AIPT Comics

Guests Carmen Maria Machado and Dani break down 'The Low, Low Woods', recap March 2020 reveals, and make 2020 comics predictions

Episode Summary

On our last show of the year Forrest and Dave recap the news, talk about our 2020 predictions, make our picks for the week, and interview Carmen Maria Machado and artist Dani about their new Hill House Comics book The Low, Low Woods. In our interview we discuss their inspirations, why the comic book medium is right for this series, Joe Hill's comparison of this series to David Cronenberg meets David Lynch, and why Rob Reiner is the director of in-comic-movie Sea Dogs!

Episode Notes

THE NEWS:

1. FCBD 2020 titles get teased
2. Wonder Woman #750 launching with over 20 covers
3. Spider-Woman gets a new costume
4. Marvel Comics March 2020 solicitations
5. TRANSFORMERS vs. TERMINATOR in 2020 Event
6. Jonathan Hickman & Mike Huddleston's DECORUM #1 out in March
7. Batman and Doomsday Clock End

TOP BOOKS OF LAST WEEK:

Dave

1. Joker: Killer Smile #2 (W: Jeff Lemire, A: Andrea Sorrentino)
2. The Low, Low Woods #1 (W: Carmen Maria Machado A: Dani, Tamra Bonvillain)

Forrest

1. Wonder Woman: Dead Earth #1 (Daniel Warren Johnson)
2. Skulldigger and Skeleton Boy #1 (W: Jeff Lemire, A: Tonci Zonjic)
3. ComicBookRoundUp
   1. Critic: King Thor #4 (9.8)
   2. Fan: Basketful of Heads #3 (9.5)
       

SEGMENT: 2020 Predictions - one good thing and one bad thing that will happen in comics or the comics industry next year and why

1. Dave: X-Men will get an event and it’ll bleed into Marvel Studios hype / At least one major writer from DC will jump to Marvel
2. Forrest: Neil Gaiman will make a full-scale return to comics / More celebrity editorial lines

TOP BOOKS FOR NEXT WEEK:

1. Dave: Spider-Ham (W: Zeb Wells, A: Will Robson)
2. Forrest: Incoming! #1

JUDGING BY THE COVER JR.:

1. Dave: Doctor Strange #1 (Phil Noto)
2. Forrest: Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham (Wendell Dalit)
    

INTERVIEW: The Low, Low Woods writer Carmen Maria Machado and artist Dani join us for an interview to talk horror, the new series, and Hill House Comics.  

• Can you tell us a little bit about how the creative team came together on the title?
• Did you learn anything when creating this series and its first issue?
• Why is the comic book medium right for this story?
• Dani, you're so good at making the somewhat ordinary interesting and scary (I'm thinking of the trash outside the house early in the book as the girls ride their bikes, or the girls trying to remember what happened and their heads are made up of hands, parrots, and other things), how do you approach something static and give it life?
• When it comes to character creation where do you start, Vee and Eldora feel so real!
• So Rob Reiner directed Sea Dogs (we see his name on the marquee outside the theater), which also happens to be the backup story in this first wave of Hill House Comics. Why Reiner?
• Carmen, I had to write this down, "babies were born with placentas black as soot...their mothers were birthing coal itself" god that is horrifying! When working in a visual medium do you need to strike a balance between prose style horror like this and visual horror?
• The use of color by Tamra Bonvillain is fabulous, what goes into creating a color palette for a series?
• I'm always curious, was there a working list of titles for Low, Low Woods?
• Who is on your mount rushmore of creators you'd like to work with?
• Joe Hill was on the podcast 7 or so weeks ago and I asked him to describe Low, Low Woods, and he said it's the perfect mix of david's, 50% david cronenberg and 50% david lynch. Would you agree, or maybe you'd have other directors in mind?
• Do you have any personal heroes in the creative arts?
• Favorite moment or issue in the series so far?

Off Topic Top Shelf: Carmen and Dani give us their picks!