My Summer Lair Chapter #167: When You Get Lost In The Poetic Shared Universe…Who Do You Ask For Directions?

This is more than just a best of poetry collection although it is that.

You know how Marvel movies started with Iron Man, then the Hulk followed that, Thor and then Captain America each character and their world was properly established.

Like a patient architect Marvel Studios introduced each remarkable character via a solo movie before bringing them all together in Avengers.

According to writer and poet Paul Vermeersch writing poetry follows that same process. A writer issues poems in various books and publications and it’s like an Iron Man stand alone movie or a Captain America movie.

With Shared Universe as Paul explains it he’s now bringing all his poems together: Avengers Assemble! and the result is a fascinating contrast in light of a bold yet fresh context.

He said to me during this My Summer Lair visit: “I understand that I work in an art form that has less broad popular appeal than say a superhero film. But I can certainly borrow from that genre what I think is interesting and use it as a framework for the work that I’m doing.”

Right? So dope.

Shared Universe is fun for nerds and non-nerds: the poems in this best of collection are not chronological.

Instead they’re fueled by an optimistic imagination: a space age hope for the future. Sometimes we gotta look back to look ahead.

Paul Vermeersch @ W • T • F

Host & Photography by Sammy Younan

Recorded: Monday December 28, 2020 at Noon (EST)

Steve Ditko 1927-2018 |

Steve Ditko’s famous sequence from Amazing Spider-Man #33 (1966).

Comic Book Publishers, Faced With Flagging Sales, Look to Streaming

Disney Should Know the Difference Between James Gunn and Roseanne

My Summer Lair Chapter #164: Does Jack Kirby’s Real Life Reveal A Grand Design?

Welcome comic book writer and artist Tom Scioli. Based in Pittsburgh two of his recent projects recognize and explore the fantastic imagination of Jack King Kirby. 

The first project is Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics which is an outstanding Jack Kirby biography slash graphic novel that in some ways mirrors Captain America’s origins: Scrappy kid born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, draws well (people often forget Steve Rogers was a commercial artist for a time: yes I know he’s not a real person), gets drafted, fights in World War II and comes home victorious. Only when he returns to comic books Jack Kirby was successful though not victorious. 

It’s difficult to calibrate an authentic Jack Kirby opinion: he mined his rich imagination and gifted us so many stunning visuals and enduring characters. The rich soil of the Marvel Universe from which we’d decades later would happily harvest as the MCU. But he was also work for hire which was standard at the time even though what Simon and Kirby and especially Lee and Kirby were doing was not standard.  

Which bring us to the second Tom Scioli project related to Jack Kirby: Fantastic Four: Grand Design.  As Tom astutely writes in the first issue: “The history of the Fantastic Four is the history of the Marvel Universe.” Indeed!

Like Ed Piskor’s stunning X-Men: Grand Design that preceded it…Fantastic Four: Grand Design is a seamless blending of decades of Fantastic Four continuity into one long astonishing story. That yes tells the history of the Marvel Universe. Fantastic Four introduced us to Black Panther, Inhumans and so many other characters including a giant world eater and his silver assistant with a surfboard. 

So like the Challengers of the Unknown another Jack Kirby creation let’s cannonball into these excellent projects with comic book writer and artist and supa dupa nerd Tom Scioli. 

Tom Scioli @ W • T • F

Host & Photography by Sammy Younan

Recorded: Thursday December 10, 2020 at 1:30pm (EST)

My Summer Lair Chapter #162: What Is Todd McFarlane’s “Image” In Comics?

A Confession: I have never read an issue of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn and I’ve had since May of 1992 to do so. As you may know, Spawn was among the initial release of comics that launched Image Comics along with Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood, Erik Larsen’s The Savage Dragon, and Jim Lee’s WildC.A.T.s. (Cue the Simpsons Wildcats reference.)

That literal revolution of those wildly popular and profitable gang of artists leaving Marvel to start Image Comics is such a pivotal comic book business moment. It’s like Under Armour today trying to take on Nike and Adidas. I mean really? Can you imagine if somebody tried to start a soft drink to take on Coke and Pepsi?

That’s crazy, right? There are hundreds of legit reasons why to take on the Big 2 in any industry is madness; especially if it’s Marvel and DC. Spider-Man and Batman. Come on man.

Yet…
When we say it can’t be done it’s because fear is a monopoly emotion.
When we say this will fail it’s because we’re flailing.
When we say you will not succeed it means we doubt you
When we say you are not good enough it means we like to settle for good enough.
When we say you’re crazy it’s to dismiss you.

Truth is none of those reasons no matter how legit are reasons to stop or give up or even acknowledge. There will always be critics and it takes no courage to walk the sidewalk…that’s the path laid out for everybody.

And hence the title of David Oster’s documentary Todd McFarlane: Like Hell I Won’t. Todd McFarlane isn’t everybody he is a somebody.

Like Hell I Won’t follows McFarlane as he attempts to publish Spawn 300 making Spawn the longest-running independent comic book series of all time. Through flashbacks Oster’s documentary asks and answers the question how did we get here…how did 300 issues happen? How did we get from crazy to cool?

Featuring interviews with those close to McFarlane, like Marvel’s Joe Q, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, NFL player Larry Fitzgerald…I mean that list speaks to the size and impact of Todd’s world and work.

Also? Shout Out to producer Tara Ansley for the hockey assist in making this episode happen.

So let’s get into this, shall we? This is my conversation with director David Oster spawned from the documentary Like Hell I Won’t.

Todd McFarlane: Like Hell I Won’t @ W • T • F

Host Sammy Younan

Recorded: Sunday July 26, 2020 at 6pm EST

The New Mutants are

Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane

Illyana Rasputin/Magik

Sam Guthrie/Cannonball

Roberto “Bobby” da Costa/Sunspot

Danielle Moonstar/Mirage.

Also this is yet again a reminder that Reddit is not news much less journalism. Your feelings are not facts.

The New Mutants opens on April 3, 2020.

Yo: Read The Rest: Here.

-28-

My Summer Lair Chapter #136: Did You Hear About The Sci-Fi Novel Inspired by Pretty Woman?

Yeah the Julia Roberts prostitute movie. Weird right but indirectly that’s what Charles Soule said during our conversation.

Initially I thought Anyone was going to be some sort of Freaky Friday sci-fi novel. You know like those classic body switching movies. Instead it fits squarely in the Blade Runner and the Netflix show Altered Carbon sci-fi genre. So that was a pleasant surprise.

The basic premise of Anyone: “Set in a realistic future about a brilliant female scientist who creates a technology that allows for the transfer of human consciousness between bodies, and the transformations this process wreaks upon the world.”

The description goes on to add:
“Anyone: masterfully interweaves the present-day story of the discovery and development of the flash with the gritty tale of one woman’s crusade to put an end to the darkness it has brought to the world twenty-five years after its creation.”

That’s what I really dug about the novel: it’s not only switching back and forth between bodies but also the past and the present.

Anyone is also the second novel from writer Charles Soule. You may know him from his Marvel Comics work on books like Daredevil and Darth Vader; from his indie comics work on Curse Words, (the highly recommended) Letter 44 and currently Undiscovered Country with Scott Snyder.

I interviewed him when is first novel Oracle Year was coming out just over a year ago and that was an interesting adventure for him. He’d become proficient at writing comics he’s good at that gig. Now he’s branching out picking up how to write novels and determining how to exist in this new medium and most importantly how to contribute quality ideas. He did a great job with Oracle Year; Anyone continues to build them on that success: making it look easy. Don’t believe that for a moment.

Charles Soule @ W • T • F

Host Sammy Younan (Photography by Stephanie Cole)

Recorded: Thursday November 21, 2019 at 5:30pm (EST) at WeWork

My Summer Lair Chapter #131: When Was The Last Time You Went Out Into The Woods…Alone?

Vintage Twilight Zone episodes began with Rod Serling providing a narration effectively introducing viewers to the fifth dimension (beyond that which is known to man). Similarly, Suicide Woods is now an established Benjamin Percy dimension; it is a tour through his foreboding imagination, as if you took a cold winter vacation…from reality.

Benjamin Percy makes his My Summer Lair return with Suicide Woods: 9 short stories and one novella, each of them a slot machine of disconcerting fear.

The following words are found throughout the stories:

• Winter – 8 times

• Snow – 29 times

• Cold – 36 times

• Trees – 37 times

• Wind – 40 times

So clearly this book is ideal for this season when the fallen leaves crunch underfoot and the wind slowly beings to chill.

Walking in the Woods Ben and I get into his other keyboard adventures: writing the Wolverine Marvel podcast…he’ll begin writing Wolverine for Marvel as well as X-Force both related to Hickman’s sublime and staggering Dawn of X.

For more on Suicide Woods you can read my review (review my review) in Geek Hard.

And finally all the horror. Halloween…October this is Ben’s “Christmas” it’s a special time of year and I’m grateful he found some time to spend with me as we get into the shadows.

Benjamin Percy @ W • T • F

Host Sammy Younan (Photography by Stephanie Cole)

Recorded: Thursday October 24, 2019 at 6:30pm (EST) at WeWork