The Letters Page

POSTED BY Alex Zalben, 07 January 2008

As we've mentioned before, there's way too much mail for us to answer in the shows, so we'll be answering some of it right here on the blog. As always, thanks for sending in your questions, and please keep shooting them over to tips@pulpsecret.com, call them in to 888-841-7549, or post a video response on YouTube!

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Oliver from the Philippines Asks:

Great show guys. My question is, if you have the chance to write a comic book crossover, what would it be about and who would you pick as an artist? Also, do you guys have day jobs?

I think it would really depend on the content of the cross-over, right? But off the top of my head, I think John Cassaday can do almost no wrong, and conveys an amazing sense of scope in all of his art. Also, this is a personal preference, but I was totally in love with Juan Bobillo's art on the first volume of She-Hulk, and would love to see him do some more comics work. Oliver Coipel and Jim Cheung (yes, I know I'm listing a lot of Marvel artists) are both killer artists with a great young sensibility. And just to list someone who hasn't done a big cross-over yet, I'd say Francis Portela, who's work on Super-Villain Team-Up, and Black Panther were both fantastic, and couldn't have shown a greater range of style (I didn't realize it was the same artists until I checked the credits). As for the jobs thing, for the most part, reading comics is our day jobs, which is awesome. Other than that, we all do a lot of comedy in our spare time, for various improv and sketch groups. And we're train-traveling hobos, but that's neither here nor there.

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Giant Yankee sez:

Hey guys,I just caught your worst of 07 show and I can not believe how many people hate Countdown. I hear that from a lot of people on the Internet, and I just wanted you guys to know that Countdown is what got me interested in the DCU. I have read every issue, and although some of them have been disappointing, they have all been very enjoyable. The writing is fantastic. It's like a movie, which is why I think a lot of people dislike it. Since DC's last year event was so different, they can not and will not get used to something different from the great 52 series. So that's all I had to say that there is at least one Countdown fan from its start.

Dan Didio? Is that you? I kid of course, and totally seriously, I can't fault someone for liking something enough to get 'em to read more comics. I think the problem I was having with Countdown was, in fact, the structure. As you say, it's like a movie, but at least until the title change, it wasn't playing at all like a comic book. There were no cliff-hangers, and nothing to separate one issue from another. With the title change (Countdown to Final Crisis), they've embraced the comic book form a little more fully, building an arc for each issue, and making sure there's a good cliff-hanger to keep you "tuning in." For a lot of fans, it's too little too late, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the series now, and I'm glad someone has since the very beginning. Hopefully it encourages you to go back and read some other DCU stories.

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Scott screams:

http://www.marvel.com/news/comicstories.2150.Take_Ten%3A_Top_Heroes_of_2007Iron-Friggin-Man?! IRON-FRIGGIN-MAN?!!! Iron-Friggin-Man is #1 in the Top Ten Heroes of the Year?! And this was decided by whatever scraps and oddballs were left when the office was deserted during the holidays. I don't know what they were trying to do, but all they managed to accomplish is to make me want to buy whatever comic has Thor bashing the crap out of him with a big hammer. Now there's a comic art page I'd like to have!

So... You like Iron Man? He's your favorite hero? That's what I'm getting from what you're saying... In any case, there's a couple of things here: 1) This isn't an independent list, it's a list put together by Marvel, so of course they're going to put characters they want to promote; 2) Iron-Friggin-Man has been in every single title Marvel published all year, if that didn't make him #1, I don't know what will.

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Chris wants to know:

What program, or other method do you use to catalogue your comic book collection? Do you feel any particular computer program works best either specifically created for comic books, or something more main stream like Excel to list your comic collection? I've always wanted or started to catalogue my comic collection, then loss interest because of the sheer bulk of the collection. My ideal set up would be something with a search bar like in iTunes, and a way to order the comics by, writer, publisher, issue, title, vol, and with a picture of the cover either off the net, or taken at home.

I actually have the same problem, except for me, it extends to "not leaving my comics in little piles all over my apartment." So I think I need to get over that, before I start cataloguing them. That being said, there are a number of bookshelf type programs available on the net. I've heard good things about Comicster, and a brief search brings up Comic Collector. Anybody have any experience with these, or other programs?

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Robert queries:

Since crossovers are a huge topic these days in comics, I was wondering what would be your favorite and least favorite out of all the crossovers you ever read. My favorite would probably be Kraven's Last Hunt and The Sinestro Corps War while my least favorite would be anything that ties in with Countdown and Countdown itself. Thanks and keep up the good work.

You and Giant Yankee should probably fight, Robert. I'll see about setting that up. Until that happens, I think those are great choices, and I'd throw in Inferno as probably my favorite cross-over of all time. In particular, I loved the long, slow build up, how it dealt with continuity, and how each of the X-titles cause the Inferno in their own, interlocking way. That you take away one titles contribution, and Inferno couldn't have happened. To me, it was, and might always be, the epitome of cross-over. As for bad... Well, let's just say I wasn't a huge fan of Maximum Carnage, and we'll leave it at that.

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