Announcing - Issue 3 Cover for “Thompson Heller: Detective Interstellar” by Matthew Dow Smith

Renowned cover artist Matthew Dow Smith does the cover for issue 3 of “Thompson Heller: Detective Interstellar.” The third issue is now listed in the PREVIEWS catalog and you can pre-order it now. This is the mini-series finale, and it’s filled with tons of amazing visuals by artist Dave Chisholm and colorist Fabian Cobos.

Charlie Kaufman Eats the Newsletter

So far, Milton’s Comics & Culture Radar has been a resource for finding new things to read and watch. This week we don’t have many new recommendations because the hardworking staff here at the “Radar” have been completely immersed in the 700 page concrete brick of a novel “Antkind” by Charlie Kaufman. I’m still too early in the book to render any judgements, but, so far, I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

Quick Radar Pings

• Unpregnant (HBO Max) is a coming-of-age comedy drama in the vein of Midnight Run. It features a breakout performance by Barbie Ferreira: she’s funny, smart, vulnerable - and has incredible on-screen chemistry with Haley Lu Richardson.

• Love Fraud (Showtime) - I’m only 2 episodes in, but it’s a thrilling, engrossing, true-crime story of a romantic fraudster and identity thief that manages to routinely one-up itself with clusterf*** after clusterf****.

• Marvel’s new Iron Man written by Christopher Cantwell laid down its mission statement with issue #1. Cantwell seeks to strip the comic down to basics. Bringing some “Iron” back into “Iron Man.” It’s off to a promising and focused start. Look forward to seeing it progress.

Pulls of the Week

• Irredeemable OMNIBUS

• Autumnal #1

• Engineward #3

New Podcast Episode with @Nerdguru Pete Johnson

This week, on the podcast, my guest is Pete Johnson. Pete was one of the best - if not the best - practitioners of the sweet science of the “Fantasy Movie League” game, where users attempted to use their box-office-prognostication skills to compete for fantasy theater league dominance. I grill Pete on how he broke the game and vaulted to the top of the national rankings in the game.

Tweets of the Week

Chris Evans @ChrisEvans

Now that I have your attention 🤦🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️.... VOTE Nov 3rd!!!

September 15th 2020

173,528 Retweets1,249,299 Likes

Erik Whalen @ Home @Erik_Whalen

Joker. 16/22/13. I freakin love this dude.

September 16th 2020

3 Retweets6 Likes

This episode, Milton’s guest is Pete Johnson. Pete is a Programmability & Cloud Principal Engineer for Cisco. Pete has used his skills to analyze and predict the box-office performance of movies (remember those?) and he goes by the twitter handle @nerdguru.

Podcast intro narration by @meredithnudo.

When I first saw the trailer for Ted Lasso (AppleTV), I cringed. The quick-cut glimpses of the show made it look like a low-brow comedy with high-concept “the jokes will write themselves” laziness. But I’m a sports fan and an Anglophile to boot, so the prospect of a show with the premise of an American football coach heading to the UK to coach a s̶o̶c̶c̶e̶r̶ AHEM football team meant I had to at least give it a shot - and I’m glad I did.

Ted Lasso is a wonderful comedy about a goofball coach - but he’s not a dimwit. On the contrary, Lasso is an astute observer of human nature and the subtle cultural differences between the US and the UK. His banter with his assistant coach is a joyous rapid-fire stream of self-deprecation, wit, inside jokes, and laser sharp awareness. That’s what makes Lasso an endearing character - he’s not a clueless mope regurgitating coaching clichés, but rather, a three-dimensional human whose optimism isn’t a blind and uncaring allegiance to a sunny disposition - but rather, someone who remains committed to an optimistic philosophy in spite of the trials and disappointments of life. Jason Sudeikis puts in an Emmy-nomination-worthy performance as the title character; the ensemble is packed with performers who bring a loving depth to each of their characters. The only drawback is Apple’s weekly release model. The show is binge-friendly and I wish I could’ve finished it already.

Radar Pings

• The first issue of Ultraman (Marvel) starts out as a bit of a tease for the series - we meet the cast and this interpretation of the world, and just when it gets exciting - bang, cliffhanger! There’s a wonderful bonus back-up story as well.

• Outcry is a 5-episode true crime documentary on Showtime and it’s one of the most compelling docs in the genre since Paradise Lost. A small Texas town is torn apart by a horrific crime - and a potential miscarriage of justice.

• Finally got around to AdventureMan #1 (Image) - and I went into it knowing nothing at all. The comic makes some bold structural moves in the first issue and I found it very compelling. Can’t wait to dive into 2 and 3 to catch up.

• Holy **** the DUNE trailer didn’t disappoint.

New Podcast Episode with David Ottlinger

This week, my guest is David Ottlinger. David writes about culture and philosophy at The Electric Agora. Our discussion covers the question of why some visual effects work - and why some don’t. David has developed an interesting framework to explain why.
(Thanks to @meredithnudo for narrating the podcast!)

Tweets of the Week

Larry Karaszewski @Karaszewski

I’m watching The Magnificent Ambersons & there’s a scene where Joseph Cotton reads a newspaper. BUT... the column one story is written by Jed Leland - Joseph Cotton’s character in Citizen Kane!! There’s even a photo of Jed! Cotton in one film is reading Cotton from another film!!

September 10th 2020

289 Retweets1,753 Likes

Chuck D @MrChuckD

Noize

September 12th 2020

324 Retweets3,557 Likes

Fucked Up @FUCKEDUP

yo ozymandias sure was wrong about a global catastrophic event uniting everyone

September 6th 2020

4,217 Retweets18,539 Likes

REO Speedwagon @kcreospeedwagon

"You like Speedwagon?" "What kind of man doesn't?" Only the power of REO can bring Daniel and Johnny together. #CobraKai

September 9th 2020

1,016 Retweets4,668 Likes

Pulls of the Week

• Billionaire Island #6

• You Look Like Death: Tales from the Umbrella Academy #1

• Stillwater #1

• Iron Man #1 (Dustin Weaver variant preferred!)

• Heavy #1

New Webcomic installment of “Event Fatigue”

Event Fatigue is a webcomic written by me with art by Renton Hawkey about a crusty podcast host in a comic-book multiverse. The guest this episode is “Robin.” Let us know who you’d like to see The Host interview next in the comments.

efp_comic

New studio. New style. All new guests. Follow Event Fatigue Podcast, an exclusive Instagram comic from @citizenmilton and @rentonhawkey to see who’s up next!

Tell us who you’d like to see The Host interview in the comments.

#makecomics #instacomics #instacomic #instagramcomics #indiecomics #podcasts #robin #batman #dccomics #art #artistsoninstagram #comics #comicstrips #comicseries

September 10, 2020

David Ottlinger (writer, The Electric Agora) is here to discuss why some visual effects work but others don’t. David has developed a framework to explain this, which he introduced in a podcast episode on the Sophia program on MeaningOfLife.tv which I recommend checking out first.

David on Twitter: @DavidOttlinger

Podcast intro narrator: Meredith Nudo (@meredithnudo).

This week, I downloaded Procreate and started experimenting with drawing. At minimum, this will help me understand the challenges I put to artists whenever I put something in a script. But also, I’m hoping, to maybe learn how to do some simple cartooning for a series of indie slice-of-life shorts I want to do someday. The above is a tribute to Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” - I tried doing a few homages to movie pieces and they mostly turned out poorly. That one was okay. I experimented with cartooning, trying to learn how to draw eyes and shapes and it’s all pretty difficult.

The Tale of a Frog Who Became a P̶r̶i̶n̶c̶e̶ Nazi

“Feels Good Man” is a fascinating documentary about the labyrinthine journey of Pepe the Frog - and its creator, Matt Furie. Pepe began his existence as a slacker frog, chill and happy, just hangin’ out and eating pizza with his roommates. The film chronicles the journey as Pepe morphs into something entirely different: a symbol of disaffected 4channers and eventually Nazis. It’s a deep dive into Internet subcultures, memes, what happens when an artist’s creation gets beyond its creator, and the futility of putting a genie back into a bottle. (Now available on-demand for rent)

Tweet of the Week

Anna Brisbin✨ @BrizzyVoices

i tried rapping as a cartoon character for each letter of the alphabet. 😅 alphabet aerobics by blackalicious

August 31st 2020

16,893 Retweets72,180 Likes

Radar ping

• Away is a binge-friendly, semi-addictive, sometimes entertaining, uneven, and often frustrating Netflix series about a hypothetical first mission to Mars and the toll it takes on the astronauts and their families. I tend to love just about any astronaut-driven story, and there are many storylines and performances to admire in the series, but often the show just doesn’t live up to its potential. It feels more like a generic character drama that happens to be set during a pioneering space voyage, but I’d prefer a bit more emphasis on the space-travel stuff. YMMV.

New Podcast Episode

New episode now online with David Pepose - David (@Peposed) comes onto the radar to discuss his upcoming comic “The O.Z.,” now on Kickstarter. David is a comic book writer of many acclaimed series, including “Going to the Chapel” and “Spencer & Locke.”

Comic Pulls of the Week

• Bill and Ted Are Doomed #1

• The S Factor (#1-#4) - (Action Lab - digital)

• The Rise of Ultraman #1

• Wasted Space (Vol. 3) TPB - (Vault)

Discussing the M.C.U. with Daniel Kaufman

This week, I was a guest on the Sophia program hosted by Daniel Kaufman. We discussed the MCU in its totality and speculate about its future: