Episode 202: Reviews of Smoke Signal #25, Fool's Gold, and Briggs Land #1 - a podcast by Stergios Botzakis & Derek Royal

Time Codes:

• 00:00:30 - Introduction
• 00:02:33 - Listener mail
• 00:11:07 - Smoke Signal #25
• 00:33:54 - Fool's Gold
• 00:44:49 - Briggs Land #1
• 01:00:28 - Wrap up
• 01:01:26 - Contact us

On this week's review episode, the Two Guys with PhDs discuss three recent titles, a couple of which are probably not on most listeners' radar. They begin with one of these, the latest issue of Smoke Signal, a quarterly tabloid comics anthology published by Desert Island Comics (a shop in Brooklyn, NY) and edited by Gabe Fowler. Andy and Derek focus mainly on the summer 2016 issue, #25, although they also mention several comics in the previous spring issue. Some of the standouts in the latest include Tim Lane's contributions -- the Steve McQueen-inspired "Barnstormer" and the tabloid's center spread, "The Assassination of Billy Lyons by that Bad Man Stagger Lee" -- a new "Cosplayers" story from Dash Shaw, another in Al Columbia's "Pim and Francie" series, Siobhan Gallagher's experimental "Apartment to Be," the portfolio of Jay Rummel art, and a cover by the great Will Elder, a painting that was intended for the third issue of Harvey Kurtzman's Trump (the magazine was canceled after the second issue).

Next, the guys turn to Andy Warner's self-published Fool's Gold: The True Story of the Greates Lost Treasure in American History and the Man Who Had the Bad Luck to Find It. This a twenty-four-page story of the SS Central America's sinking off the Carolina coast in 1857 and Tommy Thompson's efforts at salvaging its lost gold in the 1980s. As the long subtitle suggests, things do not go well for Thompson after his success, leading some to believe that the treasure is cursed. Derek tells how he was already familiar with Andy Warner's comics, and that this is the kind of reality-based and journalistic story you'll find in many of his other self-published comics and in the work he does in for such outlets as The Nib and KQED. Learn more about Andy Warner's work at  his website.

Andy and Derek then wrap up with a look at the first issue of Briggs Land (Dark Horse Comics), the much-anticipated series from Brian Wood and Mack Chater and under development for AMC. In fact, the guys start off by discussing the written-with-television-in-mind phenomenon in comics and what it might mean for storytelling practices in the medium. Neither of the guys fault Wood and Chater -- or Dark Horse -- for the transmedia nature of Briggs Land, although they had different reactions to the title's potential. Derek was more taken by the story, seeing it as a return to the kind of narrative Wood created in DMZ, while Andy thought the premise less original and too close to the family crime-related television series Sons of Anarchy and Justified. Still, it's a title with great promise, whether you follow it eagerly in the monthly comics or more casually wait for the trade.

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