Comic Book Bears Podcast

Bryan, Bill Z and Steve are back on the mic to offer up to you a solid hour and a half of comic book and comic related talk.  We cover recent comic culture news such as the concerns for Stan Lee after his appearance at the Silicon Valley Comic Con and the controversies over the recent 99 cents Marvel sales on Comixology.  We then turn on the tube and talk about what is happening with Legion, Legends of Tomorrow, SHIELD and Krypton. Finally we lope on over to the spinner rack and talk about Dark Knights: Metal, Brilliant Trash, Snagglepuss, The Terrifics, Lockjaw and more!

Though we were unhappy that Bryan could not join us for our latest episode due to his work travels, we are thrilled to bring back to the show special guest Wendi Freeman of the Double Page Spread Podcast! Instead of testing out Steve and Bill's chairs, beds and porridge Wendi joins the boys at the spinner rack as they discuss Milk Wars, Super Sons, Armstrong and The Vault of Spirits, Young Monsters in Love, the Black Hammer-verse and much, much more.  And in celebration of International Women's Month, we also spotlight women artists we really dig and our recommendations for kick ass female led comics. And we celebrate the face that we got through over an hour without going too far off on tangents ... by going off on tangents.  Listen in as and you will find out about the recent importance of bananas in Wendi's life, what Bill thinks of 1970's Hanna-Barbera cartoons and just why the cover girl for our episode is Stevie Nicks!  

The Comic Book Bears boys head to the movies this time around! Put those earbuds in and enjoy an hour of discussion about Black Panther! Based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, it is the eighteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and stars Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis! Bill, Bryan and Steve offer up their (SPOILER FILLED) opinions about the film that is breaking box office records all over the place! And since it is a comic book based podcast, the CBBears have comic book runs starring Black Panther to recommend! In this episode you will also hear Bryan super excited about his favorite sport now that the Winter Olympics are happening, Bill revealing a film he thinks is better than Superman III, Batman and Robin, Catwoman AND Howard the Duck, and you won't believe the verbal mileage Steve gets out of a 10 page back up story from 198

We are finally back to having all of the CBBears on the mic with Steve, Bryan and Bill convening to talk about current comics! And what is on this episode's pull list? Mister Miracle #6! The Phoenix Resurrection #s 1-5, Superman #39, Dark Nights: Metal #5, The Silencer #1, Doomsday Clock #3, Detective Comics Annual #1, The Flash Annual #1, Sex Criminals #21, Ninjak vs. The Valiant Universe #1 and more! All that and naturally The Woofs of the Week!    

Bill and Steve offer up an hour plus of retro comics talk as they look back on the very early days of Image Comics. What Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino and Rob Liefeld did in the early 90's was nothing short of revolutionary for the comic book industry.  Join us as the CBB spinner rack becomes a time machine and we discuss Spawn, Youngblood, WildC.A.T.S., Savage Dragon, Shadowhawk, Cyberforce and more. We also delve into titles that the big two released in the wake of the aforementioned that were very, very Image-y in certain ways.  

The Comic Book Bears are finally back!! After too long a wait Steve Mowry and Bill Zanowitz make their return to your earbuds and for the first episode of 2018 a bunch of fairly recent books are discussed! Doomsday Clock #s 1 & 2! Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #1! Batman Annual #2! Phoenix Resurrection: The Return Of Jean Grey! Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man! Plus The Woofs of the Week and more!  

In the first part of this new episode, Bill Zanowitz interviews Andy Mangels! Andy is a man of many pop culture credits including authoring novels, comic books, and magazine articles and producing DVD collections. Andy is here to discuss the recent Wonder Woman 77 Meets The Bionic Woman from Dynamite and DC which he wrote and which has recently been released in a collected edition. Apart from taking us through this historic first meeting between Princess Diana and Jaime Sommers, Andy also discusses his long standing role in fandom, his work with Gay Comix, his moderating of the first Gays in Comics panel ever and his work producing DVD documentary materials for many TV seasons sets! And if that's not enough we also get to hear about with his performing with the Broadway Bears singing group and about his creating the first prominent LGBT character in the Star Trek universe! After the interview, Bryan and Steve join up with Bill to discuss a couple of movies that you may have heard were recently released - Thor

We did things a little different on this episode.  We turn on the tube instead of heading over to the spinner rack as Bill, Bryan and Steve are all on the mic in this ep to talk about the first few weeks of comic book based TV of the 2017-2018 season. Plus we throw alcohol into the mix. We flip the channels to talk about Lucifer, Supergirl, The Gifted, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Riverdale, Gotham, Arrow and Inhumans. Listen to this barely edited episode with some bits of snark, excessive appearances of "um"s and "like"s, Bill forgetting Steve's name and all of us forgetting Lou Diamond Phillips' name.   

Bryan and Bill recently went to New York Comic Con and also participated in a number of NYCC Presents events, just as they have in years past! Listen in and you'll hear about when went down at NYCC 2017! Then, while we were recording we went off on a tangent! Neither Bill nor Bryan were able to go to the queer oriented panels at this year's con but that doesn't mean they not did have opinions about the recent panels of a similar stripe that they either hosted or attended.  It turned into a really robust discussion and the CBBs decided to include it in full (and naturally would welcome anyone else's opinions on the subject matter that we cover.) We eventually course correct, get back to the con coverage and then head over to the spinner rack for some chatter about DC Rebirth titles, Marvel Legacy, Iceman, Mister Miracle and more current comics!

Just sneaking in with another end of month check in! Bryan is otherwise occupied but Steve and Billy Z are back to let you about what has been going on, a preview of NYCC events that the co-hosts will be part of as well as some comic book talk with hairy heavy homo chatter about Dark Day: Metal, Archie #23, Heavy Metal #287, Runaways #1 and more! Intro: Bear In Heaven - "Reflections of You" Outro: Elbow with John Grant - "Kindling (Fickle Flame)" And make sure you check out this Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keepleft/captain-freedom-combat-hate-comic-book      

We have been quiet on the Comic Book Bears front for most of the summer but we didn't want to send off Summer 2017 without leaving you with another episode.  This time around Bryan talks about what it was like hosting a panel at San Diego Comic Con! After that Bryan joins Bill and Steve at the spinner rack where they discuss books that are making them smile including Valiant's Secret Weapons, Mr. Miracle (and the Fourth World in general), Batgirl, Gotham Academy: Second Semester, Secret Empire and Super Sons!  

The Comic Book Bears had an unplanned summertime hibernation but we can't think of a better reason to get us up and moving within our cave than to welcome Thom Collins to the show for the first time! Thom is the creative force behind Occultation, a three part graphic novel series that explores a distant dystopian future and what happens when the religious, right-wing fundamentalists take power. The central character, Ellis Becker, is a 6’7″, 340lbs gay man who works as an "extractor" - a highly trained specialist who’s purpose is to extract people, art, literature and anything of value to the human race, without detection. Thom takes us through how he came to develop the universe that Ellis, his teammates and his adversaries inhabit, his creative process in crafting the very distinctive look of the series, his influences and much, much more! Occultation II was the first book in the series released and was the subject of a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. A campaign to fund Occultation III is under way

We really wanted to get out an episode to you in time for the theatrical release of Wonder Woman so we crafted this very special episode with some very special guests! Joining Bill and Steve are Brad Taylor of the Wonder Words Podcast and James Figueiredo of Bear Nerd for an hour and 45 minutes of solid Wonder Woman talk! We discuss the history of Princess Diana of Themyscira in comics and in other media, her deep association with queer culture, what comic book arcs and graphic novel collections featuring Wonder Woman we would recommend and lots more!    

The latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise came out recently and there is no better time for the Comic Book Bears to bring back to the show William Lindus of the Movie Bears Podcast! Will joins Bryan, Justin, Bill and Steve to discuss the continuing big screen adventures of Star Lord, Rocket, Drax, Gamora, Baby Groot, Nebula, Yondu and more! And after some comic book related TV and film news, Will gets the chance to talk comic books with the CBBears as X-Men Blue, Secret Empire, Batman, The Flash, Bug and Youngblood are among the books on the spinner rack on this episode!!!  

One last "missing" episode from our archives that we are bringing back to you! Originally released on January 26th, 2015. The CBBears present to you the second of our special satellite episodes. This time around regular co-host Bill Zanowitz is joined by Michael Myers of the Valiant Podcast, DC Noise and Geek Brunch! Mike and Billy Z came to be comic fans at the same time and they will present their argument that 1973 was a GREAT year to enter the world of four color heroes! Through this episode you will hear them recount how they came to start reading and collecting, what it was like to experience the premiere episode of Super Friends, the magic that was the Mego World's Greatest Super-Heroes action figure line and what their early and long-time favorites were and are. Some of those favorites - 100 Page Super Spectaculars, The Defenders, Justice League of America, OMAC, The Flash, Spider-Man, Jack Kirby, Mike Grell, Cary Bates, Len Wein and much, much, much more! And, in keeping with the tradition of the the

The CBB Bears are back and now that Legion, the FX TV series based on the Marvel comic, has wrapped up its first season, Bill, Bryan and Steve reconvene to discuss the entire season.  And to help them with this task they are thrilled to welcome for the first time to the show as a guest Chris Roman! Chris is a professor of English at Kent State and a huge comic book fan! (Boys, he's also very easy on the eyes!) Apart from the televised beauty that was Legion Season 1, they also discuss the recent Ardian Syaf X-Men controversy, the Woofs of the Week and more!  

We are THRILLED to announce that with this episode being re-posted that all of the past Comic Book Bears episodes which went missing for a time are now back in circulation! On this one from just shy of a year ago, we were five strong in the Comic Book Bears den as Bill, Justin, Matt, Bryan and Steve were all on hand this week. First up, Daredevil's Season 2 on Netflix! Some of the bear boys had finished up their binge watching and chime in about what they thought of this season in which The Punisher and Elektra make their MCU debuts. Then, the long awaited Wonder Woman: Earth One graphic novel by Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette was recently released and that too comes under the CBB microscope. The (then) current comic talk continued on with Aliens: Defiance, Faith, Avengers: Standoff, The Ultimates, Harley Quinn and Suicide Squad: April Fool’s Day, Injection, The Omega Men, X-Men's Apocalypse Wars, Lois and Clark, Batman, Silver Surfer (complete with an Alicia Masters tangent) and more!  

Original Show Notes from April 15th, 2016: The CBBears are taking a brief breather so Tito and Bill fill the hairy homo weekly podcast slot this time. Grab some cereal and for the next hour (well, hour and 15 minutes) plant yourself on the couch, turn on the TV and listen in as Messrs Gutierrez and Zanowitz run down their favorite Saturday morning and weekday afternoon shows from when they were growing up.  If the names Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, Sid and Marty Krofft, Protoculture, Tusky The Walrus, The Regal Beagle and The He-Man Women Hater's Club mean something to you, you just might have something in common with our hosts' respective top 10 lists!

Original Show Notes from February 21st, 2016: Tito and Bill head over to their bookshelves in this episode and talk about their all time favorite books about music and musicians. The subjects range from punk rock, The Beatles, The Louvin Brothers, Throbbing Gristle, KISS, Donovan, Patti Smith, The Partridge Family and death metal to Dean Reed, Broadway musicals, The Germs, Frank Zappa and bugglegum music! Rock books rock! Intro and Outro - Echo and the Bunnymen: "Read It In Books"

Original Show Notes from January 25th, 2016 Tito and Bill are back with their first regular episode after a "zero episode" preview but unfortunately the topic is an unexpected and somber one. Listen in as they memorialize the life and career of David Bowie. They pick their favorite Bowie songs, recount their experiences seeing him live, how they first came to be aware of Bowie, their favorite cover versions of Bowie songs and a lot more.