Thwip, Baby

By Elizabeth Shapiro in Miscellaneous on Oct 19, 2007 5:23PM

If comics are an addiction, Tom Seymour is our dealer. The manager of the Lincoln Park location of Graham Cracker Comics combines a passion for all things geek with an encyclopedic knowledge that manages never to come off as elitist. Now you can catch the best of Tom on his OnNetworks internet show, “Bif! Bam! Pow! Wow!.”

The quirky title is the only thing forced about the show. Each episode features Tom’s rants and raves about a theme, from zombies to Flash Gordon, and none is longer than eight minutes. He spends most of the monologues on his picks and pans (Frank Miller does a good Batman, but George Clooney and Adam West need to be put “in the Bat Cave together [to] let them have a monkey knife fight to see who sucks more”), and he isn’t afraid to lament popular favorites like Steven Colbert's "Tek Jansen." Accompanying graphics and sound effects are appropriately hokey; one episode invokes Joan Rivers’s mug when ranking Spider-Man costumes. For the die-hard comic book fan, Seymour discusses book pricing and investment, and each show includes a guest interview, from an endearingly nervous Jeffery Brown to a masked Batman extra. Tom’s witting quipping, honesty and enthusiasm for his subject matter make “Bif! Bam! Pow! Wow!” a must! see!