Power of Fishnets 1: Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell

Spinning off from Flowers & Fishnets comes POWER OF FISHNETS: The Black Canary and Zatanna Podcast. In this first episode, Ryan Daly reviews the original graphic novel Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell.

Let us know what you think! Leave a comment or send an email to: RDalyPodcast@gmail.com.

This podcast is a proud member of the FIRE AND WATER PODCAST NETWORK

Subscribe via iTunes as part of the FIRE AND WATER PODCAST: http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-fire-and-water-podcast/id463855630

Music: “I Put a Spell On You” by Annie Lennox; “It’s Not Unusual” by Tom Jones; “Black Magic Woman” by Santana; “She’s a Lady” by Tom Jones

Thanks for listening! Evah a ecin yad!

16 responses to “Power of Fishnets 1: Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell

  1. Wonderful episode and excellent analysis as always, Ryan. Glad to see to podcast off to a great start. Also glad to see your musical taste hasn’t waned in the months leading up to this. I must admit, as soon as “It’s Not Unusual” came on I broke into my best (worst?) possible version of the Carlton Dance. Thank goodness there is no video of this.

    I have to agree, the shifting eras for the characters is a wonderful addition to what can be a story off in its own little continuity bubble. These are fun nods to longtime fans and nice background moments for new readers.

    Can’t say I agree with you on the goldfish scene. Wouldn’t you agree that this is in there to serve more as a wish fulfillment moment for female readers who are annoyed at similar unwanted attention? Just my own thought on why the scene is written this way (aside from the obvious foreshadowing to what happens later in the story).

    Overall, I have to agree with you on your assessment of this book. And doubly so on your comparison to the CW’s superhero shows. Keep up the good work and can’t wait for the next episode to drop.

    1. I get the wish-fulfillment angle for Zatanna casting the spell on the Mallrats turning them to fish, but just ten pages later she explains how dangerous that type of magic is. To cast the spell so effortlessly, even temporarily, seems at odds with her feelings on turning people into animals.

      1. Maybe this was Dini playing to one of his best gags from BTAS, where Harley and Ivy take care of some rude boys by blowing up their car with a bazooka.

        Chris

        1. Chris, I think you’re pretty much spot on there with the callback to BtAS.

          Ryan, I’m not saying it’s the best way to introduce the concept into the story, but Dini needed to put it out there somehow.

  2. Great premiere episode Ryan! Man, why don’t I own this book! I’d read Paul Dini’s transcription of a phone book…but this sounds like a lost episode of JLU, just minus the notes from BS&P. That feeling of not-quite-in-continuity, but close enough is what DC SHOULD be doing with their characters. Just give up, and give us classic versions of the characters like this. If the stories and art are strong like in this book, no one will sweat the particulars anymore. We’re used to continuity being non-existent and fleeting at best, so better to just go in this direction.

    I’m not familiar with the artist here, but from the sample pages, I really dig his stuff. It does have a bit of an animated feel, with a touch of Amanda Connor, which is never a bad thing. You just blew my mind describing Canary looking like Elizabeth Shue…a childhood crush of mine since Adventures in Babysitting. It’s okay…Cindy knows about her.

    The cameos by our beloved Super Powers toys is just icing on the cake!

    Congrats on successfully launching the new show…and being able to actually pronounce Zatanna’s backwards spells, let alone read them. You’re off to a great start, and I’m off to Amazon to buy this book!

    Chris

  3. Thanks, Chris! You should definitely buy this book; you and Cindy will love it!

    Peeking behind the magic curtain… Most of the backwards spells took multiple takes to get right.

  4. Great first episode!

    A buzzing arrow? I dunno, Ollie, I’d want to handle that all myself, personally…

    I really like Quinones’ art and the samples you showed made the book look pretty good. Is it too bad Dini never got to the Canary/Zatanna tabloid comic like he wanted. Still, a deluxe GN is pretty good, especially for non-marquee characters like these.

    Salut!

  5. This is one of those books I keep looking to get and haven’t gotten around to it. I, like you, have been a fan of Quinones since Wednesday comics. He has done a bunch of cover work over at Marvel recently.

    And Dini is Dini. I’m not surprised the book is so good.

    Listening to you talk, I have to agree that the multiple eras idea is grabbing. For someone new to these characters, it gives them a sense of history. For old-schoolers, we revisit past incarnations that we love. The feeling I get is pre-Crisis in spirit, although with some modern sensibilities. And that would suit me just fine.

    Guess I’ll finally have to up and buy this thing!

  6. Wonderful debut, Ryan, and I agree, it’s a great book – perhaps a little too long, and the logo is unattractive, but heck, talk about minor quibbles – we got a Zee/Dinah OGN!

    Regarding the idea of the Fortrss of Solitude being ghost-proof, that would make some kind of sense given the danger represents by the Phantom Zone villains.

    Roll on PoF #2!

  7. Ryan,
    The episode was awesome. I followed along in my digital copy as I listened and your analysis was spot on. I’m glad to see that you’re going biweekly with the show. It was nice to see Black Canary used to such good effect. I know you weren’t much of a New 52 Birds of Prey fan, but as with her current ongoing, she really felt right in “Bloodspell”. As you said I thought Quinones did a really good job on the art. His version of Dinah wasn’t really for me though as it was not the Blonde Bombshell knockout that we know and love.
    Side note: Just to let you know, you and a bunch of othercomic book podcasters and bloggers helped inspire me to start my own fan blog following my favorite Dick Grayson. I looked at Flowers & Fishnets a lot for the right way to get it done. So thank you!

  8. While I was initially sad about the ending of “Flowers and Fishnets” (and possibly feeling like I might have killed it with my appearance on the last episode) I have to say this is a great follow up, and I’m glad you’ve found your passion on this rather than let the podcast stay stuck in the old format and become a burden.

    You breeze by it, but I love the idea of the “nostalgia era” stories, ones that feel like what you used to read but can’t actually be pinned down to any one specific continuity. Most of the DC animated films I love could safely be lumped in with this categorization.

    Overall this sounds like a really stellar little book, and you say it’s surprising that it was done as a graphic novel, but I think it makes a great deal of sense. Somebody (probably Dini) came up with the idea of pairing these two, but if it was done as an ongoing series, or even a mini-series, then interest would likely have petered out. But rather than let the idea die on the vine they give it this one-off treatment and everybody wins. Would that this happened more often with characters whose real names don’t rhyme with Deuce Payne.

    Oh and I have to thank you on behalf of everybody who hadn’t read this before for including sample pages of the few instances of true cheesecake. Bless you good sir.

  9. I own a lot more Zatanna comics than Black Canary ones, so I’m looking forward to this new direction for the same podcast you’ve been doing for over a year and are fooling no one. Bloodspell is also the most obvious choice to start with, since Zee and Dinah have almost no continuity in common and the entire concept of the graphic novel is contrived around a fashion accessory. I hate when two longstanding characters are given an arbitrary pre-fame connection that no one has ever mentioned or acted upon before, so coupled with a weak central plot, I will probably never read this thing. Too bad, as the art looks great and it would have been interesting to see these heroines connect contemporaneously, as happened with the Birds of Prey.

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