Welcome back to Waiting on the Trade, a monthly comics book club for people who don’t have time for monthly comics!

In this episode, guest host Kathryn Prince talks about the one and only time she got hyped for weekly comics, as we discuss Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, and Muntsa Vicente’s Barrier.

This episode’s explanations, observations, and links of note include:

• Does discussing Barrier, a story with no physical trade paperback collection, break the central conceit of the podcast? Yes. Does it matter to anyone but me? No. Regardless, it’s our podcast, and we do what we want.
• Panel Syndicate hasn’t put out any new books lately, but I choose to believe the site’s not done yet. I love the concept of pay-what-you-want comics, and I still need to pick up some other series (I’ll be paying, btw).
• I’m not about to try to track down Barrier‘s sales numbers from 2018, but I will link to this Brian Hibbs piece on why weekly comics “suck” for retailers. In my experience, good weekly comics actually rock quite hard (nothing gets me in a comic store more often than a good weekly), but then, I’m not a retailer.
• Yeah, alright – let’s link to a couple BKV interviews discussing Barrier. Here’s one from The Hollywood Reporter, and here’s another from Entertainment Weekly.
• Yes, I took the time to track down the café at which Kat forced me to engage my elementary Spanish on the fly. This was much more important than finding those 2018 sales numbers! (It’s a very fond memory, actually.)
• This story from Mark Waid’s Thrillbent site is in the ballpark of what I meant by motion comics, and what I thought the digital version of Barrier could do very easily (since the art is so smooth).
• Apparently Kat was right, and the leads are not a thing by the end of Pacific Rim? I guess I have to re-watch it; oh no, what a terrible fate.
• And finally, I still am not entirely sure what “que leche” actually means.

Follow-Up Recommendations

If you liked Barrier, we think you might also like:

• The Private Eye.
• Paper Girls.
• WE3.

If you enjoyed Kat’s time on the podcast, be sure to to check out her recent guest post on creating a comics page. And be sure to join us here next month, when we discuss House of X/Powers of X with a whole gaggle of guest hosts. (It’s going to be quite a treat!)

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New to the show? Waiting on the Trade is a monthly comics podcast, run by two gents who don’t have time for monthly comics. If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email us at WaitingOnTheTrade@gmail.com.

You can also find us on:

• Apple Podcasts.
• Spotify.
• Google Podcasts.

As always, thanks for listening!