Play Comics

The Covid Times sure have brought us some interesting stories. But a lot of them that I've seen are focused on the transition to before to during. What happens in the way WAAAAAY after? That's where Dennis Hopeless comes enters the chat. Listen in as we take a look at his Learn such things as: How do you pitch a book that switches gears so quickly between issues 1 and 2? What is it about octopuses...

Those of us who have cats know that they come with built in weapons. Finger knives, teeth, that sort of thing. But what if they had, oh I don't know, swords? Listen in as Tony Giammarino comes to talk to use about Maggie the Cat Who Fights Demon s which is about just that sort of thing. Oh yeah, and they're from space. Learn such things as: How much do our pets mean to us? Is it OK to put yourself...

Sometimes things are just too magical for only a single visit. Like trips to Hell. Or demon rabbits. Or girls playing with knives. Or, you know, talking to Allen Dunford about Pocus Hokus. That's why he's back to talk about Issue 4, which you can back now on Kickstarter . Learn such things as: How your favorite character almost wasn't. What happens when you trust the artist to art. Why is she alre...

You ever sit around noticing people's bags and wonder what's inside them? Turn your head to take a look even? Maybe even push them open a bit with your foot. Of course not, me either. But I certainly haven't seen anything too weird while I wasn't looking in there. Definitely not a human head collection. Who would even think of a thing like that? Lesly Julien would. And he'd tell you about it too,...

You've got a giant sprawling set of lore with the X-Men. You've got a huge villain, in multiple ways, in Apocalypse. You've got the last regular episode of Play Comics for a while because I don't know how to plan things, which is huge news. And of course you've got all of it on a Gameboy Advance screen. Listen in as Jessika and Mike from Ten Cent Takes come on the show to help us take a look at th...

It's the end of the world and there's nothing better to do than to read some comics about the end of the world in many different interpretations of the phrase. Somehow it's exactly what I need right now. Listen in as Gary Proudley comes to talk about the editing side and writing side of putting the anthology Producing the End of the World together, and lightly threatens me with Australian wildlife...

The future is scary. It seems it's always been scary. Remember when we would see dates like 20XX and know it was a stand in for some far off time when the world would be a totally different place? Yep those days are long gone. Heck it's the year 20XX right now! Enter Josh Adams, artist behind the Godfoe Universe series soon to be published by legacy Comix. Listen in as we take a look behind the sc...

Batman is one of the most well know superheroes around despite the fact that he's not really a superhero when you break the term down. Don't care, still love him. And that little used fact in games where he's a pretty good detective. Good thing we have Matt and Thad from Making Nerds Cringe here to help unravel the mystery of Batman Vengeance. Listen in as we take a look at this Batman the Animate...

Sometimes you just can't help but take a look at something you missed on purpose. Like here, where I wouldn't normally look at arcade only releases. But it's Spider-Man and someone asked about it and who am I to let the fans down? Listen in as The Well Red Mage from Mage Cast joins the show to take a look at the Spider-Man arcade game that so many of us missed growing up. Which sucks because we co...

You can make the best comic in the world, but people won't read it unless it gets published. And even if it gets published people need to know about it. So how does that happen? And what What all happens behind the scenes to help make your book a success? Listen in as we hear from David Dissanayake, director of sales and marketing at Vault Comics , as he lets us in on some of the secrets from way...

Editor's Note: Chris sat on this episode for way too long. It's embarrassing how long actually. But it's still good so you still get to hear it. Some people are just good at writing stories. Like really good. Those are the kinds of people I want to pick the brains of. Or in the case of horror writers, maybe steal the brains of and see if I can get those brains to do some work for me. This time we...

We're just not going to escape aliens at all are we? You know, for a comic that I'm not sure even existed sometimes there sure are a ton of games to go with it. It certainly helps that there's a spin off movie (that's vaguely related) with a spin off cartoon (that's vaguely related to the movie but oddly kind of closer to the comics). Yup we're talking about Men in Black again. This time with Tris...

Wolverine is everywhere and there's nothing we can do about it because he's popular and makes money for Marvel and why wouldn't they keep using a character that's popular partly because he's used so much and always in front of consumer's faces? That's what we explore this week with Didge from Geekset Podcast. Listen in as we discuss the prevalence of Wolverine and some surprising omissions from th...

Internet people like their cats, there's no doubt about that. So of course cats get put into their creative projects as well. Which makes it really fun when you get to mix cats with witches and wizards and card games. Especially when the real life cats decide that those silly humans need some feline help making sure everything comes out just right. Listen in as Lydia and David Sherrer join the sho...

Sword adventures are always cool. Especially when you actually get character development stuff with it and great art and a wonderfully written story and looks let's face it we're looking at a cool comic today that you can still catch relatively early and I'm just excited to get to share it with y'all. Good thing we have Zoe Tunnell, writer of Blade Maidens , to help calm me down. Except that's a b...

Movie tie in games get fun. Do you have someone play the movie and they know everything that should be happening? Or do you have a movie tie in game that tries to go beyond the movie and risk making something that people don't like? And does it matter if it's a super successful everyone in the world has seen it movie vs more of a niche film? We're taking a stab at those questions and more when Ada...

Time to get this one out of the way. This podcast exists because of X-Men. The most requested game for people to be a guest for are X-Men games. Specifically it's this one. What some people would say is "the perfect X-Men game" and I've heard this from many many people. Listen in as Zack Jenkins from ComicxXF comes to finally talk about the game that everyone has been waiting for. X-Men...

I just don't have it in me to put out an episode this week. They're recorded, but the world has gone to shit and I've had to help out too many friends in dealing with one thing or another. The plan is to be back next week, but we'll see where my head is. In the mean time: Help trans kids in Texas Equality Texas Lambda Legal Help support Ukraine: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/

We all know the basic story. Kid has troubled relationship with father. Kid wants to win father's approval. Kid sells soul to a demon in order to get the ability to impress said father. Sometimes the fun isn't in figuring out where the story is going, it's in figuring out how the story is going to get there. That's why we have Allen Dunford here to help take a look at this Faustian tale of  woe, p...

Eventually we had to take a look at the world of kids and little monsters that fight. For a lot of people this was their first foray into the world of manga and anime. But we didn't know that, and we probably wouldn't have cared at all if we did. There were kids just like us that got to play around with these amazing creatures that we all wish we could have as a pet. That's right, we're talking Di...

Some of my favorite stories are the ones where I'm plopped into a new world and have to figure things out with the characters. Ones where you're not spoon fed all the information and get exposition that makes sense or have it outside of the story itself (ie footnotes or something). And putting it with a story about extended wars from other worlds and people trying to escape so their family doesn't...

Quick, what's the most important part of a comic? Trick question, because everything is important and this wouldn't be the art form that we love if it all wasn't there. We've got Taylor Esposito here to let us in on some of that sweet sweet behind the scenes stuff that people don't always get to know about. Learn such things as: How important is hand lettering these days? What's the worst letter t...

One of the best things about comics is that things can sit in the background for years before they become important. Maybe it's just a throwaway line about an adventure some characters had. Maybe it's something as silly as a character not liking carrots and then 10 years later it's the crux of a story line. Or maybe, just maybe, it's taking a character that's been kind of stuck in the shadows and...

What’s Christmas without a little violence? No not the present throwing kind, I’m talking about full on Robot vs Santa showdowns with al the trimmings. If you’re like me, you don’t want to experience it any other way now, and that’s why we have Steve Urena and Misty Graves here to tell us about X-Maschina, a comic set in way too close future about what happens when Santa has to fight robots and if...

It sucks that we live in a world where I have to be excited that something like The Color of Always exists. But we do, and I'm excited because more people need to see themselves in comics. Plus, like we say at least 57 gajillions times in the episode, the art is just beautiful. You don't have to take my word for it though. Brent Fisher and Michele Abounader can back me up on this one. Listen in as...