Geek of Oz

Welcome to BINGE-READ MANGA, our occasional segment where Geek of Oz reviews a manga with a back catalogue and tells you why it's worth binging, Netflix-style. --- THE STORY AND CHARACTERS We've all wanted to be a superhero at some point, right? In a world where 80% of the population are born with Quirks - abnormal powers that make them eligible to become superheroes - Izuku "Deku" Midoriya stands out. He was born Quirkless, and has to make do with spectating for both his own superpowered friends and the publically beloved heroes they strive to one day be. After a run-in with one of those heroes, the charismatic All-Might, Deku gets a shot at finally having his own Quirk in order to enter the Hero Academy, given a chance to one day stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the world's greatest caped and cowled characters. Essentially, it's Harry Potter by way of  Teen Titans and X-Men . I've heard worse ideas. When reading  My Hero Academi...

Last week we got the exciting news that Gerard Way's Dark Horse comic,  The Umbrella Academy,  will be heading to Netflix as a live action series. As a huge fan of the comic, and Way's writing in general, I thought I'd talk about my personal history with the series and what makes The Umbrella Academy one of the best series modern comics has to offer. What follows is the story of how I almost wrote it off completely. It starts with me as a teenager I was 15 or so when I first heard the phrase 'emo'. Initially, I was unsure what to make of this new word and all the connotations it seemed to carry with it, but it wasn't long before the phrase wormed its way into my teenage vocabulary. No sooner had I come to terms with this strange new concept than I was confronted with a deluge of emo rock, in all its high pitched, hard-rocking glory, belted out by black-haired boys in impossibly-tight jeans. During these glory days of emo rock, bands didn't get ...

Presented herein are the five (subjectively) best readables from novels and comics which Chris breezed through in 2016, whilst pretending he has a real job (he doesn't). --- 5 - Batman, Volume 9: Bloom (Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Danny Miki, Yanick Paquette & FCO Plascencia) As the DC Universe headed for its sixty-billionth reboot with the "Rebirth" event last year, the few beloved series left in the New 52 started winding down. At the top of that count-on-one-hand list of good books still going was Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Batman , a superlative run for the character which will undoubtedly stand the test of time (especially when some of it's collected in such swanky hardcovers ). The penultimate volume of their run, Bloom allowed Snyder and Capullo to start firing off climaxes for a story five years in the making - and fire off, they did. The bulk of their swan song for Batman takes place here, as he battles the eldritch villain Mr. Bloom b...

Read, Watch, Play! is back this week with another one of our special episodes! Who doesn't love special extra content? With the Sydney Opera House's annual GRAPHIC festival on last weekend, Christof and I managed to grab an interview with the comic creator behind Multiple Warheads,   King City and Prophet , Brandon Graham. The phrase 'nicest guy in comics' gets thrown around a lot, but you really would be hard pressed to find a creator more generous, open and personable than Brandon. He kindly gave up a few hours of his short stay in Sydney to chat about his time as a graffiti artist, his art and of course his comics. For those of you not familiar with his work, Brandon is known for his intricate urban environments, love of puns and drawing some of the roundest butts in comics. Recently he has been responsible for writing (and sometimes drawing) the reboot of Rob Liefeld's Prophet as well as   editing and curating Island Magazine   both   from Image C...

Like every other child raised on a steady diet of television, I love The Simpsons. I watched it as kid, devoured it as a teenager and continually reference it as an ‘adult’ (a term I use very loosely). At times it's questionable as to whether I am a person at all or just a countless mess of Simpsons quotes which has been granted sentience. What started out as 15 second animated shorts on the Tracy Ullman show has become a cultural touchstone, with over 600 episodes in the can, hundreds of millions of fans and countless Simpsons tattoos on bodies all around the globe. Lines like ‘That’s a paddlin’, ‘My cat’s breath smells like cat food’ or ‘Everything's coming up Milhouse’ have burned themselves into the cultural consciousness, never to be erased. This, in my opinion, is the true genius of T he Simpsons : its ability to make anyone laugh whilst simultaneously feeling like the jokes were written just for you. It’s niche humour for the mass market. Not surprisingly, the ...

After a prolonged hiatus Read, Watch, Play! is back for another episode. Stu, Chris and myself caught up at Oz comic-con Sydney and manged to record a podcast a quick podcast. We talk all things Oz comic-con, Chris talks about his dinner with Karl Urban, Stu talks about the creatively titled Louie Theroux documentary 'My Scientology movie' and I just generally laugh and nod. As always the podcast is jam packed full of rants and ramblings on pop-culture topped with a healthy portion of piss-taking. All in all it's everything you have come to expect from a Geek of Oz podcast! As you have no doubt figured out by now any sense of scheduling has been thrown out the window and at this point we will just try and get an episode of Read, Watch, Play! out when ever we can. On the bright-side Stu and Billy have been absolutely killing it with there film and television focused podcast We like to Watch. Episodes drop every week or so and you can check out the latest installment he...

HOLY DELAYED SCHEDULING BATMAN! WE FINALLY HAVE A NEW EPISODE. So it's been a while. As you would have no doubt noticed it's been over a month since we last had an episode of Read, Watch, Play. Unfortunately 'real life' continues to get the better of us making meeting up to talk all things pop-culture much harder then we would like. That said Stu and Billy have started the brand spanking new film-centric pod-cast on the Geek of Oz network, 'We like to watch' so be sure to check it out to get your fix of our particular brand of bullshit.  As for this episode the intention was to talk about binge worthy television shows, comics and films (which we touch on a little) but instead we end up talking about Will Smith, the new Ghostbusters film and why I'm addicted to Hearthstone.  As per our new format this show is pretty loose, although we cover read watch play a little bit, what ended up unfolding was an organic (and hopefully interesting!) conv...

So it's been a little while.... Due to the busyness of the Christmas/ New year period plus some poorly timed technical difficulties It's been far too long between podcasts. But hey we're back now, ready to delight your ears for another year with our bullshit-laced pop-culture  ramblings. This episode we talk about our favourite things from last year and look forward to all the read/watch/play fun 2016 has to offer.  We recorded this episode mid-January so although it might be a bit dated we had a whole lot of fun recording it and wanted to share it with you all.   Enjoy! -Christof                                       Get it from Podomatic  here                                             Get it from Itunes  here

Well it’s that time of year again. With 2015 in its death throes I thought I would look back on some of my favorite comics from the year that was. As you will notice from my selections this year I decided to save my money and stay away from the the world breaking Convergence and Secret Wars events thrown by the big two, and instead focus on some of the great creator-owned series that launched. This is by no means a definitive list, but rather a selection of comics that stood out to me for their quality, depth or simply because they brought some new ideas to the table.   Sex Criminals Volume Two Writer: Matt Fraction Artist: Chip Zdarsky Volume Two of the wonderfully weird Sex Criminals not only upped the ante in terms of dirty jokes, smutty puns and hilarious background gags (and who could forget that amazing dildo fight) it also continued it’s candidly honest exploration of sex and relationships. Where Volume One portrayed what it’s like to find someone who you c...