On this week's episode of Off Panel, cartoonist Geof Darrow joins to talk his work on Shaolin Cowboy. Darrow discusses the impact of kung fu films on his work, the humor in Shaolin Cowboy, how his influences and background impacts his approach in his comics, his storytelling process, choreographing action sequences, creating stories within the story, why his pencils are so tight, Dave Stewart's impact on his art, how much Shaolin Cowboy reflects his own worldview, and more.
On this emergency episode of Off Panel, AV Club's Oliver Sava returns to discuss the big switch at the top at Marvel, as C.B. Cebulski replaced Axel Alonso as Editor-in-Chief. Subjects discussed include whether it was necessary, Marvel's aimlessness, the trouble with Legacy, the impact Alonso's comments about artists might have had, whether Cebulski is a good fit as EIC, David Gabriel's role in Marvel's struggles, the good things Alonso accomplished, risk taking at the top, our levels of concern with Marvel, before closing with a discussion about what we'd do if we were Cebulski.
On this week's episode of Off Panel, artist Alison Sampson joins the show to talk about her Image Comics series, Winnebago Graveyard. She discusses her architectural background, how her architecture background influences her comic art, panel layouts, her art process, backmatter, whether Winnebago Graveyard is more of a book market comic, women working on horror comics, whether she's gotten faster as an artist, getting bogged down in details, breaking in after an entirely different career, what Winnebago Graveyard taught her as a creator, Think of a City's present and future, and more.
It's emergency podcast time, as I just had to address the big news about writer Brian Michael Bendis leaving Marvel to sign exclusively with DC Comics. To do that, the AV Club's Oliver Sava joins the show, as we discuss how shocking the news was, what makes it so stunning, what books we'd most want to see him to take over at DC, what the deal means for DC, Bendis's ability to lure for other creatives, Marvel's other loss on the day, what losing Bendis means for Marvel, the silver lining of losing Bendis for Marvel, Marvel's need for a new architect, Hickman's reaction to all this, whether the next generation of superhero writers will be interested in shared universe stories, DC's momentum, and more.
On this week's episode of Off Panel, Comichron's John Jackson Miller joins the show to discuss the comic market and his origins. Miller talks about his 25 years in comics, the origins of Comichron, what it's trying to accomplish, whether being estimates impacts Comichron's legitimacy, how people use the data, the myth of cancellation levels, the comic market today vs. the 90s, the importance of single issues, the trickiness of variant covers, Marvel's position in the market, the amount of comics in the market today, whether publisher gamesmanship impacts the legitimacy of sales numbers, doom and gloom, and more.