Between the Gutters Podcast

Each month in 2023, we'll be devoting one of our episodes to covering one volume of Deadly Class by Rick Remender and Wes Craig! As we begin with volume 1, we also spend a chunk of the episode discussing our familiarity with the works of the different members of the creative team, particularly Rick Remender. From there, we go into our issue commentaries. Deadly Class was collected into twelve trad...

Murder Falcon by Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer, and Rus Wooton is under the scope in this week's episode! It's an exuberant piece of work that has earned a unique kind of praise from Albert. Tune in to hear our commentary and analysis of this exceptional comic, and laugh at our struggles to properly describe metal music due to our pitiful lack of knowledge. Thanks again to Corey J. Beats for...

One of our favorite writers is J.M. DeMatteis. In this episode, we examine one of his more recent works, The Girl in the Bay. The comic features lineart by Corin Howell, colors by James Devlin, and letters by Clem Robins! It's published by Berger Books, an imprint of Dark Horse Comics, and maintains that Vertigo spirit. Not to shortchange DeMatteis' talented collaborators, but both of us have read...

Wildcats volume 2 and Wildcats Version 3.0 by Joe Casey, Sean Phillips, and Dustin Nguyen (and their other collaborators) took a moribund property that had the reputation for being lowbrow and transformed it into something truly exceptional. With enough creative freedom, Casey and his artistic collaborators were able to turn the WildC.A.T.s concept on its head and leave a mark on the landscape of...

To memorialize the end of 2022, we decided to look at a comic that's intended to serve as an ending of sorts. This week, we're discussing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin, by Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Tom Waltz, Esau Escorza, Isaac Escorza, Ben Bishop, Luis Antonio Delgado, Shawn Lee, Samuel Plata, and Ronda Pattison. The Last Ronin was released amidst great fanfare (and idiot specul...

This is it. It's the culmination of all things as we complete our yearlong readthrough and discussion of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko! In this White Base-sized episode, we not only provide our commentary of volume 12, but we also take the time to discuss the intriguing bonus features in the book. Plus, because this is the final episode of our coverage of the series, we also...

Atom: The Beginning by Tetsuro Kasahara is a prequel to Osamu Tezuka's beloved classic Tetsuwan Atom, known as Astro Boy in America. Titan Comics recently published the first volume of The Beginning and we decided to give it a shot! We also spend some time discussing our general thoughts on Astro Boy. Also, we have a brand new theme song! Thanks to Corey J. Beats for producing our new music. Check...

Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna is an important comic that we want to spotlight in this episode. It's a nonfictional account of the cartoonist's family and their experiences in the wake of the Khmer Rouge taking control of the country in the wake of the Cambodian Civil War. It's a story about family and survival against a brutal communist regime. At times heart-wrenching and brutal, it's also ba...

Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales was a major superhero comic of the mid-2000s, one that left a pretty big impact in the landscape of DC Comics. It's a comic that sold very well at the time, and is still kept in print. Plenty of readers had a lot of love for this DC event back when it was new, and it still seems to have its fair share of fans even today. You can probably see where w...

Major events happen one after another in the penultimate volume of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko! It's not just plot developments that we see, but also some truly meaningful character work, including the culmination of several character arcs. There's always so much to discuss when we cover a volume of this book and, as usual, we provide our chapter-by-chapter commentary. Eve...

This week, we're discussing the latest MCU movie, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, directed by Ryan Coogler. This is a movie we were anticipating ever since the first trailer dropped. With Namor finally introduced in the MCU, you know Albert had to check this out! And of course, the passing of Chadwick Boseman made things feel heavy. We start the episode sharing some spoiler-free thoughts, so even...

This week, we're talking about Scalped, by Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra, the gritty and emotionally intense (but also controversial) crime series published by Vertigo. Spoilers do abound in this episode, so be aware of that. However, even if you haven't read Scalped, we hope that our discussion will give you insight into whether or not the series could be something you'd be interested in checking o...

This week we're discussing Fury: My War Gone By, a superb piece of work by Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov. Eschewing the traditional lore of the mainstream Marvel Universe's conception of Nick Fury, Ennis and Parlov take the basic fundamental nature of Fury - a man addicted to war - and tell a realistic, compelling Cold War-era story that doubles as a painful parable of post-WWII America and a grim...

The chess pieces are moving into position for the final act of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. We've also got some notable emotional beats as well as some political theater. Also of note, before we dive into the book discussion, we spend some time discussing the recent Yasuhiko-directed film Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island. Finally, we apologize for the sound qualit...

With the completion of the Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, it is now time for one of our patented autopsies! Consider this our Shulktopsy. We discuss some of the online discourse/chatter regarding the show and share our own thoughts on it. Listen closely and you'll even hear a couple of vocal cameos from Albert's dog Pepper in this episode! What did you think of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law...

Love and Rockets by the Hernandez brothers is one of the most influential and significant comics of the past forty years or so. In this episode, we discuss the first two collections from Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Maggie the Mechanic and Heartbreak Soup respectively. What are your thoughts on Love and Rockets? Feel free to hit us up on our socials, or email us! We also have a Linktree here: link...

DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke is one of the most deservedly acclaimed DC books of the past twenty years or so. It's a superhero comic that takes place in the transition period between the Golden Age and the Silver Age, and takes into account the sociopolitical zeitgeist of those decades. The New Frontier is also a work that we suspect contains a lot of Darwyn Cooke's heart and personality....

Volume nine of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko features a couple of major first encounters between key characters, and at least one major revelation. Join us as we continue our monthly deep dive into this timeless mecha classic! If you have any thoughts, questions, or corrections, we're here. Feel free to hit us up on our socials, or email us! We also have a Linktree here: lin...

WE3 by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Jamie Grant, and the incomparable Todd Klein is a highlight of the past 20 years. This compact tale about three cybernetically modified pets who escape their government handlers as they search for home is one that resonates on multiple levels. It's a pulse-pounding action comic, an endearing animal story, a prescient commentary on modern warfare, and a treatis...

Image Comics was founded in 1992, thirty years ago. It seems like a good time to do a retrospective look back at the publisher's history. Both of us grew up in the Image era and we have quite a few memories of the comics of that time period, but while there are some nostalgic feelings, it's fair to that the very early years of Image Comics' output don't stand the test of time, and neither of us ar...

We are now on volume 8 as we continue reading through Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko this year, one volume per month. This month's installment is contains two particularly special storyarcs. One of them is an intensely personal, tragic story about the effect that war has on regular people. The other is the kind of war comic that deals with big picture, chessboard of life stuf...

Because the She-Hulk Disney+ series is set to release soon, we thought it would be fun to do a little pregame reading and talking about the character and her comics. Between the two of us, we've read a variety of She-Hulk comics in our lifetimes, and several specifically for this podcast. The comics discussed in this episode include her very first appearance by Stan Lee and John Buscema, early iss...

We recently got around to watching Ms. Marvel on Disney+, so now it's time for the autopsy! In this episode, we discuss the things about the show that didn't work for us, as well as the elements that did. Spoilers begin around the 21 minute mark, but we'll warn you in the audio. Towards the end of the episode, we also chat a little bit about some of the recent MCU news that was announced at San Di...

Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson, and Jared K. Fletcher was recently adapted into a live action Amazon Prime series. However, we're here to talk about the comics! In this episode, we discuss the entire series. If you haven't read the comics yet, don't sweat it. We start with a spoiler-free general discussion about the book and its creators. Full spoilers begin around the...

In this month's installment of our readthrough of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, we're covering more flashback material. This volume encompasses Operation British, the Battle of Loum, and the early portion of the One Year War. It's packed with action, spectacle, and emotionally resonant human drama. Most of all, it's also a masterpiece of political theater. Join us as we pro...