HARD AGREE

In this annual festive charity edition of Hard Agree from Friday December 19th 2025, Andrew Sumner is joined by the egg-nog-sipping Hard Agree Yuletide Players, recruited from the worlds of comics, movies, TV and theatre: legendary fantasy author Michael Moorcock; BBC presenter & wine expert Olly Smith (BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, Olly Smith’s Home Cocktail Bible); author, actor & MCU star Eva...

In this annual festive charity edition of HARD AGREE from Wednesday December 18th 2024, Andrew Sumner is joined by the merry Hard Agree Yuletide Players, all hailing from the worlds of comics, movies, TV and theatre: legendary fantasy author Michael Moorcock; BBC presenter & wine expert Olly Smith (BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, Olly Smith’s Home Cocktail Bible); author, actor & MCU star Evangeli...

In this Christmas charity edition of HARD AGREE from Tuesday December 19th 2023, Andrew Sumner is joined by eight special guests from the worlds of comics, movies, TV and theatre: legendary fantasy author Michael Moorcock; BBC presenter & wine expert Olly Smith (BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, Olly Smith’s Home Cocktail Bible); author, actor & MCU star Evangeline Lilly (Lost, The Hobbit, Ant-Man a...

In this Yuletide charity edition of HARD AGREE from Friday December 23rd 2022, Andrew Sumner is joined by seven special guests from the worlds of comics, movies, TV and theatre: legendary fantasy author Michael Moorcock; BBC presenter & wine expert Olly Smith (BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, Olly Smith’s Home Cocktail Bible); author, actor & movie star Evangeline Lilly (Lost, The Hobbit, Ant-Man a...

In this twenty-eighth episode of HARD AGREE from Tuesday October 18th 2022, Andrew Sumner is joined by his old comics industry pal, Professor Ed Catto. The always-cheerful-and-upbeat Ed has fulfilled many roles in the comics business: illustrator, marketeer, entrepreneur, founder & managing director at the Agendae consulting agency, co-owner of Captain Action Enterprises, pop culture columnist...

In this twenty-sixth episode of HARD AGREE from Tuesday September 27th 2022, Andrew Sumner is joined by the renowned long-term president and publisher of DC Comics: Paul Levitz. Paul talks with Sumner about his unique career and his amazingly eventful 48 years on the payroll at DC, where he was involved with a massive amount of positive change that affected both DC and the entire US comics industr...

In this twenty-sixth episode of his HARD AGREE audio podcast from Wednesday September 7th 2022, Andrew Sumner welcomes back the world’s greatest living fantasy author, Michael Moorcock, for the fourth instalment in their ongoing series of conversations about Michael’s life and work. In this wide-ranging episode (aka Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse volume IV) , Mike starts out recounting his skiffle...

In this twenty-fifth episode of HARD AGREE from Wednesday February 16th 2022, Andrew Sumner is joined by comics columnist supreme Rich Johnston, the founder of the world’s leading comics news site Bleeding Cool. Rich has been at the top of his game for thirty years, despite starting out as the ultimate outsider, living 3000 miles away from the heart of the US publishing industry. Rich tells Sumner...

In this special Yuletide charity edition of HARD AGREE from Thursday December 23rd 2021, Andrew Sumner is joined by four special guests from the worlds of comics, movies, TV and theatre: actor, author & movie star Evangeline Lilly (Lost, The Hobbit, Ant-Man and The Wasp), comic creator Dave Gibbons (Watchmen, Kingsman, The Originals), TV wine expert/author Olly Smith (BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, O...

In this twenty-second episode of HARD AGREE from Friday October 25th 2021, Andrew Sumner is joined for a wide-ranging comics-heavy conversation with one of his all-time favorite comic book editors: artist, writer & thirteen-year Marvel Comics veteran Carl Potts. Carl joined Marvel in 1983 and, in addition to co-creating Alien Legion, he oversaw the reinvention & redevelopment of The Punish...

Whenever Sumner gets asked “who’s the most talented person you’ve ever worked with?” there’s only one answer: “Rob Biddulph.” Back when they worked together in the magazine biz, Rob was an innovative, multi-award-winning art director (responsible for zeitgeist-defining titles like SKY and the NME before his storied run on the Observer Magazine). Now Rob’s an innovative, multi-award-winning and wil...

In this twentieth episode of HARD AGREE from Wednesday September 2nd 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes back the world’s greatest living fantasy author, Michael Moorcock, for the latest instalment in their ongoing series of conversations about Michael’s life and work. In this third episode, Sumner & Moorcock discuss Mike’s battles with WH Smith about John Norman’s Gor; puritanical America; the artis...

In this nineteenth episode of HARD AGREE from Monday September 6th 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes his old friend Mark Askwith. Mark’s done it all and interviewed everyone in the pop culture sphere over the last thirty years. After starting out in the late 80s publishing scene (like Sumner himself - but 3,000 miles further west, in Toronto), Mark managed the hugely-influential Silver Snail comic book...

In this eighteenth episode of HARD AGREE from Sunday August 15th 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes comics writer/illustrator John K Snyder III. Possessed of a unique style that’s both ethereal and hyper-real, that lends itself to hardboiled noir and fantasy, John has spent 35 years super-delivering in both genres (and sometimes jamming them both together). Sumner & Snyder spend a couple of hours wa...

In this seventeenth episode of HARD AGREE from Thursday August 5th 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes award-winning musician/composer/producer Tyler Bates for a chat about his working life in music & movies. Over the last twenty years, Tyler has scored some of the most impactful Hollywood productions of the 21st century – including Watchmen, 300, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 & 2, Hobbs & Shaw,...

In this sixteenth episode of HARD AGREE from Thursday July 29th 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes Mark Ditko - a successful civil engineer and the nephew of Sumner’s all-time favorite comics artist: Pennsylvania’s finest, the legendary Steve Ditko. Mark’s beloved uncle co-created, plotted & illustrated the adventures of Peter Parker, the amazing Spider-Man, across an amazing 38 issue run that’s nev...

In this fifteenth episode of HARD AGREE from Wednesday July 21st 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes one of his favorite writer-artists, Matt Wagner, for a deep dive into Matt’s forty years at the top of the comics industry – from his constantly-evolving signature creations Grendel and Mage, to his love of pulp fiction and his inspired adaptations of The Shadow, The Green Hornet, Zorro & The Spirit;...

In this fourteenth episode of HARD AGREE from Thursday July 1st 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes back the world’s greatest living fantasy author, Michael Moorcock, for the latest instalment in their ongoing series of conversations about Michael’s life and work. In this second volume, Sumner & Moorcock discuss Mike’s wild ride through Hollywood – including working with Irvin Kershner, Peter Weir’s...

In this thirteenth episode of HARD AGREE from Thursday June 14th 2021, Reverend Sumner welcomes one of his closest friends, Mandy Bardisbanian, to Hard Agree. Mandy B is a tireless, take-no-prisoners, stamp-the-accelerator-to-one-hundred creativity machine. Born & raised in two of the USA’s most socially & politically conservative states, Oklahoma & Texas, Mandy B parachuted into Holly...

In this twelfth episode of HARD AGREE from Friday June 18th 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes John Hughes, Senior Vice President of Fan Engagement & Innovation at Rhino Entertainment – where they chat about John’s career at Rhino Records, his early years in the US Army, his friendship with the late, great Adam Schlesinger (That Thing You Do!), his long-time relationship with Sumner’s favorite band,...

In this eleventh episode of HARD AGREE from Monday June 14th 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes the UK’s most famous TV-presenting wine connoisseur, supercharged bon viveur Olly Smith (star of BBC One’s mighty Saturday Kitchen).Sumner & Olly have a wide-ranging positivity-bomb conversation that covers Olly’s relationship with music, playing the French Horn, meeting Mike Rutherford of Genesis, Bert K...

In this tenth episode of HARD AGREE from Friday June 4th 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes the world’s greatest living fantasy author, Michael Moorcock, for the first in an ongoing series of conversations about Michael’s life and work. In this debut volume, Sumner & Moorcock discuss Michael’s parents, his Dad’s regard for Arthur C Clarke, completing the most recent Elric of Melniboné novel - The Ci...

In this ninth episode of his HARD AGREE audio podcast from Wednesday May 26th 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes one of the most prolific Marvel Comics writers of the 80s/90s, the always-honest and endlessly fascinating Fabian Nicieza. Fabian worked through one of Marvel’s most turbulent decades, starting in 1985 in the production department before working his way into editorial (via sales & promoti...

In this eighth episode of his HARD AGREE audio podcast from Friday May 21st 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes one of the hardest-working humans he knows, celebrity agent par excellence Barry Greenberg. If you’ve ever attended a comic convention and stood in line for a celebrity signature or a celebrity photograph (or both), you have Barry to thank for making that happen. Barry’s led an incident-packed...

In this seventh episode of his HARD AGREE audio podcast from Wednesday May 12th 2021, Andrew Sumner welcomes one of his lifelong favourite performers – and one of Hollywood's greatest-ever actors - the mighty Ed Asner, for a candid discussion of his 60-plus years onscreen, during which Ed has starred in two of the all-time great TV shows (Mary Tyler Moore and Lou Grant), won more Primetime Emm...