The Runs Podcast

 Welcome to The Runs Season 2!  This first episode is just a brief introduction in which Ryan checks in with you, the beloved viewer, and sets up the next 12 weekly episodes.  Some great guests are on their way, along with some great runs, some decent runs, and some pretty crappy runs.  Here's hoping you'll listen in each week as they are discussed!Here's a link to The Run...

 For this podcast's Season Finale, Dean Haspiel (The Red Hook, American Splendor, Cuba: My Revolution) and I discuss Jack Kirby's O.M.A.C. One Man Army Corps.  A highlight of this podcast for me has been being prompted to read a bunch of DC comics that Kirby made in the 70's, and this is no exception.  We discuss the finer points of the series, the ten-million-ideas-per-page approac...

 Superstar comics artist Joelle Jones (Batman, Catwoman, Lady Killer) comes by this week to talk about Junji Ito's celebrated horror Manga, Uzumaki.  Are spirals really scary, or just ridiculous?  Or are the ridiculous parts what makes this comic so scary?  Or would it all just be totally ridiculous if Junji Ito wasn't so good at drawing?  Find out as we examine lives lost...

 This week, famous comedian Amy Miller comes on to talk about Y: The Last Man, a series that answers a question that most women ask themselves every day: how great would it be if every man suddenly died?  The series also inadvertently asks: What would a world of only women look like if every woman looked exactly the same?  These and other important questions are addressed this episo...

 Susan Kirtley (college professor and head of the Comics Studies Program at Portland State University) is really fun to talk to about comics because she's an accomplished academic and also a total comics nerd.  We discuss the all-time classic X-men run of The Dark Phoenix Saga, oscillating throughout between discourse about what greater meaning can be found within the story and pointing...

 When I asked comics writer Mark Russell (Exit, Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles, Fantastic Four: Life Story, Superman: Space Age) to come on the show, he immediately said that he wanted to discuss Sandman: World's End because he thought that they were some of the best comics ever made. I always thought that those issues sucked but I really respected Mark's opinion, so I was pretty sure...

 This week, comics blogger and pop-culture expert Austin Gorton talks with me about a real hall-of-fame run, Chris Claremont and Paul Smith's issues of Uncanny X-Men.  Austin has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things X-Men and he's got some good jokes, too.  This is a real connoisseur's run, as it's often overshadowed by more "blockbuster" X-runs but it's quietly a high point for...

 One of the comics industries greatest little-known-facts is that multi-Pulitzer prize nominated political cartoonist Matt Bors is in fact a die-hard Spawn fan.  Revel in his un-ironic joy at one of the best worst comics of the early 90's.  Listen to two non-fictional, journalism focused cartoonists talk about how Spawn was pretty much the coolest shit ever when they were ten. ...

 My first guest who isn't a comic book creator of some sort, actor/comedian/musician/all-around-performer Joshua Silverstein comes by to talk about the first dozen issues of Invincible.  This episode may or may not be a painful portrayal of how a person that takes comics way too seriously talks with a person who reads comics for entertainment.  Also, Joshua likes Invincible because...

Brilliant comics writer and sometimes illustrator Terry Blas (You Say Latino, Lifetime Passes, Dead Weight, Reptil, Ariana Grande Vs. Sargeant Shade and the Clonebot Parade) joins me this week to talk about one of the weirder series launches in Marvel history.  In the 90's, writer Scott Lobdell and artist Chris Bachalo teamed up to create Generation X, the new New Mutants, which ran for four...

 Beloved Comics writer, artist and editor, Whit Taylor (Montana Diary, Comics for Choice, Fizzle, The Nib) talks with me this week about the first 5 issues of Peter Bagge's definitive 90's alt-comic series, Hate.  Can a series about crappy people persevere in this current cultural climate?  Find out how well it's aged, and how we'll we've aged as longtime fans of this series. H...

 Erik Larsen (Savage Dragon, Amazing Spider-Man, Image Comics co-founder) is my guest this week as we talk about the first six issues of Jack Kirby's brilliant, weird and brilliantly weird post-Marvel series, Kamandi, The Last Boy On earth.  Getting to hear a living comics legend talk about the work of a no-longer-with-us comics legend is about as good as it gets on this show. Be sure to...

 Indie Comics superstar (Box Office Poison, Tricked, Our Expanding Universe) and Podcast celebrity (Star Wars Minute) Alex Robinson joins us to talk about the first 10 issues (232-241) of John Byrne's legendary run on Fantastic Four. Do they hold up?  And, more importantly, how relatable is Byrne's giant woman fetish?  Find out on this episode!  Click here to Stream the ep...

 The Runs is a podcast in which host Ryan Alexander-Tanner discusses a run of a comic book series with a different brilliant guest each episode.  Guests are often comics creators but also include comedians, academics, bloggers or any other number of fascinating people.  What is a "run," you ask?  It's one of those comic book terms that invites endless pedantic debate when&...