now, that's not to say I like him more than the other Green Lanterns of Earth. In some ways, I have always found my favorite Green Lantern is the one I am currently reading, much like how some people decide on their favorite Doctor Who. I think each Earth Green Lantern brings something very interesting and cool to the table but at the end of the day, I had to read one Green Lantern character, it will always be Hal.

Bryan

FYI - further issues of The Green Lantern seem to be priced at 3.99.

TommyForever

Ah what a treat to hear Kevin again. What I wouldn't give to hear him along with Peter, Bryan and Matt all join the regular rotation again.

Brack

jaydee74 said:

Awesome episode guys. I wanted to chime in on "The Green Lantern" issue. I really enjoyed it myself. A few things of note. So, at least what Grant Morrison had said, the reason for the title was that if you look at all of the Earth Green Lanterns, most of them are talked about or to by their name. Kyle Rayner is called Kyle or Guy Gardner is called Guy and so on. Only Hal Jordan is called "Green Lantern". He's the only one that people use the title so that's why Grant called the book "The Green Lantern.

Morrison's wrong on this front. For everyone growing up watching Justice League on TV in the 2000s, John Stewart is THE Green Lantern.

jaydee74

@Brack That's not what Morrison meant. If you read the comics, nobody calls John Stewart "Green Lantern". They call him Joh. The same goes with Kyle and Guy. Even Alan Scott to a degree. With Hal, people tend to call him "Green Lantern" or "GL". That's what Morrison was talking about. I agree that people who watched the Justice League cartoon consider John THE Green Lantern but they always called him by his name.

aquatroy

Kevin's Stan Lee story made me a little dusty.

MEDuell

The constant griping about the price of comic books has gone beyond annoying. Companies charge what they need to charge to recoup costs and make a profit. Payments to creators, shipping costs, printing costs, materials costs, distribution costs, taxes, administrative costs, and overhead costs all factor into the cost of a comic book. If you can get sales figures back to the 1,000,000 range, I am sure the costs could go down thanks to economies of scale. But in today's environment, that is not happening.

mwhitt80

Just finished up listening. Great to hear from Kevin (hopefully he comes on a little more) and I really like that Ian has become a regular.

An enjoyable episode gentlemen

hauberk

MEDuell said:

The constant griping about the price of comic books has gone beyond annoying. Companies charge what they need to charge to recoup costs and make a profit. Payments to creators, shipping costs, printing costs, materials costs, distribution costs, taxes, administrative costs, and overhead costs all factor into the cost of a comic book. If you can get sales figures back to the 1,000,000 range, I am sure the costs could go down thanks to economies of scale. But in today's environment, that is not happening.

While there's truth in that the reality is still that very few of us are able to buy and read what we would like to because of the individual unit price and that gets exacerbated by the insistence on double shipping (or in the case of DC in January, triple shipping books).

Vertighost

I have to agree with @hauberk here. While I'm sure a lot of the cost of books is a necessity, I get the impression the Big 2 and certain creators seem to be doing all they can to soak up as much cash as they can for as long as they can with double shipping and a $4.99 cost when similarly packaged/popular books cost less. To be fair I want to give DC a lot of credit here as it has been much better on this front than Marvel has been as they held their price down to $2.99 far longer than Marvel. They also recently put out Batman The Damned for far cheaper than I can picture Marvel doing given the packaging and amount of pages. I may have hated the story inside the book, but the reason I bought it is bc of the gorgeous art, packaging, and page count for much cheaper than I would have expected.

I also want to give props to Tom King who was writing (as far as I'm aware) a very successful Batman for quite some time at $2.99 while Spider-Man and most (all) of Marvel has been $3.99. This doesn't include the admittedly rare times when Marvel is asking $9.99 for oversized special issues consisting of 1 main story and several superfluous back-up/tangential tales I have no interest in reading in an attempt to justify the outrageous price jump.

The companies and big name creators can ask for whatever price they want of course, but in my opinion the double shipping and $4.99 regular sized comics are an attempt to squeeze as much money from what's popular before the system -as it's currently configured - collapses. I can understand why (not to single him out bc he's certainly not alone) Grant Morrison is going to ask for an extra dollar to capitalize on his popularity while he can, but I don't see the double shipping and $9.99-type prices as anything other than milking as much milk as they can from the cow before it keels over. I hope I'm wrong for decades to come of course. This wouldn't be so bad in practice for the industry if it didn't force fans of the big books to buy less of other books they might try otherwise. Again, hopefully there's room enough for all for a long time to come, but it's not the impression I get.

Brack

On the other hand Shonen Jump announced they going to release the weekly comic for free and the subscription service will now offer the Shonen Jump back file for $1.99 a month.

Vertighost

Finally finished this episode and just wanted to mention I loved it. These episodes where you discuss a variety of topics are often my faves.

JohnnyWI

While there's truth in that the reality is still that very few of us are able to buy and read what we would like to because of the individual unit price and that gets exacerbated by the insistence on double shipping (or in the case of DC in January, triple shipping books).

I agree. It's kind of a vicious cycle. I too, see the point of recouping costs. But you're also right, in that more comics would be bought if they were more affordable. I was also thinking about the double shipping thing, today. I was thinking that it feels like the publisher's way of keeping people buying their brand. For instance, if you get 10 titles, and they double ship that title, that's 10 issues of something else you can't afford to buy from someone else.

JohnnyWI

hauberk said:

MEDuell said:

The constant griping about the price of comic books has gone beyond annoying. Companies charge what they need to charge to recoup costs and make a profit. Payments to creators, shipping costs, printing costs, materials costs, distribution costs, taxes, administrative costs, and overhead costs all factor into the cost of a comic book. If you can get sales figures back to the 1,000,000 range, I am sure the costs could go down thanks to economies of scale. But in today's environment, that is not happening.

While there's truth in that the reality is still that very few of us are able to buy and read what we would like to because of the individual unit price and that gets exacerbated by the insistence on double shipping (or in the case of DC in January, triple shipping books).

I agree. It's kind of a vicious cycle. I too, see the point of recouping costs, and the relation to sales figures. But you're also right, in that more comics would be bought if they were more affordable. I was also thinking about the double shipping thing, today. Like Vertighost said, I was thinking that it feels like it's the publisher's way of keeping people buying their brand, and away from competitors. For instance, if you get 10 titles from a company that double ships, that's 10 issues of something else you can't afford to buy from someone else.

alienal

nweathington said:

Great to hear your voice again, Kevin!

Yeah, it was nice to hear Kevin back on the program again. Brought waves of nostalgia to my brain.