Hey Kids, Comics #50 - The Year of Living Comicsly

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Has it truly been a year?!


Well it seems it has.  And what great timing, the first anniversary of Hey Kids, Comics! dovetailed nicely with our milestone 50TH issue!  Yes, we realize that technically this is our 51st if you factor in #0, but just let us take that bit of artistic license here as Andrew Farmer and Cole Houston join forces yet again and reflect on a full year of making Andy’s comic book podcast dream a reality. 
From humble beginnings amidst the recurring United States of Geekdom and The JediCole Universe feature Collector Sector to finding our feet way back when with the rather tentative #0 issue, there is a  lot to talk about this week.  Insights abound as Andy discusses how this show got started, the challenges and triumphs of bringing it to life, and what goes into making an episode of the JCU’s number one podcast.  And it all leads up to (after a mere week off for a breather) the first ever Hey Kids, Comics! Annual! 


So enjoy this memoir of HKC! year one with an eye on the new frontier ahead.  

 

Whadjathink? – “World War Z”

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Join the U.N. and Z the World


Welcome to the latest addition to the JediCole Universe Podcasting Network, Whadjathink?  Inspired by her recent appearance on Hey Kids, Comics! #49, this new show, hosted by Catherine “Mrs. JediCole” Houston, will be an informal discussion of recent film releases or (at times) premiere episodes of television shows that she has seen.  Initially the cast will be Catherine, JediCole, and one special guest.

To kick of the show Catherine and Cole are joined by friend of the JCU Bobby Blakey as they discuss the cinematic undead epic that is World War Z!  Your trio of hosts talk at length about the Brad Pitt movie in intimate detail so be warned, spoilers abound.  If you have not seen this movie and do not want anything revealed that you don’t already know, please bookmark this show and listen to it when you have seen World War Z for yourself. 


SPOILER ALERT!  You have been warned.  Now enjoy the show!

Hey Kids, Comics! #49 - Forging Steel

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Look!  Up on the screen!  It’s Superman!

The “Last Son of Krypton” has had a long and healthy career on screens both large and small and has now been reinvented as an iconic hero for a new era with the release of Warner Brothers Man of Steel.  It is only natural, therefore, that Andrew and Cole take a tall-building-spanning leap at the latest cinematic incarnation of Superman. 


In this special issue Catherine “Mrs. JediCole” Houston joins the discussion focuses on the recently released blockbuster (which has already been guaranteed a sequel).  The “Man of Tomorrow” has been remade for today, but not without his detractors.  Andy, Cole, and Catherine sift through the rubble of Metropolis to get a feel for everything, good and bad, that Zach Snyder brought to the silver screen in his take on the flagship character of DC Comics.

 WARNING!  This podcast may contain spoilers.




Note: The previously announced Creator Spotlight: Bill Willingham issue has been postponed to issue #56.  

Attention Blue Blaze Irregulars!

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If that headline means anything to you then you are definitely who I am speaking to when I admonish you to check out the United States of Geekdom's latest episode!  

In the 63rd installment of the longest running podcast I have been a part of you will get some amazing insights on the cult classic Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension.  You will hear me, our fearless leader Rick Gutierrez, Hey Kids, Comics! host Andrew Farmer, and Catherine "Mrs. JediCole" Houston (a.k.a. the Core Four).  And I am pleased to announce that my brother Clay joins the fun for this very special episode. 

So strap on your six-guns, prep your Jet Car for city driving, and give Penny Priddy an electrified kiss because the USG is about to (literally) drive straight through a mountain!  Click here to check it out for yourself!

Hey Kids, Comics! #48 - Play Ball!

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Would you like to play a game?  A ball game that is!  We’re talking about hitting the field or the court for some good old fashioned sports.  But this isn't good old fashioned sports!  No, instead what we have in mind here at the Hey Kids, Comics! Athletic Department is taking baseball, football, and basketball to heroic new levels.  Indeed, super-heroic levels!

 
Andrew and Cole take the field with special guest Eddie Medina as they take the super-hero team concept in a different direction, that of a sports team.  Who will make the cut in the draft picks for this fantastic play on fantasy sports?  Will it be no powers or no-holds-barred when it comes to facing off in a friendly game?  Extrapolating on the classic Avengers/West Coast Avengers baseball games and the Xavier School Intramurals, your hosts suit up and admonish the coach to put them in the game!  



What Would Comic Book Villains Do? (WWCBVD?) Week 11

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What lurks within the dark heart of evil?  What dastardly machinations drive the twisted mind of those who devote their every thought to all that is diabolical?  What causes a man (or woman) to walk such a dark path?  And what happens when the bellicose, the corruptible, the fiendish, and the unholy are asked to contemplate simple moral questions?  This final question can be answered through the auspices of this very feature of The JediCole Universe!  

Now join us as six of the most vile and despicable representatives of crime, corruption, and wanton destruction are presented with a puzzle into which they can really sink their teeth! 
Scenario:  You are at a gathering, be it a party, a work event, or just hanging out with friends, and pizzas have been ordered and eaten earlier.  While gathering up the empty boxes you see that one piece still remains.  It is cold and a bit dry for having been left out so long, but no less tempting for all of that.  Then you notice that someone else has also spotted this remaining slice and is eying it with equal desire to your own.  What do you do?


 Big Sir:  Pizzahhhhh!  Pizzahhhhh!  Gimmie!  Gimmie!  Gimmiegimmiegimmie!  What?  No real pizza?  Awwwwwwww!


 Viper/Madame Hydra:  This is a classic conundrum faced in any group dynamic where a quantity of delicious pizza has been consumed by all to the point where no one could possibly even consider, much less actually eat, another bite.  Inevitably the passage of time will leave two or more of the “power eaters” in the group to have managed to digest enough of their meal to start to feel unnecessary cravings and turn their attention to the question of any remaining pizza that could satisfy such hunger pangs.  

When you think this sort of thing through to such levels of detail as I do in all things then you cannot help but realize that nobody involved actually needs more pizza.  Everyone has certainly overeaten as it stands.  That is the way it always is when you get a group together and confront them with a stack of cardboard boxes housing pizzas topped with everything from just cheese (really?) to an endless variety of iterations of diced meats and vegetables – everyone eats far more than they really need.  Yet equally inevitably this leaves one solitary slice untouched that then becomes, simultaneously, the coveted target of a number of diners.  Why this should be the case is unfathomable, what is certain is that this last piece should be mine!

There is an advantage in casual situations, like my book group for example, to being one of the only “girls” in the mix.  Men will trip over themselves to surrender that final piece of pizza to a lady.  But such courtesy is as absent in the super-villain fraternity as are traits like honesty, compassion, and loyalty.  How often I ran into this very situation when we ordered out for pizza during my tenure with Hydra or those lost years I spent as part of the Serpent Society!  Let me tell you, trying to capture the Serpent Crown makes for a mean appetite and the end of the day!  And it’s not like we had a cook back at headquarters.  What do you think the Serpent Society is, “Emergency”?  So when it comes to that last slice, that much desired prize, I tend to trust my whip and various throwing knives to make it clear who’s claim on the pizza is the strongest, especially when you are up against the likes of Death Adder or Baron Strucker! 


Jimbo da Mighty Lobster:  I would just #&@%ing let some other mother-#&@%er have the #&@%ing thing.  I mean, how the #&@%  am I supposed to watch my #&@%ing weight if I #&@%ing go around eating so #&@%ing much #&@%ing carb-#&@%ing-heavy pizza?!   I’m #&@%ing out of here! 


 Floronic Man:  Oh I would take it.  I would take all right!  I would cradle that slice of pizza to my chest and liberate it from the meat creatures that had created this poor abomination! 

What?  Oh, sorry about that, perhaps and explanation is in order.  Consider the constituent parts of the pizza.  Fields of grain were enslaved to be mercilessly mowed down and crushed to form the flour that is the basis of its crust!  Vast quantities of tomato plants surrendered their reproductive fruit to be wasted in a stew of what remained of their legacy, creating, along with leaves and seeds ripped from herbal plants, a savory sauce!  Other plants were similarly destroyed to allow for vivisected portions of pepper and onion (and sometimes pineapple fruit) to mingle with curdled milk and rendered animal flesh (also spiced with plant life) and subjected to outrageous levels of heat for the consumption of mankind.  Oh mankind, you evil curse upon the Green!  So you see now why I must spirit away this representation of the havoc you humans have wrought upon the Plant Kingdom over millennia, find a secluded patch of earth in which to inter this hideous creation, and leave it to give nourishment back to the surrounding vegetation rather than sustain the life of these creatures of the Red!

Either that or I may just use such sentiments as a pretense to find some out of the way place where I can eat the thing.  I was once human myself, after all!


Galactus:  You ask such a pointless question to the Devourer of Worlds?!  When I get a case of the munchies, entire civilizations perish in the process of me temporarily sating my appetite.  I have been around since the dawn of time!  I have consumed inestimable planets, many replete with sentient life.  I have supped of biospheres without number and you dare to stand in my presence and ask what action I would take if confronted with but a single slice of pizza amid a crowd of my peers? 

While I truly have no peers, being as I am the sole planet-hungry entity in the universe, I must admit that I have consumed a copious volume of pizza in my timeless existence.  I realize this seems a curious revelation.  After all, how could the entity that feeds upon the vastness of heavenly bodies possibly have enjoyed something as relatively insignificant as a pizza pie?  The answer is as simple as it is astonishing! 

You see, as in so many things you Earthlings imagine yourselves unique in the cosmos.  By way of example, the pizza, a foodstuff attributed in its origins to the lands known as Italy, is actually one of the most commonly occurring consumables galaxy-wide.  From the far flung worlds of the Badoon to the star-spanning Shi’ar Empire from the disputed quadrants held by the Kree and Skrulls to the oft-forgotten territories of the Dire Wraiths there can be found some variation on pizza.  Thin crust, buttery pan-baked, hand (or tentacle) tossed, and deep dish are all available in some form.  From pies baked in a savory edible clay pot to those with crusts stuffed to brimming with cheese, shellfish, or durable fruits, something akin to your terrestrial pizza can be found anywhere sentient life has mastered the culinary arts. 

As to why I have imparted this knowledge of the existence pizza and pizza-like dishes may seem perplexing at first, but there truly is logical reason behind my actions.  For you see, upon further reflection of your query it occurred to me that posing such to me was not so illogical after all.  Whenever I should happen to dine upon a world populated by civilizations of any degree of advancement, it is an inevitability that I ALWAYS get the last slice of pizza – ever!


 Mirror Master:  Challenges of the type my therapist says I need to avoid.  I really wasted so much of my life trying to find ways to use mirrors and other reflective surfaces to commit crimes or just make the Flash’s life miserable.  I even started branching out into holograms and lasers down the line!  What a complete and total waste of my life.  Ever since I settled down, got a job refurbishing old smart phones, and started seeing a counselor my days are a lot more focused, if routine.  In fact I've lapsed into such a rut that it would probably do me good to take some of my co-workers up on offers to go out for a beer or go to their place to watch the big game.  Hell, I was even invited to a birthday party next weekend!  I should really go to that party and you know, I think I will.

Those kinds of parties usually have some kind of meal or snacks.  And knowing some of the folks I work with they are more the “order out” than “home cook” types, so there’s bound to be pizza there.  And the worst thing about ordering a bunch of pizzas is that there is never enough, especially of the ones with the best toppings.  Someone always over-orders the “Supreme” and never gets enough of something like sausage and mushroom.  That always leads to the kind of competition for the last slice you were asking about.  Luckily I always have some mirrors of my own creation at hand, even now days.  Yeah, I know, Dr. Michaels would say that is not a good idea, but I don’t carry near as many any more.  And I long ago sold off my old mirror guns to a crime museum in California.  Sometimes a common mirror comes in handy, right?  Or even an uncommon prismatic rotational projecting mirror.  So what if I have a pair of those with me at this party?  It just means some buffoon who goes after that last piece of sausage and mushroom gets a fist full of empty air while I am enjoying the coveted slice without looking like I even have the thing in my hand!  He can pick the onions off that leftover supreme if he’s so damn hungry!

Jimbo da Mighty Lobster:  Oh!  And if you see that #&@%er Savage Dragon, tell him I’m #&@%ing ready to kick his smug #&@%ing ass!

Hey Kids, Comics #47 - Summer Fun Special

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Summer is here and it is time to make the most of it with something that has occurred from time to time in comics, the “Summer Fun Special”!  If it worked for X-Men and Blue Devil, why not for this show?  Hey Kids, Comics! is proud to present to you our first ever such special issue where we just let our hair down, talk comics of all kinds, and just do a free-wheeling issue as a bit of a break from the routine. 


Andrew and Cole goof around with special guest XXx xxx in a light-hearted romp through the four color world they love.  This week you can expect a little glimpse at humor and parody comics, but there will also be some good old fashioned tomfoolery.  Little wonder considering our guest for the show!  Start your summer off right, the HKC! way with this lively special issue!

Hey Kids, Comics! #46 - HKC! Team-Up #1: The Justice League

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Strength in numbers is the name of the game with this issue of Hey Kids, Comics!  We follow one new recurring feature with yet another!  “HKC! Team-Up” will take scrutinize one of the most common sub genres of super-hero comics, the team.  When super-heroes band together for the common good it can become a consolidation of powers as well as a kind of dysfunctional family dynamic!  And each team represents this in entirely different ways.  So to launch this feature, Andrew and Cole set their sights on the first such team in comics, the Justice League!


This issue will take a look at the team’s beginnings fighting off Starro the Conqueror and their early adventures, the constant evolution of their roster, and the various additional incarnations that would come into play over the years.  Characters, plotlines, and even writers and artists are fair game as we investigate the life and times of DC Comics’ ultimate super-team-up!

  

Hey Kids, Comics! #45 - Recommended Reading #1

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Welcome to a new recurring feature of Hey Kids, Comics!, “Recommended Reading”!  While Andy and Cole are prone to make off the cuff recommendations during the course of the various shows, this one is all about giving an in-depth glimpse into some really great comics you ought to check out.
Explore four titles that have really spoken to your co-hosts and find out exactly why they make the grade as comics worth a look.  These comics represent a variety of genres so as to offer a little something for everyone.  And at the same time, this issue will give some insight into the diverse tastes of your hosts.  There is more to Cole than Watchmen and more to Andrew than Green Lantern as you are about to discover for yourself…


Hey Kids, Comics! #44 - The Hero's Journey

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Welcome once again to Hey Kids, Comics! and this time for a very special issue indeed.  This week, as things return to normal around this podcast, your host Andrew Farmer, welcomes his good friend Kelly Long to the show.  Producer/co-host Cole Houston is along for the ride as Kelly takes the lead in an exploration of heroes in the Classics and how they relate to the contemporary super-heroes that tend to be a staple of this show.

Wonder Woman in her many incarnations takes center stage as she has the greatest connection to Greek mythology, an aspect of the character that is sometimes at the core of her characterization and at others little more than a footnote.  With a perfect balance of the scholarly and the geeky, this unique issue is sure to inform and entertain.  So grab you sandals and your cloak because we are about to walk the path that was blazed by the ancients!



Hey Kids, Comics! #43 - Heroes Come Home: Live Action

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When heroes come home, on the television screen that is, animation is the most common means to bring them to life.  But once in a  while Hollywood  has put up the bucks to outfit actors and actresses as our favorite super-heroes.  In this issue Andrew also comes home, returning to HKC! after a lengthy absence to join Cole as this two-part exploration of comic characters on screen concludes.


Together your hosts will examine the long history of live action comic book adaptations on television.  There are the obvious examples like The Incredible Hulk or Smallville mingled with the more obscure, independent comics sourced shows like Witchblade.  Add to the mix a variety of made for TV movies and other hidden gems and there is a whole world of comic book related television to discuss.  And then there are the super-hero genre shows that take their cues from comics while not being based on any specific titles.  These two will receive coverage in this issue.



Points of Interest - Art With a Cause: Artists Supporting Wounded Warriors Project Event This Saturday!

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Welcome to a new Points of Interest, one that is a bit overdue.  Owing to a variety of circumstances I have run late getting this announcement on the JCU site, but at least I managed to edge this in before it was simply too late.

This Saturday, May 18, 2013, Texas writer, illustrator, and publisher Robert Leudke will be producing the second annual event benefiting the Wounded Warrior Project, a non-profit that helps raise awareness of and enlist the public's aid for the needs of injured service members throughout the country.  


Last year Robert's efforts, along with the generous donations of a variety of artists, actors, authors, and other celebrities raised over $11,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project!  This year the goal is to double that amount through live and silent auctions held throughout the event.  This live art auction fundraiser will be held at the Double Tree Hotel Airport North from 8 PM to 1 AM.  While it is an offshoot of the Dallas Comic Con, this event is free to attend (no convention badge required).  So whether you are attending the convention or not, feel free to be a part of a great cause that Leudke himself describes as a wonderful cause that supports those who have put it all on the line for our country.

Auction items for 2013 have been donated by a vast array of donors including Norman Reedus, Michael Rooker, Laurie Holden, Adam Baldwin, Elvira, Joe Gatt, Arthur Suydam, Ron Garhey, Bob Layton, Stan Lee, Dean Cain, Michael Golden, Wendi Pini, Renee Witterstaetter, Greg Horn, Mark Texiera, Diosdando Mondero, Bernard Chang, Dan Jurgens, Mark McKenna, Billy Tucci, Ken Raney, Don Perlin, Sergio Cariello, Brian Haberlin, Fred Hembeck, Jamie Tyndale, Cory Smith, Eddie Medina, Cal Slayton, Gary Shipman, Andy Kuhn, Jason Metcalf, Michael Champion, Al Bigley, Chris Yambar, and many more!  

Do your part to help those who have helped our country by attending and bidding on these great artworks and collectibles.  And if you happen to see Bob Luedke at the Dallas Comic Con or other conventions be sure to shake his hand and thank him for creating such an amazing benefit event!  And tell him JediCole sent you!

Saturday, May 18, 2013
8 PM - 1 AM
Double Tree Hotel Airport North
4441 W. John Carpenter Freeway 
Irving, TX 75062

Free Admission

Unable to attend but want to help out? Monetary donations for the Wounded Warrior Project can be made here.



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