After 6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental, we break down eight books that are worth reading. Esther’s got Dan Jurgen’s Booster Gold, Gail Simone and Nicola Scott’s Secret Six, Franco and Baltazar’s Tiny Titans, Batman Confidential, and Superman/Batman. I’ve got Amazing Spider-Man, Criminal, Yotsuba&!, and Pluto. We share some jokes, a couple anecdotes, and realize that though we approach comics in different ways, we generally want the same thing: good stories.

Visual aides:

Esther:

David

And a bonus shot, since Esther got a whole extra book!

It’s our tenth fourcast and the last from San Diego Comic-Con 2009. As befitting an event of this magnitude, we’ve got a couple of guests.

-Esther hits us with an introduction
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental is our theme music
-Esther chats with Gail Simone about Wonder Woman, Secret Six, and other things for about ten minutes
-David talks to Graeme “iam and io9” McMillan for about twenty minutes, mulling over everything under the sun
-I came this close to taking Graeme’s “Prrrr… sexy” and turning it into a ringtone to put up on the site. Just FYI.
-C.E.Outro

Next week, we’re back to our usual format.

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In Secret Six #11– oop, spoilers.

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I managed to pull myself away from Final Fantasy VII long enough on Saturday to record another Fourcast! with Esther. Of course, the looming specter of technical issues ended up eating about twenty minutes of what we recorded, if not more, but we pulled it out in the end. You can tell that there were issues because my headset suddenly changes sounds with five minutes to go. Whoo!

Here’s the breakdown:
-We open with a brief chat about the unnamed Secret Six, courtesy of Gail Simone and Nicola Scott, and beefcake. Did I call beefcake gross? No, but I did call Bane’s chest gross. Look at it.

-Look at that chest.
-Next up is Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely’s Batman and Robin, where we praise the book, namecheck frequent commenter ACK (holla!), and critique Quitely’s art.
-Thomas Wayne can beat up your dad.
-Dumb comics, like Spider-Man: The Short Halloween, are fun comics!
-No, wait, dumb comics are bad comics as we discover in a new segment that is as-yet unnamed. Esther explains the history of Dinah Drake, later known as Dinah Lance, while I go into a brief overview of the Clone Saga.
-Neither of us escapes unscathed.
-At the end of the show is a surprise for you, listener! And also one for you, Esther!

Kapow! We’ll see you in… seven days?! What new development is this?!

(boilerplate stuff: subscribe to the podcast-specific RSS feed, or grab us on iTunes. feel free to drop a review on us!)

Since we get right into spoilers for Batman and Robin #1 and for Secret Six #10, I’ll put the cut up front.

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I was reading Secret Six #9, today.  In it three members of the six stop a kidnapping.  The kid in question is female, blonde, and in a pink dress, and who should end up holding her and taking her to her parents?  Bane.  Yes, the gigantic, awkward, spine-snapping collossus of the Secret Six ends up singing to the little girl and calming her down.  Looking at the issue made me think of all the other Big Gruff Guy, Cute Little Kid pair ups there are.  There’s Bane, in this comic, and to some extent Bane with Scandal Savage.  Cable got a baby girl a little while back.  Wolverine can’t pass a teenage girl without becoming a mentor to her for a little while.

And then there are countless movies, tv shows, and books that play off the same concept.  It’s cheap, obvious emotional manipulation.

I love it.

Of course I know that people are pandering to me.  So what?  What exactly is wrong with a story that is flat-out written for reader enjoyment?  Isn’t that what we pay for?  I realize that graphic novels can make subtle points and speak to our minds instead of our brain-stems, but at the same time, I think there’s an art to skillfully pushing people’s buttons and molding their emotions.  I also think there’s a certain integrity in deliberately giving readers the kind of stories that they enjoy most.  I don’t know if it’s customers service or consideration for one’s audience, but I like it.

The only real problem I have with accepting this kind of obvious maneuvering is it rips the self-righteousness right out from under me.  When certain authors set up one character as an incompetent, hateful buffoon so that their pet character can look cool by taking out an easy target, someone reading The Complete Works of Proust may be able to raise a scornful eyebrow and talk about cheap storytelling technique.  But I, gripping my copy of that Batman Adventures comic in which Batman has to spend a whole night crime-fighting while also taking care of a baby with nuclear codes imbedded in its DNA, don’t have a leg to stand on.

But at least I don’t have to spend my time reading The Complete Works of Proust.

Oof. Why do I always get to the store late when something huge happens?

Don’t look below the cut if you don’t want to get spoiled for Secret Six #6.

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Sometimes you’re on your computer, you’re not going anywhere, and you just want to yack about a comic with people.

Go below the cut to start flapping your fingers about Secret Six.  Don’t click if you don’t want to get, as the kids say, ‘spoiled.’

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