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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.4: Comics Episode! Fraction’s Hawkeye and Bendis’s All-New X-Men

You asked for it (you didn’t ask for it), and now we are delivering! The extra special all-comics episode of the Reading the End Bookcast, featuring recurring guest star Captain Hammer! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go.

Episode 4

Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes.

If you want to skip around, here are the contents of the podcast:

Starting at 2:20: We talk about why Randon feels defensive of comics. I only feel defensive of comics when I am reading Saga on the subway and I turn a page and it’s suddenly people with television heads having sex. And then I only feel defensive insofar as like, “Eyes on your own paper, stranger next to me on the subway! This is acceptable reading matter!” (Defensive, enough, in other words, to switch to something else.)

7:15: The reference I am making to Gaston is about this bit of Beauty and the Beast where Gaston takes Belle’s book and says “How can you reeeeead this? There’s no pictures in it,” and Belle says, “Well, some people like to use their imaginations.” I am obviously on Belle’s side in this exchange morally, but I do love books with pictures in them.

Starting at 13:16 – We talk some more about Matt Fraction’s amazing and beautiful Hawkeye, a comic I do not tire of talking about to people! My review of the first six issues can be found here, and you can buy the first trade paperback too (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), if you wish! (And, I discover belatedly, the second trade paperback also, again at Amazon, B&N, and Book Depository.) Although we do talk about the first six issues, we’re mainly focusing on the issues that came thereafter.

17:37: Randon describes tiers of comic books. I am flagging this for you because I like a taxonomy and maybe you do too.

20:12 – The pizza dog issue was the most recent issue when we recorded this podcast. There’s been another one since then, which was also wonderful and sad. Read them all.

Starting at 35:00 – We move along to the review of All-New X-Men, by Brian Bendis. If you’re interested, you can buy the first trade paperback and check it out (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository). If you enjoy that one, there’s a second trade paperback currently in existence, and a third is due out in October.

52:29 – Sometimes members of my family (ie me and all my sisters) will say the same not-that-interesting-or-funny thing sixteen times until we are acknowledged.

54:26 – 55:12 – I slightly spoil the movie Looper. Sorry. You can skip this bit.

Note that Whiskey Jenny and I will next be reading Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson. We’d also love to have some listener questions to answer, to get in touch with us at readingtheend AT gmail DOT com.

Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: andreybl / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
Song is by Jeff MacDougall and comes from here.
The above links to books we’ve discussed are affiliate links. If you click on them and then buy a book from that website, I get a very small amount of money. This in no way influences my reviews.