NINETY Episodes and still going strong! Josh is away, but Ben and Dan are here to reveal their deepest darkest desires in a spirited round of Fantasy Editor. We heat up the hot stove and place our favorite creators on dream projects and dream up blockbuster creative teams for marquee superhero books.
Imagine a world where Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips take over the Punisher, where Grant Morrison writes Yoda, where Scottie Young draws Harry Potter and we try our best not to just have Darwin Cooke do all the comics.
This one is LOADED with comic talk, but it’s not all all what-if stories. You also get the usual helping of Top o’ the Pile and Can o’ Beans that includes Fear Agent, Huck, The Star Wars and more. Get amped up for comics that will never be created in this Earth-shattering Elseworlds tale.
It is the year 2016 and the geeks have truly inherited the earth. The entire world has been gripped by Star Wars fever and Ben and Dan are ready to weigh in on all the awesomeness spilling forth from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
Before diving into our review of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, we start things off in typical fashion with Top o’ the Pile. Dan talks up The Goon, Vol. 6: Chinatown and Ben get’s the ball droid rolling with a healthy discussion about Marvel’s Star Wars comic line. Then it’s off to the movies.
SPOILER WARNING: This episode contains in-depth conversation of plot points from the movie. We discuss the characters, the themes, the big reveals and give our opinions on all of it. If you are somehow listening to a comicbook podcast and have not seen The Force Awakens, show some self-respect, get to the theater and see it immediately, because SPOILER ALERT – it’s great!
After an hour-plus of movie talk, we wrap things up with a spacefaring Can o’ Beans that includes Jean-Claude Mézières and Pierre Christin’s Valérian and Laureline series and Rick Remender’s hard-drinking space western, Fear Agent.
Start this episode at 10:44 PM to ring in the New year with us!
Happy New Year, everybody! It’s part three of our three-part season finale and the conclusion of the 6th Annual-ish Minty Awards. In this episode, we hand out the comic awards for Best Single Issue, Best Limited Series, Best New Series and Best Comic.
Ben Josh and Dan all join the party with Top o’ the Pile and Can o’ Beans, featuring The Fadeout (again), Batman and Robin Eternal, New Hampshire Business Review and more. Synchronize your watch and join us as we usher in 2016 with a proper New Year’s Eve countdown and an explosive end to this year in comics.
It’s the mint–Minty-est time of the year! Time to get festive and continue the 6th Annual-ish Minty Awards, honoring the best of comics in 2015… or is it 2013… oh, who’s counting? Let’s give out some awards!
[NOTE: If you missed our last episode, be sure to go back and get the full Minty Awards experience.]
In part two of our three-part season finale, we hand out our character awards for Best Hero, Best Villain, Best and Ensemble Cast along with creator awards for Best Art Team and Best Writer. In two weeks, we’ll close out the Minty Awards (and 2015) with our awards for comic titles.
With Josh off on a publicity tour, Ben and Dan dish out the awards along with Top o’ the Pile and Can o’ Beans, featuring The Fadeout, Afterlife With Archie, The Walking Dead and more. It’s the penultimate episode of 2015 and your source for the must-read comics of the year. Give yourself a gift this holiday season and listen.
That’s right folks, it’s the year-end awards show three years in the making, and three episodes in the telling. We owe you three Minty Awards shows since we did the best of 2012, and we’re going to deliver them all – starting now! It’s the 6th Annual-ish Minty Awards, featuring the best comics and comics-related stuff of the past… however long it’s been since we last did the Minty Awards.
In the first of our three-part season finale, we hand out our industry awards for Best Comic TV Show, Best Comic Movie, Best Comic Event/Storyline and Best Comic Publisher. Over the next two episodes, we’ll continue the Minty Awards with our character, creator and comicbook awards.
All this, plus a Top o’ the Pile and Can o’ Beans that includes Hawkeye, DKIII, Batman Europa, Two Brothers, The Fadeout and more. It’s a magical comics countdown to Christmas, arriving a few years late but just in time for you to ring in the New Year in minty-fresh style.
It’s time to tap out and take 20 to the dome, as we reach across the aisle to compare comics to their brother-from-another-mothership, Magic: the Gathering. What can popular Magicplay formats tell us about being fans and consumers of comics.
First though, Dan gives us a not-so-sterling review of the Rhone Island Comic Con, but manages to hook us up with a few creator soundbites. We get the lowdown on Marvel Universe Live and we talk Halloween costumes and inappropriately-old trick-or-treaters.
In Top o’ the Pile, Josh is nonplussed by Captain America: White, Ben catches up Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man and Dan dives into the back issue bin with Uncanny X-Men #268.
After that, Ben bogarts the mic for 10 minutes to set up our main topic and drop some Magic: the Gathering knowledge on all you comic book fans. We talk about at the Standard, Modern and Legacy formats and decide what books would constitute their comic counterparts.
All that, and a Can o’ Beans makes for magic on the mic that you won’t want to miss.
For 7+ years and 83 episodes, we’ve tried to tell you that the Near Mint Comic Show is, in fact about comicbooks and not stand-up comedians. And now for something completely different, we’re throwing in the towel and giving you what you want.
On October 26, our friends at Double Midnight Comics hosted the first ever Double Midnight Comics presents: COMICS! – a night of stand-up comics… in a comic store. We were there to record the festivities and play them back for your listening pleasure. The bill includes (full or partial) sets by…
Ryan Chani (@ryanchani)hosts the show, warming up the crowd and introducing each act. Ryan is the host of the Learn to Take a Joke comedy podcast.
Paul Landwehr (paullandwehr.com)is a New England-based comic who was recently featured on WMUR’s Chronicle. He was voted “Best Local Comedian” by readers of The Hippo Press for two consecutive years in NH
Pamela Ross (@PamNotAnderson) is a Connecticut native, making her mark on the Boston comedy scene. She is the host of Comedy Night at Pavement Coffeehouse in Boston.
Jere Palapil (jerepcomedy.com)is the current comic in residence at the Comedy Studio in Harvard Square. He was the runner-up in ImprovBoston’s The People’s Battle and has been a guest on several comedy podcasts.
Jay Chanoine (jaychanoine.com) is a fifth level half-elf rogue, who’s been seen across the east coast and on the Altercation Punk Comedy Tour. His debut comedy album – Come On Feel Chanoine – is available now on iTunes and Amazon.
Nick Lavalle (theotherdude.com) is a featured comic on funnyordie.com. He’s opened for national headliners and solidified himself as a national act by appearing the Laugh Factory in Las Vegas and Hollywood. Nick has several albums, including his latest – The Other Dude – available on iTunes.
If you still want a comicbook fix, fear not. Ben and Josh bookend the show in typical fashion with Top o’ the Pile and Can o’ Beans. Josh gives us the lowdown on the all-new, all-different Amazing Spider-Man #1 and how publishing delays and the Fantastic Four are ruining the end of Secret Wars. We talk Grayson and catch up with #AllTheRobins in Batman and Robin Eternal #1. If you’re just here for the comedy, skip ahead to the 15-minute mark.
Dan and Ben take the helm this week for an episode jam-packed with comic talk. In a totally inaccessible Top o’ the Pile, Dan plugs a 50-year-old Doom Patrol story, and ben previews the yet-to-be-released Image comic, Citizen Jack. We discuss the news spinning out of NY Comic Con, including two upcoming X-Men shows and Y: the Last Man, headed to TV.
Later, Dan lets us help with an art Purchase decision and we debut a new game. Six Degrees of Howard Chaykin is a mashup of UNO and the telephone game with rapid-fire comics recommendations. All this, plus Saga, Bitch Planet, Paper Girls, I Hate Fairy Land, Tokyo Ghost and just about everything but Howard Chaykin – listen now and avoid eternal damnation.
In this week’s episode, we introduce two new segments and devise the world’s worst plan to keep your significant other from clamping down on your comic collection. But first up, in Top o’ the Pile, we find out what book Ben can’t quit, what you get when you add fun to Hellboy and whether Josh will ever catch up on Detective Comics.
In our first new segment – If you like that, try this – we discuss Fear The Walking Dead and make comic, movie and novel recommendations for fans of flagship show/comic. Then we head to the boardroom for our next new segment – Near Mint CEO – where we play armchair editor and try to fix D.C. Comics.
With all this, plus a Can o’ Beans, listening to this episode is a matter of life and death. It’s 73 minutes of mindless entertainment that might just save you from the zombie apocalypse.
It’s a deep dive into geekdom this week as Ben and Dan settle in to cover 2 topics that go together like, well… eggs and jerky. In the first half of the show we revisit the “Kirkman Manifesto” seven years later. Then in act two, we try to pick the definitive stories and defining artists for DC and Marvel’s most popular heroes.
It’s been nearly 80 episodes since we talked about Robert Kirkman’s green-screened glove-slap to the comics industry. With Rick Remender’s recent proclamation to focus on creator-owned work and the Image renaissance in full swing, it’s a perfect time to look back. Join us as we turn back the clock to a bygone era of prophecy and un-ironic MySpace references.
Shifting gears, completely we look at Big-2 superheroes and try to pick the defining stories for the world’s most popular heroes – it’s harder than you’d think. We give our picks and choose a Can o’ Beans from the resulting list.
With all this – plus Top o’ the Pile and a Granitecon recap – you’ll have plenty to chew on in this 108-minute serving of hard-boiled entertainment.
Happy New Year, everybody!
NEAR MINT COMIC SHOW .com 