The All-Time Wildest Most PSYCHEDELIC Brain-Exploding SciFi Time-Travel COMIC BOOK in Existence

04/10/24 • 113 min

Steven and Chris take a psychedelic voyage through time via the crackerjack indie comics team of Doug Moench, Mike Hernandez, Dan Day, and Nestor Redondo in AZTEC ACE (published by Eclipse Comics in 1984). The hallucinatory hijinx and trippy time-travel scifi-of-it-all leave their heads spinning!
COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions). In this weekly podcast, screenwriters Chris Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) and Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.
SHOW NOTES:
1:17 - Attempting to describe AZTEC ACE in a nutshell
6:17 - A story so weird it could only ever exist as a comic book (touching on THE ADVENTURES OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT)
7:44 - A more expansive attempt at discussing the sprawling, non-linear time travel narrative of AZTEC ACE (touching on QUANTUM LEAP, DOCTOR WHO, APOCALYPTO, and noir private-eye stories)
15:08 - The shockingly dense prose poetry of Doug Moench
22:45 - Wait, AZTEC ACE is actually... a love story?!
32:20 - The immensely text-heavy density of AZTEC ACE; wildly overwritten or wildly immersive?
33:39 - Giving it up for the book’s trio of super impressive artists: Michael Hernandez a.k.a. Michael Bair, Dan Day, and Nestor Redondo
56:19 - Walt Simonson, THOR, and Beta Ray Bill
1:12:29 - Howard Chaykin and AMERICAN FLAGG!
1:18:09 - “The level of mystery of what was happening kept drawing me in...” The intriguingly puzzle-like nature of AZTEC ACE
1:33:19 - THE INVISIBLES by Grant Morrison
1:46:37 - The changing nature of what we expect from comic books; why the “velocity of ideas” in ‘80s comics was so intoxicating -- “batshit wild imagination exploding on the page... on a deadline!”
#alanmoore #80scomics #scificomics #doctorwho #sciencefiction #grantmorrison

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04/10/24 • 113 min

Comics Rot Your Brain! - The All-Time Wildest Most PSYCHEDELIC Brain-Exploding SciFi Time-Travel COMIC BOOK in Existence

Transcript

[Intro Music]
STEVEN:
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! — the show where screenwriters talk about the comic books that we love ...mostly from the 1980s. I'm one of your hosts; I'm Steven Bagatourian.
CHRIS:
And I'm your other host, Christopher Derrick.
STEVEN:
And, Chris, today we talked about a comic from the 1980s that is one of the all-time wildest comic books that has ever existed. It is an incredibly odd book called AZTEC ACE, wri

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