Word Balloon Comics Podcast

Today on Word Balloon, we welcome educator, writer, and pop culture historian Stanford Carpenter to talk about this year’s Comicpalooza happening Memorial Day weekend in Houston. Stanford gives us a preview of some of the convention’s standout programming, including an exciting panel on the history and cultural impact of Blaxploitation cinema featuring acclaimed writer David F. Walker and legendar...

Playwright and Director Josh Chamberlin has created a new play exploring the partnership of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby playing this June at the Fringe Festival in Los Angeles.  We talk about their iconic collaboration, and the behind the scenes conflict, over the decades This episode includes AI-generated content.

Ceasar and I star in this little playlet about a safe heist gone wrong. 

Back in 2016, Word Balloon welcomed the late great satirist and comedy legend Tony Hendra for a fascinating conversation that covered everything from modern political comedy to the birth of some of the most influential comedy institutions of the last fifty years. Tony joined us to promote the comedy album Are There Any Triggers Out There?, but the discussion quickly became a remarkable tour throug...

Welcome to another Word Balloon League Bendis Discord Book Club conversation, as Brian Michael Bendis and I gather with our dedicated Word Balloon listeners and Discord members for a live Zoom chat all about Absolute Martian Manhunter, written by Deniz Camp with stunning artwork by Javier Rodríguez. It’s a real back-and-forth with passionate readers digging into the themes, storytelling, artwork,...

Artist Mike Perkins returns to Word Balloon to talk about The Bat-Man: Second Knight, now available in graphic novel format. Mike breaks down the visual approach behind this 2nd series set in 1939, collaborating with writer Dan Jurgens, and the challenge of capturing a dark pulp-era Gotham through his detailed painted style. We also discuss Mike’s artistic process, from layouts and reference work...

Today on Word Balloon, we welcome writer Steve Darnall to talk about his new prose adaptation of Marvels, the landmark series created by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross that redefined how readers looked at the Marvel Universe. The new novel with new cover and illustrations by Alex  is out in the next 2 weeks from Abrahms.  Steve has a long history with Alex Ross, including their acclaimed collaboration...

It's a very special Scene Missing as Actress and stunt performer Tatiana Neva joins Word Balloon to talk about her new espionage thriller Prey Of Wrath, now streaming free on XUMO, alongside martial arts legend Cynthia Rothrock. Neva discusses the physical and emotional challenges of making the indie action thriller, balancing fight choreography with character work, and what it takes to bring inte...

To celebrate the milestone, I asked my computer to whip up questions for us , in some of the categories I love, comics star trek, spy tv shows, and 40's mystery films.  This is like when Gary Kasperov played Deep Blue in chess. I'm happy to say our AI orverlords still don't get everything right.  Thanks for all the support all this time since may 10th, 2005. 

Jackson L Star Trek Comnzing and Colin Kelly, the Hivemind writer team is back to chek in mid-story on ths epic IDW Tek Comic, that takes place 100 years before Discovery jumped to the future. How did Starfleet try to solve the problem> Could ressurected Jim Kirk save the day? In addition, we  discuss their epic Captain America Sentinel Of Liberty 18 issue sage with Marvel, and a lot more. 

In our first talk from 2007 Dave talks about beaking into comics, writing The Unknown Soldier, Runs on Superman and Spider-Man. The Iron Man "Demon In A Bottle" saga, and of course The creation of Venom 

It's David Lloyd's Birthday week, bor on ay 5th . Grab some tomato juice and aspirin, and enjoy this 2019 chat In case you haven't noticed, David Lloyd isn't drawing comic books any more. He's still very much involved in the medium creating the digital comic anthology Aces Weekly, a weekly digital only comic featuring serialized stories in genres from humor to crime adventure and sci-fi. David's c...

Welcome to a brand new Fortress of Word Balloon, where the mic gets handed over to the League of Word Balloon Listeners, straight from patreon.com/wordballoon. Coming to you from my secret headquarters, and this one’s a freewheeling hang with the smartest fans in comics as we bounce from comics to TV to film, hitting everything we love . And along the way, I dig into the Word Balloon vault to shar...

Scott Larson, the creator of the supernatural commic Visitations talks about his mentor Len Strazewski, co-creator of Jesse Quick for DC, Prime for Malibu and so much more. Len also did 17 ssiues of The Fly for Impact Comics, and wrote 10 issues of Jstice Society in 1992

On this episode, we go back to 2009 for a great conversation with Gerry Conway, a writer whose career has taken some fascinating turns across comics and television. We talk about why Gerry stepped away from a successful run in TV, writing shows like Law & Order and Diagnosis: Murder, to return to DC Comics for a surprising and, frankly, underappreciated project, The Last Days of Animal Man. Th...

The 2020 One On One chat between Gerry Conway and Brian Michael Bendis  I arranged this chat between the guys the wrote their share of Spider-Man Superman, Avengers and Justice League stories.

from 202o. during covid gerry abd I talked about where the punisher fits in the post Black Lives Matter era, his DC and Marvel yeras, and adventures in TV and film writing. 

From 2013. A great talk spanning the scope of Gerry's Career. 

On this episode, I sit down with Drew Friedman for a deep dive into the wild, rebellious world of the underground comix movement of the 1960s and 70s. It's all covered in his Fantagraphics book Maverix and Lunatix: Icons of Underground Comix We talk about the artists who broke all the rules Figures like R. Crumb, Vaughn Bode, and Trina Robbins , and how their raw, unfiltered storytelling reshaped...

On this episode of Scene Missing, we head into shadowy postwar London for a stylish and strange detour in the career of Douglas Sirk. Before the lush Technicolor melodramas of the 1950s, Sirk took a crack at noir with the 1947 thriller Lured. A serial killer mystery wrapped in elegance, obsession, and just a touch of dark humor. Starring Lucille Ball in a rare dramatic role, the film follows a wom...

We talk about The re-release of Avengers Endgame with new doomsday related scenes, and other TV anf film talk.

all the guys are back to talk cartoons tv and film 

Greg talks about the dangers of Canon,and promots the return of his series The Forged with Eric Trautman. Plus updates on Lazarus, Black Magic Attikus Kodiak and more. 

Greg gets i depth about returning to the world of Kate Kane.