A 'lost' episode from April 2011, featuring Tom Kelly & John Siuntres. Recorded in a very noisy Challengers while a sick patron was coughing loudly throughout the night. The coughing was all edited out but the remains are a bit choppy. It’s a good talk, but you have to work for it this week.

The countdown to Christmas sees the recap of recent events, a questioning of Marvel’s Astonishing line, the desire for custom t-shirts and a brief update on Achewood. Also, Stan Lee!

New Year’s Eve party @ Challengers! Hosted by singer Jess Godwin and writer Elliott Serrano. Food, drink, nerd burlesque, a ‘nerder’ mystery, and more. Details within. Also, 12 Rules for the Comics Industry (not ours) and we love Defenders #1.

Dal has completely redesigned the Challengers website, and he tells you why/how. We also talk recent #1 sales numbers and tell you all about why Patrick is annoyed with the local news media, as it relates to last week’s Lance Briggs event. Jerks.

It feels like New Year’s already as it’s out with the old and in with the new. 2012 promises several new, ongoing events at Challengers, including Challengers Assemble/d, Comic Klatch, and the new Visual Field! And never be afraid of change or of revamping your website when it’s purpose changes. This week’s music by Joe Jackson and E’Nuff Z’Nuff.

Two distinct hales of one episode, complete with a musical intermission. In half one, Patrick and Dal go over their January orders and lament the sheer magnitude (Pop! Pop!) of February. And in part 2, a special guest joins them both AND ComiXology.

If money was no object, what would Challengers look like? We also discuss Holiday Sales, a possible New Year’s Eve party, actual sales numbers for Avenging Spider-Man #1 and the New DC 52 collection announcements. Bonus song: Animetal USA sings “Space Battleship Yamato”

This episode Patrick and Dal talk about their hiring practices and what they expect from their employees. And who better to help out with this discussion than Samantha Challenger! That’s right, you get 3, count ‘em THREE, Challengers in one episode! Total bargain deluxe.

Lights; music; commerce! The boys talk about WHY they do events and how much thought goes into their execution. That leads into a discussion of Halloween events and then Dal explains the new Challengers Touch Screen Interface. Also, Tumblr!

128 tracks of recording quality and 127 of them are Dal!  We’re back and in a brand new studio!  We talk about what we expect from The Rogues Gallery, we introduce Ex Libris Challengers, and we go over the first month of Challengers Unlimited.  And then we discuss Newsarama’s Top Ten stories from the New York Comic Con (http://www.newsarama.com/comics/10-new-york-comic-con-news-items-111017.html) and end the episode looking at Month 2 of the New DCU.

Say, did you ever wonder if comic retailers overreact to things? And, we love you SO much... we recoded this episode twice!

This episode goes from the current 24 Hour Comics Day all the way back to the lost 3rd episode of CoC. With a bonus lost snippet added in. 

What are publishers currently doing right? What should you NOT do when opening a comic shop? And SHOULD Challengers carry more toys?

So, how did the first week of New DCU titles sell? And could we have sold more? We also talk some Skottie Young and more.  And Big Daddy Cool starts us off this week.

Yet another new Challengers plan for the future. Or, how you can win $3500.00 worth of new comics. And we talk about other stuff, too, but the $3500.00 is front and center.

Book clubs, shuffled art exhibits and Tardis cakes are discussed as we also reveal all the details and reasoning of what will forever be known as... Challengers Unlimited.

Events, recent past and future. A call to Jimmy PS Hayes. And how indy creators can help us notice their books.

Well, they can’t ALL be winners. 

Post-San Diego.  Brazilian Art Books.  Spider-Man Day. Season One books.  Amazing #669 Variant.  And Kofi Kingston.  I also almost called this episode, “Swoonin’ for Cloonan.”

We’re not in San Diego; we’re melting in Chicago. We love “One Soul.” We mock Rupert Murdoch. But do we have a moral imperative to protect you from yourself?

Patrick cleans out his basement and finds a bunch of stuff he didn’t even know he had. So he describes it. Dal talks about Marvel’s ‘New Store Initiative.’ And they both recap a ‘state of Chicago comics retail’ night they had this week w/ a fellow retailer.

After a 2+ week break, Patrick and Dal realize they actually miss doing this show. So they talk... about Stuart Immonen and The Rogues Gallery, comic store fieldtrips, and why Dal is giving up super-hero comics for July.

Patrick was at the Summit City ComicCon while Dal was at the store hosting Around Comics. Ryan Browne and his awesome new comic "BLAST FURNACE: Recreational Thief" was at both! How is that even possible? Progress. American progress.

Oh come on, you KNOW what this one is all about. One thing. Well, 52 new things out of one thing.

Hey ho, strike one; last one in's a son of a gun. Hey ho, strike two; can't fight here, this is the war room.
So kiss me quickly; who'll oblige? Oh come along now, don't be shy. Don't be all surface; no insides. Oh, no.
You've got to stop your grumbling, and all that human bondage den. So swear the heat in baby, no neck ties.

The Challengers website has been streamlined. Comic shop employees make terrible Club Members. Macho Man Randy Savage died (sad). Our pal JVO wrote a book. I guess this episode description is just a string of sentences.  Also, that ‘peasant joke’ is actually about lepers and is from an MST3K Hercules movie. “The lepers are revolting!”  “I’ll say!”

Youth in Revolt! Party without books! Margaritas! Whose opinion do you really want? What makes a store event good? Are these even the right topics for this week’s episode? I can’t remember! I guess we’ll all find out together! Also, I completely forgot Dal’s episode title (it’s in there somewhere), so I had to pick something else.  Sorry, Dal.

Free Comic Book Day 2011 was amazing. And here we tell you why.

How do you know where to find the Graphic Novels you’re looking for at Challengers? Dal proposes a new racking system and he and Patrick debate its merits. It’s a question without a complete answer and it is beaten to death in a frank and open discussion. And the return of the completely random post-podcast segments!

Ha! I thought this was episode 13. We’ve had 2 ‘lost’ episodes in recent weeks, so my internal numbering is off. Anyway, this whole episode gets away from us and becomes darker than we planned. What started as a “we’re not complaining, but…” episode, turns into an hour of outright publisher bashing. But, man do I feel better!

It’s an all-podcast crossover episode with Contest of Challengers, Comics Slumber Party, Comic Geek Speak and Word Balloon all represented!  So let’s go back to Season 1 numbering as we talk to Becky Cloonan.

This episode is called “The Hammer” for reasons that were edited out. But the name stuck. What you DO get is a C2E2 wrap-up, reasons why Becky Cloonan is pretty f’n awesome and the promised listener mail answers! Buckle up; it’s a long one!

We don’t mean it to, but this episode is chock full of our C2E2 thoughts, set-up, plans and goals.  Not all at once, mind you, we spread it out for you. And Dal has some pretty great thoughts about the way digital comics should be made. See you at C2E2!

Like a new line of clothing on the runway, this week Patrick and Dal trot out a list of reasons why they do/don't do the things they do/don't do. Less industry wide/more of a Challengers-specific focus. And the answer to the Riddle of the Ages!

Oh man, this one has it all—and LESS! We go from having nothing to talk about to having TOO much to talk about in the span of an hour. We get mad at each other and tensions rise, but we work thru it because we are pros. PROS!  Here’s a brief rundown: MSU’s Comic & Visual Narrative class; the end of DC’s First Wave line leads into Dal’s ultimate super-hero publishing plans; Marvel’s ‘new’ direction for the Marvel Adventures line; more on Ted Adams' Keynote Address from the 2011 ComicsPRO Conference; our secret shopper grade, and less… because we lost our first 5 or so minutes, including Patrick’s first-ever attempt at a disclaimer.  Dal says it all (at 24 minutes and 9 seconds in), “God, this one’s gonna be a winner.”

This week on the ART OF WRESTLING podcast, host and pro-wrestling icon COLT CABANA talks about support for the show and the possibility of a live recording in the spring.  Elsewhere, Dal’s mind completely freezes and there is talk of Border’s effect on the current comic-buying climate. And... a bonus phone call from Jimmy P$ Hayes!

Man, are we on a roll! So much so that for the second time in 2011 we've had to increase our monthly podcast storage memory to accommodate our more-than-regular schedule! This one is a little shorter as we've already hit you with a Season 1 episode this week, but there's always a little something worth talking about in comics! Featuring Fear Itself vs. Flashpoint and a brief analysis on trying to sell 33 million convention tickets.

What? Season 1 numbering? What's going on?!? It's the return to the interview format (and thus Season 1 numbering) as Patrick happily welcomes Samantha LaFountain to Challengers! What gets a 9-year old girl from the wilds of rural New Jersey interested in comics? Where do you even get comics in rural New Jersey? These questions and many, many others are answered in our giggliest episode to date!

This week, the microphone faces Dal so Patrick is a mere echo! We had to wait a full day to post this, our 5^th CoC in as many weeks, because we went over our monthly-allotted storage space w/ Libsyn, but it’s not our fault; comics never stand still, baby! Also, “insert show content here.” Ha! That was a joke! We actually talk about not having to like comics, but WANTING to, the Creators Front for Diversity in Comics, and why we don't stock variant covers anymore. 

Hey kids, remember a thing called the Comics Code Authority? Well, it's dead and we can't seem to care. This week we talk about rating systems for comics, Once A Week (a new internet resource of creator-owned comic information), isocahedral comics, and so very much more. Also, Lady Gaga and Savage Dragon! Um, not "Lady Gaga AND Savage Dragon." Lady Gaga and also Savage Dragon.

Cullen Bunn. Brian Hurtt. The Sixth Gun. A thourough and comprehensive discussion on art and art galleries.

We're back in less than a week--someone call Guinness!  The world of comic book publishing never slows down, and neither does the news that comes out of it.  This episode Patrick and W. Dal talk about the editorial hierarchy at Marvel; all of the worthy candidates for 2 ComicsPRO industry awards; the return of letter columns, and more.  There is also a tribute to Y&T bassist Phil Kennemore, dueling Michael Caine impressions and Verizon iPhone talk in a record 20 minutes of after-podcast talk.  Oh, you’ll know when you’ve listened too long.

New Season! New Format!  It's 2.0, baby, and in this pilot episode, Patrick and W. Dal talk about getting a breather on Wednesday mornings, the viability of all-ages material in the direct market, the Architects, red rage and so much more.  Welcome back to the podcast you only thought you missed.  We're here to prove otherwise!