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What’s Christmas without a little violence? No not the present throwing kind, I’m talking about full on Robot vs Santa showdowns with al the trimmings.

If you’re like me, you don’t want to experience it any other way now, and that’s why we have Steve Urena and Misty Graves here to tell us about X-Maschina, a comic set in way too close future about what happens when Santa has to fight robots and if that isn’t enough to get you excited then we need to have a talk.

Be sure to check out the Kickstarter campaign for X-Maschina.

Reburn is set in a futuristic or alternative universe where AI, holograms and memory implants exist. We’re in the future baby! This is a dystopian story a la Brave New World: too shiny and everyone is just a bit too “unified.” There’s a giant pre-recorded hologram of their government leader that stands over the city at night, regaling the locals with her rhetoric. “We are one,” she says. 

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It sucks that we live in a world where I have to be excited that something like The Color of Always exists. But we do, and I’m excited because more people need to see themselves in comics. Plus, like we say at least 57 gajillions times in the episode, the art is just beautiful.

You don’t have to take my word for it though. Brent Fisher and Michele Abounader can back me up on this one. Listen in as we take a look at this LGBTQIA+ love anthology that’s put together with…….ummm………. love I guess?

Alright, I missed the boat on the first few of these. What do you think these images mean? Are they a celebration of things already created, or a tiny preview of things yet to come?

Crowdfunding is always a gamble. But one thing that should be steady is how the platform works that you chose to use to get your project out into the world. Change and evolution are inevitable, but change for the sake of change often leads to rash decisions. Is the current Kickstarter situation an example of blunder playing out before our eyes? Or are a lot of people blowing things way out of proportion?

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Alright I promise that this isn’t a Legacy Comix podcast. Although I can see where some people might think that. But let’s get real Legacy is doing some great things right off the rip, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to talk to them again and get a different perspective from someone that isn’t Patrick. 

This time we’ve got John Svedese here to spill the beans on what’s going on, and we recorded it after the Kickstarter campaign started so there’s none of this nebulous “if things get funded” sort of nonsense.

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It’s time again to thank the people who have helped me make this show as great as it is, including but not limited to:

• The friends I’ve made as a part of the Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men community
• Everyone at the Gonna Geek podcast network
• More specifically everyone on the Legends of Shield podcast
• Patrick Hickey Jr.
• Erica Schultz
• All of the people who enjoy this show and what I do enough to give me money

Really, just listen to the episode.

Dark Horse has been acquired by Embracer Group. What does this mean for the comics? Probably not much. A lot of acquisitions like this are about a holding company gathering IP so they can get some more profits. But that’s just me pulling thoughts out of thin air.

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Sometimes calling something a game is a rather strong use of the word. Especially when you’re looking at it through American eyes. Double especially back in the early to mid 1990s when we just didn’t really have the concept of visual novels over here.

Listen in as Nick Weaver, creator of the Thumbles comic on Webtoon, joins the show to help take a look at a portion of the gaming medium that we didn’t have much context for based on a manga that we also didn’t have much context for over on this side of the world.

It takes a lot to get me this excited about a public domain character. Not that don’t think people should make Frankenstein or Sherlock Holmes things, but anyone can so there isn’t a novelty there.

So what does get me excited about these? A great creative team. A super unique concept as opposed to Yet Another Public Domain Character Story.

Or possibly getting to use the notes written by the creator of the property. Legacy Comix is bringing another banger to the table with bringing the Strokerverse into the fold.

I’ll come right out and say it, the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie had no right being as good as it was. I was expecting…

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Sometimes books don’t have pictures. Or rather they have a few pictures that can’t in any way be considered a comic. But that doesn’t mean that those books are any less complicated than the art form we love over here at Play Comics. And with that comes a way for people to actually look things up without worrying about getting spoiled. Enter Spliki, the spoiler free wiki. I finally made the name connection while I was writing these show notes because I’m a dummy.

Good thing we have Brett from The Wheel Weaves podcast to help dig into why people should check out both this book series in particular, and the dangers of getting into a franchise that already has year and years and years and years and years of lore just waiting to be spoiled for you because the internet is a dangerous place.

After some time away due to mysterious circumstances (more on that in a bit), A Dark Interlude is returning in January 2022 from Vault with Piotr Kowalski taking over art duties. The creative time now consists of writing from Ryan O’Sullivan, art from Piotr Kowalski, colors Vladimir Popov, letters by Andworld Design, and is designed by Tim Daniel. 

In a wonderful move from such a new publisher, Legacy Comix is working with Lebeau Underwood on inks for the cover of Athos. You might know Lebeau’s work from The Union, Daredevil, and Scream: Curse of Carnage.

To put it bluntly, this is a big deal. For Legacy Comix to have someone of this caliber wanting to work with them before a book has even come out is a giant testament to the work that Patrick, John, and the entire team is doing over there.

To quote Patrick in a very short impromptu interview:

We ain’t done yet

Continuing with our love for Legacy Comix is a look at an interview with  Legacy Comix Editor in Chief and writer of Condrey, Kroom, and The Job. Patrick Hickey Jr is someone who is hungry for success and won’t let anyone get in his way. He even fired his own children from the role of Chief Cuteness Officer!

Play Comics is a proud supporter of Legacy Comix and all of the creators over there. So it makes perfect sense that we’d want to make sure you know who is working on those comics.

That’s why we want to make sure that you can check out the profiles they have over there. First up is Afrim Gjonbalaj, writer of Legend of the Night Owl.

Do you like cheaper comics? Check out what Scout has to offer and be sure to use the code CYBER2021 to get 50% off comics, comic tags, trade Paperbacks, and graded Books.

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Writing comics and making games is fun and all, but don’t you want other people to see them? You can probably sucker get friends to look at them but I have a feeling your dreams are bigger than just the people you know in real life. But how can you pull that off?

Kickstarter might be a good idea. Now if only I could get someone from over there on the show. I know, how about Oriana Leckert? Who better to help us understand the inner workings of Kickstarter than the Director of Publishing & Comics Outreach? Yeah, I can’t think of anyone better either.

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There’s only about 2 reasons why people my age are into the X-Men. Either someone older (siblings, parents, whoever) exposed them to the greatness, or we watched X-Men the Animated Series. That’s it. There is no other reason at all.

Which makes this episode very special because we get to hear from Eric and Julia Lewald who between them wrote, developed, show ran, and generally shaped our views of the world through X-Men the Animated Series. I can’t even try to be witty here because I’m still so excited that this happened

And don’t miss the fact that there are books you can buy, one of which isn’t full of pictures. Because for some reason people like those.

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I’d say most of the time, writers labor over a story for a while. Weeks, months, years, maybe their entire life. Heck I’ve been sitting on my idea for a while and I’m starting to suspect that y’all think I’m just making up the fact that I have an idea.

And then there’s Ryan Drost who just had Stealth Hammer fall into his head from that place where good ideas live. Listen in as we see what this story is all about and hear about some little quirks that went into it’s creation. And of course be sure to check out the Kickstarter page for Stealth Hammer #2.