Saturday, February 28, 2015

Episode 1: The Origin of Black Canary

Spinning off from Flowers & Fishnets: A Black Canary Blog comes the podcast that celebrates DC Comics' blonde bombshell, Black Canary. This episode, host Ryan Daly recalls how he came to appreciate the popular character. Also, a review of "The Canary is a Bird of Prey", the first printed origin of Black Canary from 1978.

I have already covered this story for the blog. Click here to read my review and follow along with the story!

Flowers & Fishnets is available for download on iTunes by clicking here, or you can check out the show's RSS feed by clicking here.

Sample pages from DC Special Series #10:




Music this episode:
"It's a Man's Man's Man's World (Glee Cast Version)"
Dianna Agron/The Cast of Glee
Columbia Records, 2010.

CLICK HERE TO PLAY EPISODE IN ANOTHER WINDOW.

8 comments:

  1. Great opening show!
    I loved hearing your origin with the character. In some ways, your blog evolution mirrored mine. I decided to do a 'comic book' blog but then realized the scope was too big. There is actually a 6 month gap between my first post and the second.
    And, like you, it was discovering other character-driven sites that helped me pare down to just Supergirl.
    And hearing how your love and appreciation of the character grew from the blog is cool. I loved Supergirl before my blog. But like you, how I felt for the character deepened with my research and writing.

    And thanks for revisiting that origin issue. Vosburg is well known to me from Starfire and American Flagg. He draws women beautifully. But Austins inks just elevate his line work. Austin is THE inker for me.
    Look forward to more episodes! Congrats!


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    1. Thanks, Anj! Reading your blog made me a far bigger Supergirl fan than I ever expected to be. If I could write one story for DC it would be a team-up with Black Canary, Supergirl, Hawkgirl, and Mera. I can't wait to see what the upcoming Supergirl TV show does for the character.

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  2. Great opening episode! Loved it!

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  3. Hi Ryan! Great first episode. I have the DC Special Series comic that you talked about. It is a great issue. You are doing a great job so far, and I eagerly await your next episode. Will you be on I-Tunes and/or Stitcher eventually? Just wondering...

    Good Luck!

    Russell Bragg (Clarksburg, WV)
    [host of "The DC Comics Presents Show"]

    PS. If you ever get a promo recorded, don't hesitate to send it my way. I would be proud to play it during one of my episodes!

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    1. Thanks, Russell! The DCCP Show was another one of shows that inspired me to launch this podcast!

      The show ought to be available for download and subscription on iTunes within a couple days. And yeah, I imagine I'll throw together a quick promo at some point in the near future. Thanks!

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  4. One of the downsides to no longer routinely updating a blog is that I don't throw on a podcast and live comment while scanning art or performing other such mindless tasks. Nowadays, most of my podcast listening is during drive time or sitting in my car eating lunch. So, I may be late replying to your debut, but I've listened to it about 4 times trying to get these comments knocked out.

    Love the Dinahpropriate music! Creative Commons? It gives the show a nice rhythm. I also dig the podcast icon image and logo.

    If it helps, Martian Manhunter has only ever had one ongoing series in his entire career. Waiting to see whether the announced New 52 book is a mini-series or lasts longer than a mini-series (regardless of intention.)

    While I got to DC a decade earlier than you, there's something of a parity in our embarrassing circumstances. I had been an X-Men fan who enjoyed that team's constant revision, but left when the franchise became frozen into the model of the popular cartoon and was orphaned from its single most important creator. The oft-criticized "Titans Hunt" story arc and it's quasi-X-Forcification picked up where Claremont had left me at Marvel, which in turn guided me toward other '90s DC fare. Like you, I eventually came to realize the DC heroes worked better as timeless all-ages icons than pitiful bandwagon jumpers.

    Your experience with Black Canary reminds me of my own tuning into Hellcat recently that was initially motivated by a practical agenda, but has since become full on fanboy affection for Patsy & Pals. Dinah is a character that I liked more when I was younger and could simply accept her as the judo-throwing gal on the Justice League. I bought her mini-series in the '90s, but it didn't grab me, nor did the last few issues of the ongoing that I probably only picked up for the guest stars. The more I read of Dinah, the more she became anti-feminist, existing only by how she related to other characters. Ollie's abused girlfriend. Roy's surrogate mother/sister. Barbara's proxy. The JLI's denmother. The JSA's niece. Wonder Woman's replacement. Even after reading Gail Simone's first run on Birds of Prey, I don't find Dinah realized in the same way Oracle and Huntress were. She still feels like "default street-level heroine" to me.

    Your synopsis of the secret origin makes me like Earth-2 Canary more than Earth-1 Silk Spectre. Here's a woman who knows who she is and what she wants, even if it is freaking Larry Lance and Oliver Queen. A '40s heroine in moderately burlesque gear comes across as more legit than her daughter trying to combine Dita Von Teese with Diana Rigg. A vigilante working undercover as a seeming prostitute would be clever, but I never saw that in Black Canary, who just seems fancy and feminine in her get-up. She looks like the hostess at an upscale themed dinner club, not a streetwalker. Dinah Jr. is too square and no-frills to rock that look like her more game mom.

    I don't know if Gerry Conway is underrated, but he certainly rates, and I usually breathe a sigh of relief when I crack open a Bronze Age comic and find his name inside. Didn't he write some other Canary tales (with and without Green Arrow) in World's Finest? I respect Terry Austin and how he elevated regard for inkers, but he's sometimes a bad fit due to the particulars of his style, and his later work seemed to be going with the motions. Good work over Vosberg here, though.

    Looking forward to hearing your take on deep Canary cuts to hopefully improve my view on this Pretty Bird.

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