Tag Archives: Scott Koblish

May 20 2014

Deadpool 28

deadpool 28Today, Spencer and Scott are discussing Deadpool 28, originally released May 14th, 2014.

Spencer: Just the other day, Drew and a few of our readers took to the comments to discuss how difficult it can be to talk about our favorite titles, books that are so good that words sometimes just fail us. I felt that way in the days following my first reading of Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan, and Scott Koblish’s Deadpool 28; this issue may not be as dark or emotional as some of the previous, but it succeeds at everything it sets out to do with such effortlessness that it practically leaves me speechless. Continue reading →

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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Dec 6 2013

Deadpool 20

deadpool 20

Today, Patrick and Greg are discussing Deadpool 20, originally released December 4th, 2013.

Patrick: There’s no single person or institution that’s introduced me to more media than The Simpsons. I didn’t know that it was happening at the time, but my 10 year old mind was being educated in the works of Alfred Hitchcock, Rod Serling, Francis Ford Copola, Stanley Kubric, Martin Scorsesse, Tennessee Williams, and on and on. But the film that seems to have cropped up the most was Citizen Kane. I can’t possibly convey what my first experience of watching Citizen Kane was like: by that point in my life, I’d seen the same scenes and camera angles and transitions and themes and characters reconstituted a hundred different ways on The Simpsons. It was invigorating and shocking to see everything in its original context, granting new meaning to my favorite old Simpsons episodes, but also imbuing Citizen Kane with a kind of pre-loaded meaning. Deadpool has never shied away from referential humor, but writers Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn and artist Scott Koblish narrow their focus in the third inventory issue, and convinces us that Jack Kirby’s work is the Citizen Kane of comic books. Continue reading →

Aug 16 2013

Deadpool 14

deadpool 14

Today, Scott and Ethan are discussing Deadpool 14, originally released August 14th, 2013.

Scott: Nothing is more satisfying to me than making a good joke. As an aspiring writer/comedian, sometimes it’s impossible for me to get out of “joke mode”. Ask anyone who knows me well and they’ll tell you, it gets annoying. For every good laugh I provide, there are many groaners and bad puns to endure. For me, it’s worth it, as long as I get some good hearty chuckles. I’m thinking Deadpool writers Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan are after something similar. Like me, they seem willing to sacrifice introspection for a witty one-liner, deep thoughts for goofy non sequiturs. They tend to have a lot more hits than misses, so it’s easy to forgive any shortcomings in their writing, but Deadpool 14, more than maybe any other issue, begs the question: is it worth reading a comic that exists solely for the purpose of humor? In an issue where the plot rehashes points that have already been made, the jokes are just about the only things making it feel fresh.

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Apr 10 2013

Deadpool 7

deadpool 7

Today, Scott and Patrick are discussing Deadpool 7, originally released April 3rd, 2013.

Scott: The first 6 issues of Deadpool adhered to a very specific and bizarre tone. The oddball humor likely turned away nearly as many readers as it won over, but you have to admire Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan for boldly seeing their outlandish resurrected-Presidents arc through. It was an ambitiously weird way to kick off a series, and I found their marriage of subject and tone to be a success. Count me firmly on the side of the “won-overs.” Deadpool 6 established a new arc to occupy the series, but Posehn and Duggan decide to put that on hold for an issue. Because of their tight production schedule, you see, they’ve been forced to release an inventory issue — a print-ready issue that’s been filed away in case of such an emergency — but rather than an issue from this Deadpool run, they’ve dusted off an inventory issue from the late 70s/early ’80s. It’s of course a guise, and Posehn and Duggan are at the helm of these retro-looking pages. While they pass it off as a time-saver, Deadpool 7 must’ve required much more effort from the creative team than a typical issue, and the result is a perfect Bronze Age satire.
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