Midnight Grappler Animals

Our brave hosts go back into the Jo Koyniverse to tackle one of his smaller, yet equally-iconic roles in recent years in Anastasia: Once Upon a Time. Don Bluth this is not, but deranged this absolutely is. Will Salt, Lan, and Serg find out the true meaning of Bourgeoisie/Proletariat equality or will they be condemned to mind control by a Russian Witch? Find out in this episode. Looking for show no...

In this Very Special Episode of the podcast, Serg, Keigen, and Lan delve into four years of Venom comics to figure out if they're kids that love chains. Do we regret reading 50 issues of comics within a couple of weeks/days? Does this mean we'll cover the subsequent Venom run? This is the regular cut of the episode, but if you want the extra-long Sickos Cut version, with roughly 20 minutes of extr...

Lan, Serg, and Keigen sit down and discuss the most controversial comic that no one on Twitter seemed to read. We cover the entirety of the first (maybe even only) 8-issue run of Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti, and Marte Gracia's G.O.D.S, and figure out why everyone thought this was going to be some groundbreaking, universe-altering work. Did you fall for Marvel's gassed-up marketing? Let us kno...

If you were scared that we were gonna become a Star Wars-centric podcast after that first episode of our Acolyte podcast, have no fear! Salt and Keigen are here to talk about anything BUT Star Wars movies in this episode about movies that decided to cheat on the test by looking over at George Lucas's paper. Starcrashers, Ice Pirates, and Rebel Mooners unite! This one's for you. Looking for show no...

Join Keigen on this weekly journey through the hit new Disney+ series The Acolyte , as he discusses each new episode with a variety of guests! In the inaugural episode, he has MGA cohost Lan and their friend Dana on to talk about general Star Wars exhaustion, their individual histories with the franchise, and the first two episodes of the series. This is a trimmed down version of the full episode,...

Class is in session for the final iteration of our DIT-K01 as our hosts Lan, Keigen, Salt, and Serg go through three of Steve Ditko's late career comics to finally come to a conclusion about the trajectory of Ditko's career path. Did he take on Chuck Norris, Power Rangers, and VR Troopers for the sake of objectivism? Find out in this conclusion to the Ditkology series! Looking for show notes? Want...

#NotAllDavids. We bring Maylien to a close by taking it all the way back to the beginning (and also the end, don't think about it too hard) to look at Ridley Scott's Return to the Alien franchise. How did Serg, Lan, and Keigen like Prometheus and Alien Covenant? Has time looked kindly upon these two movies? Should there be a third prequel sequel? Looking for show notes? Want to hear the uncensored...

Certified Xenomorph, Certified Predator. After reaching the end of the Alien timeline, there was only one logical place to go. Backwards, to 2004 as we enter crossover territory. In the 15 years between Alien Resurrection and Prometheus, the Alien Franchise took two forays into crossing over with the also-then-dormant Predator franchise. Keigen, Serg, and Salt look at both Alien Vs. Predator and A...

Where there's cope, there's hope. After two weeks of covering unanimously-loved Alien movies, the whole crew checked in this week to talk about two of the more critically-divisive movies in the franchise, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection. Did Keigen, Lan, Serg, and Salt become newfound defenders of Alien 3? Could they excuse a mountain of Whedonisms to get through Resurrection? Find out in this week...

It's as easy as writing "$" on a whiteboard! We're back for part 2 of Maylien, this time looking at 1986's Aliens, a movie directed by a fellow from Kapuskasing who evolved the Alien franchise from its roots and took the fight back to LV-426. Lan and Serg are joined by Dana Williams to talk about the thematic shifts, bombastic segments, and fake latinas as they decide whether or not the Alien fran...

Nice. Welcome to the next month of Midnight Grappler Animals, as we take May to go through the Alien franchise as a part of our first miniseries for the year, Maylien! This week, Serg, Lan, and Keigen sit down to talk about the movie that started the franchise, and what it's like watching it on the big screen 45 years after release. Looking for show notes? Want to hear the uncensored version of th...

In our last episode, Keigen jokingly mentioned that he could defend Frank Miller and John Romita Jr's Superman Year One in the heat of conversation. This week, we put that to the test. Join Lan, Serg, and Keigen as they delve into one of the earliest DC Black Label releases to see if Keigen can stay true to his word. Looking for show notes? Want to hear the uncensored version of this podcast, or t...

Thanks to the gracious votes of our Patrons, Salt, Serg, and Keigen got to suffer through more of Sean Gordon Murphy's eponymous Murphyverse. This time we skipped over a couple of books and focused on the girlies with White Knight Presents: Harley Quinn, and White Knight Presents: Generation Joker. Even with Murphy himself not scripting these books, they still find a way to put our intrepid hosts...

This week, Midnight Grappler Animals embarks on its maiden voyage into the vast ocean of video gaming! Lan is joined by Good Vibes Gaming Art Director and Fire Emblem Aficionado Daniel Alba as they discuss the first Fire Emblem game to be localized in English, Blazing Blade. Looking for show notes? Want to hear the uncensored version of this podcast? Head over to our Patreon to find them: ⁠ https:...

It's the week after Easter weekend, and you know what that means: Time to watch the seminal* hit** Filipino Comedy*** Easter Sunday! Join Lan and Serg as they try to wrap their heads around why anyone would center an ensemble family holiday movie around a guy with the charisma of a brick. *- Not seminal at all **- Wasn't a hit ***- Your mileage may vary. Looking for show notes? Head over to our Pa...

Lan returns to the Creator's Corner this week and he's joined by the multi-talented co-founder of the El Camino Co-operative, Ibrahim Moustafa! We sat down and talked about Ibrahim's latest three books for Humanoids: Count, RetroActive, and his upcoming book Cyn, as well as what the El Camino experience has been like. Looking for show notes? Want to hear the uncensored version of this podcast? Hea...

Every artist's gotta make a choice in life: Starve or create a C-list Superhero for a publisher that'll go forgotten for decades until someone like Tom King remembers they exist. Steve Ditko went somewhere in-between. We look at four more books from Steve Ditko's oeuvre, this time spanning 40 years of his career! We start at the very beginning with his first published work, then go all the way nea...

At long last, we dug into the first collection of Stan Sakai's widely-celebrated epic: Usagi Yojimbo . Is it as good as people say? Look, there's really no suspense here; Usagi Yojimbo is a masterpiece, and we're here to tell you hundreds of reasons why. Questions, comments, or suggestions? Email us: midnightgrappleranimals@gmail.com Follow Lan on Twitter: @LanTweets , Salt and Lan on Bluesky: @sa...

If you're reading this, then yes, we died at sea... Well, something like that. This episode is our "Break Glass In Case of Emergency" contingency that we recorded way back when, in prep for the occasion where we wouldn't have an episode ready for a given week. This week is that week. Join us as we talk about the very first Venom miniseries, Lethal Protector, and reminisce on a time where our mics...

A few months back we read Top 10 , the mini-series from Alan Moore, Gene Ha, and Xander Cannon. The series was a dense, challenging, but fulfilling read, so much so that we decided to come back for another round to read the rest of the Moore-written books in the series. We start with Smax , and then wrap things up with The 49ers . The two stories answered some questions we had left over from Top 1...

We're joined by special guest Keigen Rea this week as we delve into the greatest epidemic facing comics culture right now: a distinct lack of Down-Ass White Boys. We explore this through the lens of two books that are often recommended in tandem: Pax Americana and Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt. Do we succumb to the throes of Formalism, or do we find a way to finally move past Watchmen? Find out in thi...

They say all roads lead back to where they started. If you need a citation on that quote, let's just say we're 'they' and call it a day. In this final installment of the Road to Radiant Black , we read volumes 2 & 3 of the Marvel Comics adaptation of Ultraman , a series we started back when we started this podcast. One of these volumes greatly improved upon the stylistic choices of the first v...

In this week's episode, we're back to the "What Were They Thinking?" series, covering the three Grand Design Marvel book reports comics from Ed Piskor, Jim Rugg, and Tom Scioli. Find out how long it took for us to be exhausted by these comics, and what the saving grace of this reading experience was. Looking for show notes? Want to hear the uncensored version of this podcast? Head over to our Patr...

Would you rather get lost in the word of god or the world of posting? Selfie Dad , from Kappa Studios posits you can have it both ways. In this movie review episode Lan and Salt find themselves once again reviewing a strange and unsettling Christian film, a movie that has one of the strangest senses of continuity we've ever experienced. Questions, comments, or suggestions? Email us: midnightgrappl...

We're back with another edition of Water Cooler, this time discussing films that made our belief in the indomitable human spirit waver, whether it be through awful ideologies put to film, or just by making an absolutely putrid movie. We each come through with three picks each before settling on one unanimous pick we both strongly felt shook our faith. Looking for show notes? Want to hear the uncen...