AIPT Comics

Ram V talks the operatic poetry of Gotham, Batman, and Two-Face

Episode Summary

Welcome to another week of AIPT comics podcast recap, reviews, and interviews! This week, a writer who needs no introduction Ram V joins the show to discuss Detective Comics #1068, out next week! We unpack the formalist approach in the issue that heavily features Two-Face, his approach to working with two artists on one issue, and more on Gotham and Batman. We also discuss Carnage and get a bead on Ram V's 2023 plans.

Episode Notes

NEWS

Comixology lays off workers
Glaad Nominees announced
Heavy Metal Magazine CEO Matthew Medney Steps Down (EXCLUSIVE)
Full April 2023 Marvel Comics solicitations: New licensed series and Star Wars Ewoks too
1. Marvel expands 'Marvel's Voices' with Spider-Verse one-shot
2. ‘Loki’ scores new four-issue series by Dan Watters and Germán Peralta
WEBTOON announces adaptations of fantasy, LitRPG, and romance web novels coming in 2023
Creature-feature horror ‘All Eight Eyes’ arrives in comic shops on April 19th
IDW's 'The Rocketeer' anthology one-shot is coming May 2023
‘007: For King and Country’ #1 to kick off 70 years of 007 at Dynamite
Carnage and Spidey collide in 'Spider-Man 2099: Dark Genesis' May 2023
‘Extreme Venomverse’ #1 launching to celebrate 35th anniversary of Venom
1. Marvel teases ‘The Death of the Venomverse’ for summer 2023
Captain Marvel led ‘Avengers’ #1, launching May 17th
Full April 2023 DC Comics solicitations: New Green Arrow and Superboy coming soon - DC Speechless, Nightmare Country: The Glass House

Our Top Books of the Week

Dave:

Strange #10 (Jed MacKay, Marcelo Ferreira)
Batman: One Bad Day - Bane (Joshua Williamson, Howard Porter)

Nathan:

Batgirls #14 (Becky Cloonan, Michael Conrad, Jonathan Case)
Strange #10 (Jed MacKay, Marcelo Ferreira)

Standout KAPOW moment of the week:

Nathan - Batman: One Bad Day - Bane (Joshua Williamson, Howard Porter)

Dave - Nightwing #100 (Tom Taylor, Bruno Redondo)

TOP BOOKS FOR NEXT WEEK

Dave: Saga #61 (Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples)
Nathan: Detective Comics #1063 (Ram V, Rafael Albuquerque, Ivan Reis)

JUDGING BY THE COVER JR.

Dave: Harley Quinn #26 (Alex Garner Card Stock Cover)
Nathan: TMNT: The Last Ronin - The Lost Years (Clayton Craig variant)

Interview: Ram V - Detective Comics and a little Carnage too

Ram, thank you for being on the AIPT Comics podcast! When it comes to your Detective Comics run so far, an interviewer with less skill than I might say Gotham is a character, one that feels unique in that it’s noir, but also ornate, how important was it for your approach to get Gotham right?
Visually Detective Comics is dark, dank, grungy, what makes Rafael Albuquerque and Ivan Reis the perfect fit for the vision of the book?
A lot of the dialogue and captioning has a poetic nature to it, do you write poetry in your free time?
Ram, I’m curious about the song in the club in Detective #1063. Is that a real tune, or something written just for Harvey?
Themes of sanity are present in Detective Comics, like Two-Face facing his own duality, why do you think these themes resonate with audiences?
Two-Face consistently tells Harvey that he’s the only one looking out for him, that he cares about him. Is there some truth there, or is this the most insular abusive relationship ever?
There are so many tools at your disposal when crafting a comic, from letters, to formatting of a page, which we see you do a lot of in Detective Comics #1068. As someone with a lot of impressive comics under your belt, do you ever find yourself trying to disassemble how a comic story is told and then reassemble it?
For those that read only Carnage or only read Detective Comics, is there a connective tissue of themes or your approach that could be said to swing their attention to the book they aren’t reading?
You’re always working on so many titles at once--50 issues written in 2022--can you give us any hints or details on what your 2023 will look like?