Grendel: The early years

For Halloween, we take a look at Vamps by Elaine Lee and William Simpson, a 1994 comic book from DC’s Vertigo imprint that has a bit of crossover with the 1990s Bad Girls comics trend.

Today we’re continuing our exploration of the history of the Dark Age of Comics, but we’re jumping around the timeline a little bit to look at a couple things written by Steve Gerber: The Legion of Night with art by Whilce Portacio, and Void Indigo with art by Val Mayerik.

This one’s a mini-episode, with me going solo again to talk about the late Glen Hammonds, a hidden figure in the development and popularization of Outlaw Comics. Hammonds, who passed away of pancreatic cancer in 2020, was the proprietor of the comics retailer, wholesaler, and publisher Raw Comics and was a legit patron of the Outlaw Comics arts, spending thousands of dollars a year commissioning art to help the artists make a living.   My longer article on Hammonds: https://sewermutant.com/remembering-glen-hammonds-outlaw-comics-patron-83f590511002/   Credits: Hosts: Klint Finley Music: krudler.bandcamp.com

We’re finally diving into Frank Miller’s Ronin this episode. Love him or hate him, you can’t really talk about the Dark Age of Comic Books without talking about Miller. His work on Daredevil and Dark Knight Returns are two of the most important touchstones for the emergence of the period. But Ronin is arguably more important.   Music: https://krudler.bandcamp.com

From Epic to Vertigo to Wildstorm, the 1980s and 1990s was the era of comic book imprints. Klint flies solo to dive into this phenomenon of the Dark Age.   Music by krudler.bandcamp.com

We're joined by artist and illustrator Elinore Edge to talk about the first two volumes of ElfQuest: The Original Quest. We talk about the epic series' themes of home and belonging, Wendy Pini's incredible art and how it stood out against a sea of "house style" art from the big two, and how ElfQuest was the first comic to follow what is now the standard storytelling structure for most comics, especially independent comics.   You can read all of ElfQuest at elfquest.com   Music by krudler.bandcamp.com

Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi passed away earlier this month, so we recorded an emergency episode to discuss her work.

In our second installment on Matt Wagner's Grendel, we dive into issues 1-20 of the ongoing series from Comico, as well as the Grendel: Devil's Vagary one shot. We begin with the second Grendel Christine Spar, continue to Brian Li Sung, and wrap-up with Captain Wiggins. We talk about the Pander Brothers, how 1986 is the most 80s year of the 80s, Wagner's experiments, and more.

We couldn't help it. We weren't going to read Grendel so soon, but irresistibly drawn to Matt Wagner's masterpiece. Once he started reading, he couldn't stop. Klint was soon sucked back into the world of Grendel too. In this episode, we look at the earliest Grendel stories from Comico Primer, the original black and white series, and the classic Devil by the Deed. Credits: Hosts: Klint Finley and John Ekleberry Music: krudler.bandcamp.com   Full show notes and transcript: https://sewermutant.com/podcast-grendel-part-1/

This episode we dive into <em>Manhunter</em> by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson. This was essentially a Dark Age comic that happened to come out in the early Bronze Age (1973). This comic was ahead of its time in many ways.   Credits: Hosts: Klint Finley and John Ekleberry Music: krudler.bandcamp.com   Full show notes and transcript: https://sewermutant.com/podcast-manhunter/