Listen to the episode here!
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and travel mugs available until 3/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
The first page of Lifedeath II. (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Contrast to the first page of Lifedeath I, 12 issues previous. (Uncanny X-Men #186)
Hallucinatory Forge. Check out those background textures, too. (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Barry Windsor Smith’s X-Men. (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Pretty snake. (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Isn’t it cool how when you don’t compulsively draw every woman as super sexy all the time, you can actually tell stories? (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Motion and rhythm in a still medium. (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Didn’t actually talk about these panels in the episode, but can we just take a moment to admire how splendidly Barry Windsor-Smith draws hands? And, y’know, everything else? (Uncanny X-Men #198)
SERIOUSLY, THIS COMIC. THIS IS OUR STORM.(Uncanny X-Men #198)
Tanya Moodie as Hunter in Neverwhere.
Frenzy is both rad as hell and criminally underused. ARE YOU THERE, MARVEL? IT’S ME, RACHEL. (X-Men: Legacy vol. 1 #249)
Idie Okonkwo (Oya) is awesome and adorable and also one of the best new X-characters of the last five years. (Generation Hope #10)
Next Week: A lot of Beauty and the Beast callbacks.
Links and Further Reading:
- Cheryl Lynn Eaton on Idie Oknokwo
- Finder is Rachel’s all-time favorite comic, and you should go read it right now.
- This didn’t actually come up in the episode, but you’ve got just under one week left to get What Would Peter Corbeau Do? t-shirts before they disappear FOREVER.
Will be reading Finder. Thanks for the recommendation.
Yay! It’s SO GOOD. (Full disclosure: I edited a bunch of it. But it’s also one of about 3 comics I’ve loved enough to get a tattoo from, so…)
It is SO good, I bought it unseen and basically crave more more more! I so need to know how the Rachel story goes…
From Voice? It is–or will be–continued in Torch; there at least used to be a bunch of pencils up online…
It’s’so those pencils I want to see finished! Haven’t seen an update in ages but damn my appetite is whetted, and I’m such a fan anyway. Books that leave me yelling to myself WHAT HAPPENS NEXT??? make me so happy ( having the same thing with the Rivers Of London series of novels right now)
I need to read Lifedeath 2. I got to read Lifedeath when working at a business that restored vintage comics and was just blown away. So good, and Barry Windsor Smith, when he’s on books that play to his strengths is just superlative.
My first Storm story, and the one that has stuck in my head the longest was the X-Men Classic reprint of her fight with Callisto. Even though I’ve read better executed Storm stories since, that one will always stick out to me. Agree re: the 90’s cartoon Storm too. She’s waaaay over the top, but minus the excessive bombast she’s still the best screen portrayal.
So at this point, Claremont’s writing with BSW and Sienkewitz, and while i read these as a teen, and they were my gateway into comics so it was my normal, but looking back it feels so innovative – was this Claremont’s choice, do you know? Or was it a Marvel policy? I’d love to know more about how they let it happen, because on one hand, there’s the lowest common denominator of the Secret Wars stuff, and in the other, allowing this synthesis of art and writing to experiment with new ways of story-telling. What do you think, accident or design from Marvel? How much of a choice did Claremont have in it?
I now have to track down Neverwhere, to check out Tanya Moodie, but Storm will always be Angela Bassett to me. I think particularly of the ferocious majesty Bassett’s character had in Strange Days, who, while a street tough from South Central, married the attributes of Earth Mother and warrior.
Idie is so great!
I have heard of Finder, I still have no idea what it is, but if you recommend it I’ll check it.
BTW, speaking of Idie (who is awesome) I haven’t read her previous appearances , but in Wolverine and the X-men she is consistently drawn with an Afro, so I guess she’s safe in that regard
This is a few years old, but it’s a general intro to the series I wrote back when I was editing it at DH: http://www.darkhorse.com/Blog/168/finder-beginners
Hey guys,
First off love the pod cast .I’ve been reading X-men since I was a teen ,so over 25 years. I started with your podcast early on around the third episode. One might think you’ve read all the books why bother with a pod cast that talks about it. Well since I started as a teen and now as an adult you perspective changes as you grow. I love the walking throught memory lane on some of my favorite stories and characters plus having both your perspective has made me reexamine some of my thoughts on certain issues.I really appreciate your time and dedication to this podcast thank you.
So I want to let your know of a story straight from Barry Winser Smith himself. I was at a signing at Golden Apple comics in Hollywood. The crowd early on wasn’t to big so I had a few minutes to talk to him . I brought my copy of life and death 2 to sign . We talk about the story arc itself he told me the Claremont had very little to do with the story itself , just some of the dialogue. I was shocked as he told me that he had a third part that was never published. The pencils and ink pages in his portfolio on the table with him. I did see the beautiful pages penciled and inked. In a nut shell Claremont didn’t want the third part felt it was unessary/ conflicting to what was going on . Years later I did see a self published book by Smith that he use the unused pages. I was only able look through it. It was comic size hc book a bit expensive , so I wasn’t able to pick it up. Never saw it again but after this podcast I be giving it a hunt.
Richard Mesa, you beat me to LifeDeath III. The only thing I’ll add is that at other times BWS has said Marvel rejected this story due to its handling of suicide/self-sacrifice.
For folks interested in learning more about this book, here are two links to more information and images:
Comic book Urban Legends:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2010/02/04/comic-book-legends-revealed-246/
BWS’s own site:
http://www.barrywindsor-smith.com/studio/adastranews.html
And one more site with more scans:
http://marvel1980s.blogspot.com/2011/09/1987-whatever-happened-to-lifedeath-iii.html
As to my pior post I found the book I spoke of it’s call adalstra in Africa . Not expensive anymore hope everyone will enjoy the treat.
Great Episode guys … The Lifedeath stories are so wonderful . One thing I’ve always felt, even when I was a kid was that the tone of Pt II was so much more mature all around (story, art, colors, imagery … ) . Feels like Claremont really got to tell the stories he wanted to tell. No one since has been able to duplicate that, not even himself. Rachel your passion/enthusiasm for the BWS issues, (as Dani might say) was infectious! Great job guys!
xo …