As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Welcome to Storied Arcs! The podcast for deep dives into indie comics.  In each episode, we will discuss one story arc, typically in the form of a trade paperback, for a completed comic series.  In general, we will be avoiding ongoing or continuing series so that we can discuss a work in its entirety.  We’ll also be avoiding the “big two” (Marvel and DC.)  While we love those comics, there are plenty of podcasts covering characters like Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and so on.  Instead, we’re excited to explore some of the great creator-owned stories.  We’ll deep dive into the story while evaluating the prose, art, and all the easter eggs we can find.In this trailer, we'll introduce ourselves and what we're here to do. A Deep Dive Into Comics, One Story Arc at a TimeThanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

Join co-hosts Mike and Alex as they provide a spoiler-free preview of what's to come in the ensuing trade-by-trade analysis of Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang from Image Comics. They'll introduce the creative team, key information, and most importantly, why they love this book and decided to start their podcast off with it.As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

Welcome to scenic Stony Stream, Ohio! Okay fine, it's just suburban Cleveland. In 1988. In this episode, co-hosts Mike and Alex kick off the first season of Storied Arcs by breaking down Paper Girls Volume 1 (issues 1-5). They discuss the storytelling choices made by the creative team that are specific to sequential art, the use (or potential overuse) of nostalgia when dealing with period setting, and Alex gives his three immutable theories for time travel in fiction (as opposed to, you know, time travel in real life).As will be the case going forward, this episode assumes you've read through issue 5 aka first trade collection but won't spoil anything beyond that. As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

If you could be told with exact certainty when you were going to die, would you want to know? Would you find that knowledge be freeing or burdensome?Mike and Alex go deep on that very topic and more as they cover Paper Girls Volume 2 (issues 6-10). They touch on how prescient it was in 2015 to refer to 2016 as the begin of The Problems and how weird it would be to meet an younger version of yourself. Or an older one, for that matter. Not that 40 is old or anything because it definitely isn't. Nope. Not old at all.As always, this episode will cover this trade collection and what's come before but won't be spoiling anything beyond issue 10.*We had some audio issues early on, but this episode has been cleaned up so enjoy this freshly minted remastered edition of our early thoughts!As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

Travel back to 11,706 BCE and meet the woman who invented time travel! But she's not even technically the first time traveler because people from the future will use the technology she invented to go back into the past which will allow people from that past to go even further into the past and thus be present in that past when she arrives there after having just invented time travel in the future.Everybody clear? Good.As they jump into Paper Girls Volume 3 (issues 11-15), Mike and Alex try to parse through the timeline above and do a quick ranking of the story arcs thus far, working through where and how this arc fits in with the overall narrative. They discuss if the ins and outs of how time travel works within the story are even necessary to know, and also revisit the many biblical references that continue to arise throughout the arcs. Be sure you're read through the first three volumes before you listen, and there won't be any spoilers beyond issue 15.As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

Where were you when Y2K hit? Were you hiding in a fallout bunker? In Times Square to watch the ball drop? Or were you defiantly at your computer, actively ignoring the explicit warnings of electronics retailers, like one of your podcast hosts? And if you were too young to remember Y2K or weren't even born yet, we're curious- what do you know about it? Do they talk about the giant robots? Because that totally happened. Trust me. I was there.In this episode, Mike and Alex revisit the final year of the 20th Century (NOT the first year of the 21st Century, thank you very much) in Paper Girls Volume 4 (issues 16-20). They discuss the best way to deliver a whole lot of exposition in a story without having it feel like you've just been delivered a whole lot of exposition and how this arc starts to tie together threads that have been laid out going back to the first issue. We're on the back half of the roller coaster and gaining speed towards the end!If you're here and listening, we assume you've read through issue 20, but no spoiler beyond that!As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

It's true, folks; the future's so bright, you gotta wear shades. But never mind that, we have more important things to discuss, like, if you had to say, which Ninja Turtle are you? In this week's episode, Mike and Alex travel into the future for Paper Girls Volume 5 (issues 21-25) and talk about how things there maybe aren't so different from how they are right now. Over-policing? Still an issue. Hospitals? No insurance, no help. Libraries? Woefully underutilized always helpful. And it anyone happens to be listening to this in the year 2171, please leave a comment on how right/wrong they got things. I'd be interested to know.In the homestretch now with just one more trade collection to go. This episodes covers everything so far through issue 25 but does not spoil the final arc.As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

Maybe the real storied arcs are the friends we made along the way.In this season finale, Mike and Alex discuss the epic conclusion to Paper Girls in the final story arc, Volume 6 (issues 26 - 30). Endings are hard because it's nearly impossible to give everyone the satisfying closure they're looking for. Spoiler alert- this one nails it.Thanks for listening along all season and we hope you enjoyed diving deeper into this incredible story. Don't forget to send in your comments and/or questions for the mailbag episode that'll be coming down the line. We love hearing from everyone about their experiences reading Paper Girls, whether it was the first time for them or a re-read.See you guys again real soon for Season Two of Storied Arcs!As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

After six long weeks of a deep dive into the source material, Alex and Mike share their thoughts on Amazon Prime's adaptation of Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang. Long story short, they LOVED it!  This episode does contain spoilers for Season 1 of Paper Girls and a fair bit of speculation for future seasons based on what we know from the comics. If you have not watched Season 1 yet then we highly recommend downloading this episode and saving it for later!We cover EVERYTHING with a special shoutout to each of our four main leads:52:09 Riley Lai Nelet as Erin Tieng56:06 Sofia Rosinsky as Mac Coyle1:05:34 Camryn Jones as Tiffany Quilkin1:13:40 Fina Strazza as KJ BrandmanThanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

Welcome to the Grass Kingdom!  In this episode, Alex and Mike will give a spoiler-free pitch for Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins' Eisner-nominated book, Grass Kings.  You'll get a background on Boom Studios, bio and overview of the creators Matt Kindt, Tyler Jenkins, and Jim Campbell, as well as a spoiler-free synopsis and breakdown of the main characters.Grab this in single-issue from your local comic shop, in the three trade paperback collected editions, or borrow it from your library and meet us back here next week to discuss volume 1!As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

You are now entering the Grass Kingdom! In this episode, Mike and Alex discuss the first volume (issues 1-6) of Grass Kings by Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins, including Jenkins' stunning artwork, the innate need for war and conflict found in human nature, and what this book has to say, if anything, about the idea of sovereign citizenry.As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

What's the price of living in a free society? Is constant surveillance acceptable if you're the one doing it and not the big bad overlords of the world? And do the rules change at all if you find out there might be a serial killer living among you?Mike and Alex explore these questions and more and they jump into Grass Kings Volume 2 (issues 6-10). They touch on what feels like a shift in tone for the comic and how a change in focus reshapes our view of both the story and the characters in it.As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

A community of people living off the grid, opposed to government oversight, get raided by federal agents. That's never ended poorly before, right?Join Mike and Alex as they cover the EPIC conclusion to Grass Kings in Volume 3 (issues 11-15), where the Kingdom faces off against the outside world, their own personal demons, and oh yeah, a serial killer. Listen in to hear how the guys rate the ending of the series and their thoughts on what did and didn't work throughout the run now that the story is complete.Once again, we've reached the end of another season of Storied Arcs and we thank you all for listening along. Some of the books we'll cover here will be bigger titles that we're fairly confident a good number of people have read; some of them will be like this season, a book we enjoyed that we feel got a little overlooked by the readers at large. We hope you enjoyed checking out Grass Kings and please keep sending in your comments and/or questions, Coming up next in the Storied Arcs feed, an exclusive interview with one of the members of the Grass Kings creative team, colorist Hilary Jenkins! Then after that, a special double-sized, one-shot episode on a book from one of our favorite creators. See you then!As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

In this episode, we have an exclusive interview with the INSANELY talented Hilary Jenkins who provided colors for Eisner-nominated Grass Kings and continued her collaboration with Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins into Black Badge, Fear Case, and Apache Delivery Service.  We talk about the creative process and the colorist's role in comic creation.  We also discuss her other comic projects and will provide links to her work and original artwork on our website, www.storiedarcs.com You can follow Hilary on Instagram and Twitter to keep up with her latest projects!And as always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

In this episode, the guys discuss Mike's all-time favorite comic creator: Jeff Lemire (Alex is a big fan, too, just not quite on the buy-every-Jeff-Lemire-variant-cover-published-regardless-of-series level Mike is). They give a history of Lemire's work, an overview of his style and themes, and finally, provide a synopsis and sales pitch for their next discussion, The Underwater Welder!Find the original graphic novel (or OGN, as the cool kids say) at your local comic shop or public library and join us next week for a special double-sized, one-shot episode!As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

"The most spectacular episode of The Twilight Zone that was never produced." - Damon Lindelof, from the introduction to The Underwater WelderIn this oversized, one-shot episode, Mike and Alex cover the entire book for Jeff Lemire's solo masterpiece, The Underwater Welder. No chapter breaks, no multiple volumes, just the whole story all at once, so be sure you've finished reading before jumping into the episode. They discuss how the exploration and presentation of time is central to so much of Jeff Lemire's work and how effectively it is or isn't used in this book. Mike talks about how eerily the setup of the story mirrors his own current life situation (hint- it's not the underwater welding part) and Alex forced to confront several very terrible (are there any other kind?) water puns. The themes in this book are dark, and the characters aren't necessarily likeable, but it has an overall optimistic view that will definitely strike an emotional chord with the reader. What kind of emotion? You'll have to dive in find out (dang it!). This special on-shot episode serves as Season 3 of our show, and Season 4 will be coming down the line soon. See you all then! As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

In this episode, Mike and Alex take a look at Alex's favorite creative team in all of comics- writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips. They discuss the duo's long history of incredible comic work, both separately and together, how noir storytelling infuses all of their collaborations, and sell you on why the vigilante crime-noir book Kill Or Be Killed was their choice for the next deep-dive discussion on the podcast.Enter the world of Brubaker and Phillips by finding Kill Or Be Killed at your local comic shop or public library and be here next week as the guys dive right into volume 1!As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

"It's so easy for the guys in those old vigilante movies to find their targets... they just walk around waiting to get mugged. Or they listen for screams and arrive just in time. In real life, it's not like that."In the first episode of Storied Arcs Season 4, Mike and Alex take a peak inside the mind of a vigilante killer as they dive into Volume 1 (issues 1-4) of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillip's modern crime noir classic, Kill Or Be Killed. They discuss what the book has to say about the state of the world and the systems that govern it and what that has to say about the nature of vigilantism and who is empowered to enact justice if those systems are inherently unjust. Oh, and something about a demon that may or may not be real. Who can say.Like our previous seasons, we aren't spoiling anything about the story beyond the trade collection we're covering that week. This is particularly notable this season because Mike is reading through Kill Or Be Killed *for the first time* as we are recording so he has no other choice in the matter!As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

"I don't believe in fate, but you can't deny that things in life sometimes fall together like there actually is some big cosmic plan at work. Which would suck for about 95 percent of us, right?"In Volume 2 (issues 5-10), Brubaker and Phillips begin to expand the world of Kill Or Be Killed and Mike and Alex are here to break it all down in this episode. They revisit the idea of fate and destiny vs. self determinism (something of a semi-recurring theme in the books they've been covering) and explore how it factors into the motivations and justifications for a vigilante killer. They look at the real-world parallels that are referenced in this volume and also discuss how the broadening of the story beyond the viewpoint of its narrator effects our understanding of how reliable what we're being told and shown really is.As previously stated, we won't be spoiling anything about the story beyond the trade collection we're coving that week because we want to preserve the experience for those those reading through the comic for the first time, just like Mike!As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com

"Fear is a weird thing. Sometimes it's a survival mechanism... like the instinct that made our ancestors flee from saber-tooth tigers. But a lot of the time it's the handcuffs that we put on ourselves."In this episode, Mike and Alex discuss the changing motivations of the vigilante killer and examine how that alters our perception of what he's doing. Does the "why" matter at all if the end result either way is someone going around killing people, even if those people are perceived as being the bad guys? And what does it say about someone when they realize they might actually be good at being a vigilante killer? Kill Or Be Killed Volume 3 (issues 11-14) asks these questions of the reader and the guys are here to break it all down.  This is the penultimate volume of the comic and there are no spoilers in this episode for the final arc. We've come too far to ruin things now for new readers (and Mike!).As always, join our discussion on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our website.Thanks for listening to Storied Arcs Tweet us @StoriedArcs Find us on Instagram @StoriedArcs Find us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a 5-star review!Learn more about our hosts, the show, or where to find us at www.storiedarcs.com