Category Drew Baumgartner

Drew Baumgartner, Co-Editor-In-Chief
drew@retcon-punch.com

Location: Milwaukee

History With Comics: Drew grew up with Superman pajamas. His best days were when he never had to change out of them. He fell in love with Batman the Animated Series when he was 5. He had never read a comic in his life, but started reading Batman trades when he was in high school. He continued to pick up trades and one-offs throughout the 00’s, but never got into the monthly swing. After almost a decade of being an outsider looking in, Drew seized upon DC’s relaunch to start picking up monthlies.

Apr 8 2014

Green Arrow 30

 

green arrow 30Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Green Arrow 30, originally released April 2nd, 2014.

Shelby: Because I like to stay on top of pop culture trends, I recently discovered the TV series Legend of the Seeker. It’s a pretty straight-forward magic-based fantasy, based on Terry Goodkind’s series The Sword of Truth. You know, right up my alley. Anyway, there are two groups of magical women in this universe: Confessors and Mord-Sith. The Confessors’ power is based on love and truth; they can see when someone is lying, and as a last resort force them to tell the truth by causing people to fall desperately in love with them. The Mord-Sith, however, get their power from hate; all love, kindness, and compassion is burned out of them from youth until all they know is how to cause pain and hatred. While neither situation is ideal, it’s made clear that the love for a Confessor can elicit positive change in a person, whereas “training” from a Mord-Sith can only breed more hate. So, what do you get when someone is motivated by both love AND hate? By quiet dignity and unbelievable cruelty? Maybe we should ask Green Arrow.

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Apr 4 2014

Starlight 2

Today, Taylor and Drew are discussing Starlight 2, originally released April 2nd, 2014

Taylor: In Western society we have a bad habit of forgetting the elderly. Indeed, when we aren’t forgetting them, the aged are bothering the young with their healthcare needs, their devotion to voting, and their being a reminder of what awaits us all later in life. I have to admit, one of my deepest fears is growing old and being alone with no one around giving a crap about this old fart. The gut-punch that was the first issue of Starlight explored the way a meaningful life can wither into one of loneliness and with it, a tale of redemption was set. In the second issue of the series, Duke McQueen — senior citizen and planet saver — laces up his boots once again to save Tantalus and it is an absolute delight.

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Apr 3 2014

Detective Comics 30

Alternating Currents, Detective Comics 30, Drew and ScottToday, Drew and Scott are discussing Detective Comics 30, originally released April 2nd, 2014.

Welcome to Gotham City. It has the potential to be great…for the both of us. It’s a new start.

Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato

Drew: Two figures arrive in the big city for the first time. It’s the start of many a classic story of city life — including this issue — but it also accurately describes Manapul and Buccellato’s “move” to Gotham. After a stellar run on The Flash (ha), Manapul and Buccellato have brought their signature meta-commentary to DC’s namesake, opening with the quote above. The line is not necessarily spoken — it could plausibly be said by Elena or Annie Aguila (the two figures we see arriving in Gotham), but is rather explicitly not represented as dialogue, or even internal monologue — there’s no speech balloon, no voiceover box, not even a quotation mark, suggesting that this really is the creators speaking directly to the audience. It’s a bold move, but exactly the kind that gives me confidence that this does indeed have the potential to be great.

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Apr 2 2014

Deadpool 26

Alternating Currents: Deadpool 26, Drew and Shelby

Today, Drew and Shelby are discussing Deadpool 26, originally released March 26th, 2014

Drew: Third-person omniscient perspective is perhaps the most common in all of storytelling, but it’s also the weirdest. That kind of birds-eye-view of a situation we’re otherwise not involved in is utterly unnatural, yet we almost never question it when we read it. Who is it that’s telling us this story? Why are they telling it? Sometimes these questions are addressed in-narrative, but more often than not, we’re meant to accept that our narrator is not a character at all, but some mysterious force that reveals this story to us just for the sake of it. This can get even more complicated in visual media, like comics and film, where the visual narrator can exist independent of the voiceover narration. Deadpool 26 takes gleeful advantage of that complexity, creating a comic that very explicitly feels like a comic, effectively challenging all of our notions as to what exactly that means.

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Apr 2 2014

Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 3/26/14

round upLook, there are a lot of comics out there. Too many. We can never hope to have in-depth conversations about all of them. But, we sure can round up some of the more noteworthy titles we didn’t get around to from the week. Today, Drew and Patrick discuss Tomb Raider 2, Aquaman 30, Red Lanterns 30, All-Star Western 30, Fables 139, Manhattan Projects 19, George Romero’s Empire of the Dead Act One 3, Superior Spider-Man 30, and Indestructible Hulk 20.

slim-banner4Patrick: It can be sorta tricky to take the story of any modern adventure game seriously. Like, we can all cheer for Nathan Drake and have a hell of a good time watching him trade barbs with Sully and running through the jungle with Elena, but we have to keep some emotional distance as he straight-up murders dudes for treasure. That’s one of the defining flaws of the Tomb Raider narrative: Lara Croft agonizes over her first kill, but her second, third and fourth kills all come minutes later and they’re instantly common place. In issue two of the comic series, Gail Simone tries to retcon the end of the game as something of a murderous fever dream, revealing that Lara encouraged her surviving teammates to take treasure from the Solarii. It’s sorta fucked up, but then Lara’s murderama doesn’t feel right in the game either — I’m interested to see where this is headed and if Simone’s retcon sticks, or if some manipulative forces are continuing to prey on her naiveté.

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Apr 1 2014

The Wake 7

wake 7Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing The Wake 7, originally released March 26th, 2014.

Anything could happen.

-Traditional

Patrick: Aristotle called it “peripeteia” — the conditions that trigger a fundamental change in what we understand about a narrative. We know it more colloquially these days as a “mindfuck,” and it’s simultaneously the most rewarding and most frustrating thing to experience as an audience member. We’ve all been there: suddenly you have to decide whether the leap has established a reality that you still want to experience. Is it fundamentally the same story once you know that Luke is Darth Vader’s son? No way. Is that new story worth experiencing? Oh, hell yes. Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy are fresh on the heels of one of the biggest shifts in storytelling since Psycho, and they’re already dousing the narrative in shocking new revelations. “Anything” has already happened — how the hell are they still surprising me?

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Mar 31 2014

A + X 18

a+x 18Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing A + X 18, originally released March 28th, 2014.

Patrick: There was always going to be something artificial about the A + X conceit. For as much as it feels like they’re all good guys, so they should have no problem teaming up for a little BAM-POW superhero adventuring, there’s just too much baggage to sustain it for very long. As the series comes to close, it appears that A + X was a promise too heavy to be supported by such a fluffy, carefree experience. The final issue seems split on this opinion, simultaneously expressing how similar the two groups are while stubbornly refusing to find common ground between the two.

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Mar 28 2014

The Sandman Overture 2

sandman 2Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing the The Sandman Overture 2, originally released March 26th, 2014.

Shelby: There are a few dreams I’ve had in my life that I remember very clearly. Once I dreamt I had to go to a new job, and in order to get there I had to swim underwater. On my first day, we’re swimming and swimming, and I’m running out of air but I have to stay behind my guide. Then I woke up gasping; I had been holding my breath in my sleep. Not too long ago, I dreamt I was in a dark room that was even darker near the door. I had to pass through the darkest part of the room to leave, and as I did, two hands shot out of the shadows and grabbed my arms. That was one that had me bolt upright in bed, and then turn on every light in my apartment. I think these dreams stuck with me because there was a sense of reality to them; I was actually holding my breath, I could almost feel the stranger’s hands on my arms. Dreams are like bits of reality spun together to resemble a sort of whole, a feeling that Neil Gaiman and J.H. Williams have somehow captured in their long-awaited second installment of Sandman Overture.

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Mar 27 2014

The Flash 29

Alternating Currents: Flash 29, Drew and ScottToday, Drew and Scott are discussing The Flash 29, originally released March 26th, 2014.

Drew: I have a friend who used to love Law and Order — er, he liked it as much as a person can really like an episodic primetime drama — the point is, he was happy to tune in every week to see how the team handles the new case. That is, until his son pointed out to him how formulaic the show really is — right down to when in the episode they’ll nab the wrong suspect, find that key clue, or offer a plea bargain. It ruined the show for him — knowing what would happen next robbed every development of any drama, so he just stopped watching it. In some way, we all have this same experience with storytelling in general: the more stories we consume, and the more familiar with common formulas we become, the better we are at predicting what happens next. We recognize foreshadowing, we notice if we’re being intentionally misled — we just become harder to fool. Many of us are willing to put that aside to suspend our disbelief that maybe the hero won’t make it out this time, or maybe the lead couple won’t end up together, after all, but sometimes a writer still wants to surprise us. This often requires going into DEEP left field, which can make the resulting developments feel arbitrary, or even nonsensical. Unfortunately, those are the kinds of final act reveals we get in Flash 29.

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Mar 26 2014

Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 3/19/14

round upLook, there are a lot of comics out there. Too many. We can never hope to have in-depth conversations about all of them. But, we sure can round up some of the more noteworthy titles we didn’t get around to from the week. Today, Drew, Patrick, and Spencer discuss Batwoman 29, Batman and Aquaman 29, Thunderbolts 23, Avengers World 4, New Avengers 15, Nova 15, Uncanny X-Men 19, Wolverine and the X-Men 2, Superior Spider-Man Annual 2, Superior Foes of Spider-Man 10, Harley Quinn 4, Unwritten Apocalypse 3, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Utrom Empire 3.

slim-banner4Drew: I’ve never seen a writing credit on it, but I’ve always been a big fan of this quasi-famous example script from UPenn’s linguistics department. I know I’ve seen the joke used elsewhere, but there’s something so simple and satisfying about seeing a story where the feeling is expressed at the expense of any other meaning. Or, perhaps I should say: it’s funny because it defies all of our expectations of stories. Unfortunately, Batwoman 29 illustrates exactly why that kind of steamrolling of details doesn’t work in practice.

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