Episode 78: The April Previews Catalog

It’s the beginning of another month, which means it’s time once again for Derek and Andy to flip through the pages of the latest Previews catalog. The Two guys find a lot of notable titles in this month’s Previews – with notable offerings from Dark Horse, IDW, Image, Drawn and Quarterly, and Fantagraphics – and they share their findings with the usual discerning and humorous mixture that have come to define the “Comics Alternative brand.” Among the moments in this week’s episode you will find: Derek’s joy at finding another Edgar Allan Poe adaptation from Richard Corben; Andy looking forward to the new DC trade release of a series he originally enjoyed back in the late 1980s, Cinder and Ashe; Derek ragging not only on the Angry Birds phenomenon, but on the fact that IDW is actually jumping on the bandwagon with their new Angry Bird Comics series; Andy’s semi-defense of Angry Bird Comics in pointing out the quality creators on the title; Derek still resists; the guys’ being pleased that Brian Winkeler and Robert Wilson IV’s digital comic, Knuckleheads, is being collected as a trade through IDW; the now-monthly wonderment at Image Comics’ output; the revelation of Andy’s love of Big Trouble in Little China; the podcast debut of Derek’s daughter, Zoe, in her explanation of the app game Doodle Jump; a celebration of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s new graphic novel, Seconds; highlights of the usual great output from Drawn and Quarterly (Everywhere Antennas and Petty Theft), Fantagraphics (Bomb Run and Other Stories, Heroes of the Comics, and the new edition of Special Exits), and First Second (Shackleton: Antarctic Odyssey); the Two Guys’ curiosity over Liz Plourde and Randy Michaels’s self-published How I Made the World; curiosity over Ray Fawkes’s new original graphic novel from Oni Press, The People Inside; and a discussion of Titan Comics’ acquisition of the Doctor Who license. There’s a lot packed into this episode, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the warm, satisfying goodness that is The Comics Alternative.