Mindless Ones

Best Batpod or bestest Batpod? You can support Walt on Patreon, or by getting your own rubber Batsuit made up and joining him as he patrols the city at night. 

You bring a lot of different theoretical approaches to comics in your show. Can you remember the first comic book that got your brain fizzing like that?

I first got into comics when I was in middle school thanks to an online friend with an FTP, so like any teenaged boy in the Aughts I gravitated toward comics with “Hell” in the name. It would be years before I understood the nuances of Mignola’s inking or why the Brits hated Maggie Thatcher so much, but the blend of folklore, pulp, history, and the occult in both Hellboy and Hellblazer instantly enchanted me.

(I’ll never forget reading the Newcastle issue of Hellblazer around the same time that I was first assigned Hamlet in school, seeing the demon say “Get thee to a nunnery,” and realizing that there was no inherent divide between fine literature and disreputable comic books.)

Was The Black Casebook always conceived of as a podcast?

Yep! It was inspired directly by my college buddy Nat Yonce’s show Collective Action Comics and Connor Goldsmith’s X-Men podcast CEREBRO, both of which I was listening to obsessively in 2021. Quietly fuming whenever Nat (playfully) slandered Batman had already given me the idea to do my own Batman podcast to correct the record, and when Nat reached out to have me do a guest episode about the politics of Batman—including fronting me the cash to buy a decent mic—my path was set. I finished recording my first episode directly after that interview. Blame him!

You’ve crossed over with Collective Action Comics, but do you feel part of much of a scene with other people talking about the form? 

I do, thankfully. Nat immediately welcomed me into his circle of lefty comics fans; Cole, Stu, and Nicole of the Marvelous! Or: The Death of Cinema podcast welcomed me into their MCU opposition movement; and more established writers like you Mindless Ones and Travis Hedge Coke welcomed me into the ranks of comics critics who like to do more than summarize new issues. I don’t know if it constitutes a scene, exactly, but I’ve been fortunate to join the somehow-not-insignificant quorum of Marxist comics fans on the internet. (Deniz Camp is actually a tulpa we summoned into existence a few years back—that was a fun afternoon.)

I’d like to get to know more folks in the industry itself, but I also don’t want to pull any punches for the sake of preserving connections or advancing my own career, such as it is. I never want to be in a situation where I have to tiptoe around, say, Tom King’s feelings in order to maintain access to writers and artists I admire.

Top 5 Bat artists? 

(Honorable mentions: Matt Wagner, Marshall Rogers, Paul Pope, Frank Miller)

5. Norm Breyfogle

4. Greg Capullo

3. Tim Sale

2. Darwyn Cooke

1. David Mazzucchelli

Top 5 Bat writers?

(Honorable mentions: Steve Englehart, Archie Goodwin, Alan Grant, Paul Dini) 

5. Peter Milligan

4. Scott Snyder

3. Darwyn Cooke

2. Frank Miller

1. Grant Morrison

What’s next for The Black Casebook?

More episodes, God willing. 2024 was my Rick Wakeman iridescent cape era of unsustainably long, self-indulgent episodes, so I’ve been trying to figure out ways to get the show back down to a manageable length (and more satisfying release schedule). I’ve learned by now not to promise too much, but I do hope to incorporate more interviews and guest episodes so as not to deprive my beloved listeners. I’m also working on some creative projects where I can, but those are, to quote my friend Sid Hudgens, off the record, on the QT, and *very* hush-hush.

Finally, if you had to fight any Batman villain who would it be?

The Riddler. I’m not sure I could take him, but I’d love the opportunity to find out.

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By everyone’s favourite Punisher expert and Garth Ennis scholar Maid of Nails aka Kelly Kanayama

For comics fans it can be discouraging to look out across the blasted wastes of The Discourse and see how much vitriol gets leveled against those who just want to try something different. Yet in this toxic landscape, there are still breaths of fresh air if you know where to search for them – such as the debut issue of Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou’s new comics criticism magazine PanelxPanel.

PanelxPanel combines analysis of soon-to-be-released comics by Otsmane-Elhaou with writings and interviews from critics and creators, all laid out in a pleasant color scheme. (I’m not using the word “pleasant” pejoratively here, by the way; it’s rare for comics criticism to make you feel more relaxed.) The aesthetic effect ties into Otsmane-Elhaou’s highly visual focus, which is oriented toward dissecting how the art of a particular comic creates its narrative, and which sets PanelxPanel apart from other, less visually focused comics criticism. Here, it’s all about panel layout, color choice, the placement of characters and objects in relation to one another: elements I know are extremely important in comics but which often have to be explained to me.

If all that sounds familiar, it’s because the magazine is an expansion of Otsmane-Elhaou’s Strip Panel Naked column for ComicsAlliance, where he did much the same thing in article format. Although this column-to-magazine expansion is what makes PanelxPanel stand out, it’s also where its shortcomings lie.

Going for a magazine format allows Otsmane-Elhaou to include input from other voices…