On Location - Bringing in the New Year at Collected Comics and Games - a podcast by Stergios Botzakis & Derek Royal

It's been six months since he last did so, but Derek is back at his local shop, Collected Comics and Games, for another on-location episode. As usual, he talks with several of the shop customers and employees about the kinds of comics that they've been reading. And since it's the first month of the year, everyone used the opportunity to discuss the titles that stood out for them in 2015 as well as the comics that they're looking forward to in the coming months. For this recording Derek is joined by on-location episode regulars, Craig, Matt, and Chris, as well as store associate Stephanie and the shop's new manager, Sabrina. (Sabrina has been at Collected in Plano for a long time, but she's just recently become its manager.) So after getting reacquainted with the preliminaries, everyone jumps into a recap of the most notable comics from last year. It's no surprise that, for many, Marvel's Secret Wars and its many ancillary tales received the lion's share of commentary (along with the publisher's seemingly endless, and irritating, instances of renumbering and revoluming). But there were other outstanding 2015 titles for the crew, including Toil and Trouble, Invader Zim, Plutona, the new Archie, BKV's We Stand on Guard and Paper Girls, and the webcomic Ava's Demon. Derek then turns the discussion into a more forward-looking one, asking everyone what comics and events they are anticipating in the coming year. Many said that the new iteration of Marvel's Civil War is something that they're eagerly awaiting, but folks also mentioned Brian Wood's upcoming Black Road, Daniel Clowes's Patience, more Jem and the Holograms, Chapter House's Spirit Leaves, Beauties (whose first issue came out at the tail end of last year), and the continuation of Vertigo's new line of titles. TV and movie properties, especially the second season of Netflix's Daredevil and the new Lucifer series, also get a lot of love during the discussion. Overall, the guys at the shop covered a lot of ground, and everyone is looking forward to more of these monthly on-location episodes throughout the year!

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