Gobbledygeek

The truth is out there: season 3 of The X-Files is the show's strongest season. That is, if you can trust Paul, Arlo, and the inimitable Wesley "Wezzo" Mead as they have another of their periodic discussions of Chris Carter's '90s masterwork. What makes season 3 work so well? It might have something to do with the series' expanded tonal range--a tense thriller in "Pusher," Satanic panic meets Heat...

Q: How many drugs was Matt Wagner ingesting during the creation of Grendel ? A: All of them. Paul and Arlo arrive at this conclusion in another Four-Color Flashback installment discussing Wagner's comics magnum opus, after reading chapters 1-6 of the "God and the Devil" storyline, collected in Grendel Omnibus: Vol. 3 - Orion's Reign . After the four-part "Incubation Years" arc leapt through time i...

Laika, the studio behind Coraline , ParaNorman , and The Boxtrolls , has gifted us with a new film: Kubo and the Two Strings , wherein a young one-eyed Japanese boy plays his magical shamisen and pals around with a Monkey and a Beetle while evading the evil grandfather looking to steal his other eye. As one does. Paul and Arlo get in tune with Kubo , digging into the film's symbolism, its unusual...

Ever gotten so low you've thought about building a machine that'll transport your consciousness inside a tricaster? Yes? Well then, buddy, have we got the movie for you. (And if you're asking yourself what a tricaster is, you also should watch this movie!) Joseph Lewis, original Gobbler and one-third of the Three Heathens, tells Paul and Arlo all about his feature film directorial debut A/V . The...

Suicide is painless, so they say. But is Suicide Squad ? That's up to Paul and Arlo to decide, as they slather on clown makeup and hide their fuzzy pink unicorns to discuss the third film in the DC Extended Universe. Joining these Mostly Marvel Men is DC fan and opinionated tweeter Scott Stamper, known to the common folk as @DerfelMarek. Does the movie live up to its hype? Does it point to a bold...

Willie Nelson, John Wayne, preachers, bloodsuckers, angels, and arsefaces. Welcome to the world of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's classic Vertigo comic book Preacher , which has now been adapted into a television series on AMC courtesy of Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Breaking Bad 's Sam Catlin. Paul and Arlo previously analyzed the comic book on the blog back in 2012 and now set their sights on...

This week on Gobbledygeek , Arlo has Pokémon fever! That's right, he has become one of the hordes of mindless zombies trawling their backyards and local establishments for Japanese pocket monsters via the Pokémon Go mobile game. Then, Paul reports live from San Diego Comic-Con 2016 (sort of)! He and Arlo give their scalding hot takes on footage from Wonder Woman , Justice League , and more! They g...

Can you dislike Paul Feig's Ghostbusters reboot without being a woman-hating, frothing-at-the-mouth MRA cave troll? Well, Paul and Arlo sure hope so. While championing the concept of a female-led Ghostbusters movie and praising the comic abilities of the girls in gray--Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones--the boys deconstruct the problems not just with this film but mod...

The Geek Challenge. It's a time-honored tradition: Paul makes Arlo watch some silly '80s cheesefest, Arlo subjects Paul to a stuffy revered classic. Everyone loses. In the interest of restoring some spontaneity to this well-worn custom, this time Arlo forces upon Paul perhaps the cheesiest movie of the '80s, Y.K. Kim's 1987 cult "classic" Miami Connection , in which a group of power balladeers do...

Descents into madness on the hellish streets of New York City. The tragic inevitability of violence. Bitter, brutal punchlines. This is the world of Matt Wagner's Grendel , which Paul and Arlo continue to explore in this year's Four-Color Flashback series. This time, the boys dip into Grendel Omnibus: Vol. 2 - The Legacy , pp. 377-549, for "The Devil Inside," wherein happy-go-lucky San Franciscan...

Proving their first X-Files episode with renowned British person Wesley "Wezzo" Mead was no fluke, man, Paul and Arlo continue their sporadic discussion of Chris Carter's '90s phenom with a look at season 2. The gang casts their ominous flashlight beams on the season's highs and lows, Scully's abduction, the coming of Darin Morgan, and whether or not the mythology already shows signs of wear. Also...

One is born of Harlem; one is born of vengeance. One hopes to attain the Glow; one hopes to slake the bloodthirst of the mother she never met. For the latest Geek Challenge , Paul challenges Arlo to 1985's Motown martial arts picture The Last Dragon , while Arlo challenges Paul to 1973's Japanese exploitation classic Lady Snowblood . (The two films are obviously very similar.) As always, the boys...

I took the turkey's pen Here we go again. It's Koko with that joke flow that cannot slow, you're like "oh, hell no" But oh yes... success! Tabrys is here to explain with the help of his inability to refrain From outshouting Paul and AJ On topics that are like dropkicks to your brain Yo here's what this episode of Gobble is set to contain:   Random Dave Koz mentions! Adult hyperactivity on display!...

Strap on your aprons and grab your spatulas, it's the new episode of Gobbledygeek! This week, Arlo finally gets Paul to go along with his crazy culinary crusade, as the boys cook two burgers apiece from The Bob's Burgers Burger Book . Paul slathers blueberries and watermelon on his, Arlo tosses some broccoli and artichoke on his; all laws of kitchen decorum go out the window when you're making bur...

Times are tough in Matt Wagner's nightmarish neon near-future New York as Paul and Arlo continue their year-long Four-Color Flashback trip through Grendel . This time, the boys finish out "Devil's Legacy" with chapters 8-12 of Grendel Omnibus: Vol. 2 (that's pp. 247-370, if you need to know). What exactly is the devil's legacy? How do Hunter Rose's actions reverberate through the generations, as h...

After many months of mounting obsession, Paul and Arlo finally tackle Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway phenomenon Hamilton: An American Musical . (We hope you've been willing to wait for it.) Joining them is fellow Hamilton superfan Matthew Jackson, a contributing editor for Blastr.com and entertainment writer for Playboy.com . The gang discusses the impact Hamilton has had on them, its dizzying stru...

Are these the men with which I am to defend Captain America? Well yes, but ladies first: K. Dale Koontz and her husband/ Wanna Cook? co-author Ensley F. Guffey, colloquially known as Guffey und Koontz, are here to talk Captain America: Civil War with Paul and Arlo. The 13th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe trades world annihilation for an ideological spat, as Cap and Iron Man disagree about...

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. Sometimes, that means mourning one of our fallen heroes. This week, Paul and Arlo celebrate the work of one Prince Rogers Nelson, who hybridized funk, rock, R&B, and soul into his own distinct brand of ass-wigglin', housequakin' music before passing away last month at the age of 57. The boys discuss their favorite so...

For their second Four-Color Flashback installment discussing Matt Wagner's Grendel , Paul and Arlo jump into the first half of the first proper story arc, "Devil's Legacy" chapters 1-7, collected in Grendel Omnibus: Vol. 2 - The Legacy , pp. 66-246. (This thing's had a convoluted publishing history.) Anyways, as the boys discover, there's been a radical shift from the series' introductory story. G...

Paul and Arlo want to believe. They also don't want to start yet another spin-off podcast, so this week marks the first of ten sporadic installments discussing Chris Carter's seminal sci-fi series The X-Files . Joining them to discuss the first season is Wesley "Wezzo" Mead, who beams on over from the UK in his (presumably very British) spaceship. Paul talks about what it was like to watch The X-F...

This week, Paul and Arlo transcend obscenity with Donora Hillard, whose writing takes many forms, including that sequined distillation of anxiety: poetry. Her new collection Jeff Bridges finds poetry in the man himself, an actor me and you and everyone we know loves instinctively. What is it about Bridges? What about him inspired a book's worth of poems? Paul and Arlo attempt to find the answer wh...

In this corner: striking terror into the hearts of cowardly and superstitious criminals, a creature of the night, black, terrible, it's the Dark Knight of Gotham City...Batman! And in this corner: faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, unable to get his own sequel not stuffed with a thousand other characters, it's the Last Son of Krypton...Superman! With Zack Snyder's hand...

It's happened again. Paul has become obsessed with another movie, necessitating a bonus episode that simply couldn't fit in the regular Gobbledygeek schedule. This time, Paul is wild about Disney's Zootopia , which tells the story of bunny cop Judy Hopps and con fox Nick Wilde, who team up on a case that goes to surprising lengths in uncovering systemic oppression in the animal kingdom. Paul and A...

Spring has sprung, which means it's time for another Four-Color Flashback! In years past, Paul and Arlo have explored the dream worlds of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman and the cartoonish fantasy of Jeff Smith's Bone . They'll be devoting 2016 to Matt Wagner's magnum opus Grendel . There's a wealth of material out there, but the boys will attempt to stick to the original series, which has been collecte...

When the apocalypse happens, wouldn't you want to wake up in an underground bunker, shackled to a wall and pricked with a makeshift IV by none other than American screen luminary John Goodman? Well, cult icon-in-the-making Mary Elizabeth Winstead isn't thrilled by her new circumstances, while the amiably bearded John Gallagher Jr. just wants everyone to get along. Paul and AJ, meanwhile, contempla...