Dark Horse releases definitive Hellboy timeline

For those fans (us included) who may have had a hard time wrapping their head around Hellboy, Dark Horse has published a definitive chronology of the life and times of Hellboy. Check out the image below or click here to download a .pdf – be befuddled no more!

(click to enlarge)

Episode 051 “Stan Lee Cup Champs”

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Don’t call it a comeback – we’ve been here for years! Despite all self-perpetuated rumors to the contrary, Ben and Josh are back for a 51st episode and doing so in championship style!

This one is all about comics, baby! No movie talk, no industry speculation, no random tangents …well, almost no random tangents). In the obligatory Catchin’ Up segment, we hear about Josh’s upcoming world travels and the digital release of Ben’s new film at pilotgroove.com. Then the boys take a brief interlude to see the Stanley Cup. But after THAT it’s all comics!

In the first half of the show, we count down our top 5 comic stories of all time and dive into what makes each one desert-island-worthy. To see Ben’s top 50, click here. After that, we get current with Marvel NOW! and a tour of the 616, through the lens of Josh Nason. Then, Ben takes us on a tour of the comics world outside the big 2, including the Rocketeer, Saga, Dark Horse horror and more.

If you’ve been waiting 50 episodes for us to actually talk about comics, this will be our finest hour… or two!

Music in this episode by: Pilotgroove, Queen, Tyler Trautmen,
Reel Big Fish, Eminem

Episode 050 “Near Mint No More”

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This is the one you’ve all been waiting for. Recorded four years to the day from our first episode, we celebrate our silken anniversary with the much-anticipated, giant-sized, earth-shattering EPISODE 50!

Packed inside this overstuffed audio gift box is our in-depth analysis of all three comic book summer blockbusters – The Avengers, The Amazing Spider Man and The Dark Knight Rises. Ben defends the honor of the Boy Wonder, Josh get’s soft on Supes and we display our dismay over the recent “Marvel Now!” announcements.

There’s comic talk of course, including Tale of Sand, new books from Millarworld, The Court of Owls and and a double-shot of Darwyn Cooke. Along the way, Ben & Josh count down some of their top 5 favorite things in the world of entertainment. Gifts are bestowed, emotions run high and announcements are made that will shake you to your very core!

Music in this episode by: Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, Hans Zimmer, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Van Halen, the Beatles, Amy Adams, The Doors, Pearl Jam, Stan Bush

Episode 049 • NEAR MINTerview w/ Cullen Bunn

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From his brain to your ears, Ben Peirce steps inside the mad mind of Cullen Bunn in the latest NEAR MINTerview! The Eisner-nominated writer of The Sixth Gun joins us to talk about that, along with a myriad of other projects including Wolverine, Venom, Spider-Man: Season One, Captain America and a few more teases of things to come.

Along the way, we talk about Cullen’s approach to writing, the never-un-changing-forever world of superhero comics, the perils of the continuity trap, and creator-owned comics vs. bucket list characters. It’s an hour+ of awesome with one of the top writers in comics!

Music in this episode by: Ween, Stereophonics

Episode 048 “Spoiled Milk”

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We’re back after taking some time off for Ben to have a baby and Josh to learn how babies are made. After some brief catch up, we dive right into some long-awaited comic talk.

We recap Free Comic Book Day and the recent Boston Comic Con. Battle lines are drawn as we react to the first 3 issues of A vs. X and speculate about the rumored X-Bendis regime. Josh mourns the loss of Moon Knight, Ben get’s lost in the Night of Owls and we weigh in on Before Watchmen.

Later, we debate the etiquette of TV spoilers before launching into a longer-than-expected discussion on The Walking Dead TV series. In the obligatory summer movie discussion, we make our demands of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man. Finally we wrap things up with some rapid fire reviews and recommendations including Venom, Spider-Man: Ends of the Earth, Tom Strong and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

It’s a cornucopia of comic talk to kick off the season of summer blockbusters!

Music in this episode by: Steve Miller Band, Dropkick Murphys, Phish, The Hooters

Episode 047 • NEAR MINTerview w/ Matt Kindt

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Ben Peirce is back with another NEAR MINTerview! Joining us this month from St. Louis, Missouri is Matt Kindt. Matt is a Harvey Award-winning writer and artist who made a name for himself with his breakout hits, Super Spy and 2 Sisters, from Top Shelf Publications. Since then, he’s produced a number of graphic novels, including 3 Story: the Secret History of the Giant Man, from Dark Horse, Revolver at Vertigo, and The Tooth with Cullen Bunn from Oni Press. He recently took the reigns on Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth, where he penciled a pivotal story arc in the series.

We touch on many of those works over the course of the interview as well as some new projects Matt has coming up. His new ongoing series from Dark Horse, Mind MGMT is generating a lot of excitement. And in the coming months, he’ll be taking over as the regular writer on Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. There’s a lot to look forward to from Matt Kindt and we cover it all, as well as thoughts on the Watchmen prequels and predictions for the Oscars – don’t miss it!

Music in this episode by: Johnny Rivers, MGMT

From Ben: Official Hit List Hiatus

For everyone who’s been enjoying the Weekly Hit (& Miss) List, thank you for reading, commenting and supporting what we’re doing here at nearmintcomicshow.com. As you’ve probably noticed though, my weekly review column has been coming out with far less frequency of late.

As mentioned on our last episode, it’s teaching season again and I’m back at Southern New Hampshire University teaching animation and visual effects. The good news is I’m hard at work preparing the next generation of animators and mond-blowing special effects creators to bring you a lifetime of comic book properties on the big and small screen. The bad news is it’s left me with little time to produce a quality column each week. So rather than stress about it, and produce a sporadic column that’s not up to snuff, I’ve decided to suspend the Hit (& Miss) List for the time being in the hopes of a return to form this summer.