I agree with you on PAD's weakness as forcing characterization that works better for him. His X-Factor run was so successful on the character front because most of them were blank slates before he made them more interesting. Examples: Madrox, Rictor, Shatterstar.

I have a friend visiting from out of town and I'm taking him out for his last night. I'll stop by if we end up in the area!

It's been a while since I read one of these Marvel Graphic Novel magazines from the 80's, but the format works really well with the hyper dense storytelling of "old" comics. It makes me wish George Perez had produced something in this format during that period.

I forget where I read it, but he recently stated that he had an amazing time going to the offices and working with the MCU team. He said it's amazing to see such stellar properties in the hands of people who really love it.

Daaaamn it! I can't believe I never stopped by to say hi during your tenure there. I really like visiting that store, but I just haven't been spending much time around Union Square lately. Best of luck regardless!

Steranko's unraveling this week was a real disappointment. I wish he hadn't exposed his ugly views at such a terrible time. The guy was so cool. He slapped Bob Kane!

The jokes were definitely my main complaint about the movie. I couldn't believe Dan Harmon had a hand in the rewrites - the pop culture jokes were so bad they felt like they belonged in a Nickelodeon movie. Otherwise the movie was more visually spectacular and inventive than any superhero movie before it. I was…

I used to have two separate Zissou accounts without realizing it: one on disqus and one on AV Club. It was really annoying switching over to the disqus one entirely, but I'm thankful I don't have to juggle between them on different browsers and sites now.

I actually realized I had you down for 11/18 because I assumed AV Cub would be off for Veterans Day.

Good luck with everything PG. It's been a pleasure chatting with you on these boards and I hope you can join us again when circumstances are better.

X-Men God Loves, Man Kills - I already owned a regular size reprint of this from when X2 came out, but I couldn't resist when I stumbled upon a $12 copy of the original magazine size graphic novel at a random used book store. (Before you get too excited, it's a fifth printing). Seeing Brent Anderson's pencils with…

I realize I need to get over my bias against her from first seeing her in that movie. Her character has a truly banal and terrible subplot where she has to argue with her hipster boyfriend about moving from Brooklyn to LA. It was such a first world problem that I couldn't believe it was being used as a central…

It's about old Hollywood though, which The Artist and Birdman have demonstrated can be a sure ticket to Best Picture regardless of quality. I'm hoping that La La Land delivers and that it earns that prize.

I feel like he gets a bad rap. He doesn't make great movies, but he certainly has delivered some hits with fun action sequences. Transporter and its sequel are really well-made genre films. Unleashed is a decent movie that doesn't entirely work but is still unquestionably Jet Li's best English-language film. Now You…

They really zoomed their way out of there. It's like a heat wave of departing directors.

COMIC BOOK LOVE FEST

I like this split as well. One of my favorite recent comics I bought was Waid/Samnee's Daredevil. It was always optimistic, brightly colored, and generally had simple stories with light serialization.

I think mileage with JRjr varies with audiences, but I'm really digging his work on All-Star. Plus I think it's charming how much Oliver raves about this book. In last week's preview, he couldn't help himself and just said "This book is fucking awesome." He normally shows much more restraint about his opinions on…

I was really impressed that Comics Panel gave a fair shake to a new Brian Wood book, but was even further amazed that it came from our own Caitlin! His problematic past behavior makes it easy to dismiss his work, but I still think he has a unique take on politics and action-driven storytelling in comics.

I have a hard time alternating between monthlies because of disrupting momentum and just getting confused of shifting gears so much. A big game changer for me was getting on the public library system, since now I can just read a bunch of collected stories without feeling much consequence for reading too quickly. With…