from Left to Right: Ethan, Tiffany, Sal & Ben
ComicPOP, formerly TV Little House, is a comic book channel hosted by Sal and his co-host Ben, Ethan, and Tiffany. The channel deals mostly with comic book culture with reviews, discussions about comic book movies, and more.The channel consist of 4 stable shows:
- "Back Issues": Their flagship show, where the host tries to explain a storyline or particular comic to their guest in a conversational way.
- "Off the Rack": Recommendations of new comics.
- "GBU - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly": Commenting on 3 different comic books selected from Sal's collection, usually with a thematic link between them. They try to decide which one is the Good, the Bad and The Ugly.
- "Elseworlds Exchange": A podcast where Sal and a co-host chat about all things comics and geek culture.
This web series provides examples of:
- Author Appeal: Tiffany is a big magic fan, and especially a fan of Dr. Strange.
- Bait-and-Switch: During the 2022 Christmas episode, Sal talks about doing something people have been looking forward to them covering. He pulls out a copy of 52, hands it to Ben and shouts "We're doing Dark Nights: Death Metal!" to Ethan's shock and Tiffany's dismay. (Tiffany had read Death Metal as it released for Off the Rack and wasn't a huge fan.)
- Big "WHAT?!": Ben and Ethan have various moments of this whenever Sal or Tiffany drops something they didn't see coming. One prominent example is during their review of All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, where Ben's reaction was a combination of shock and anger upon hearing that The Joker never smiles in the book.
- Brain Bleach:
- The thumbnail for their Spider-Man: Sins Past features Tiffany attempting to gouge her own eyes out and Ben leaning over the side of the couch to vomit in response to the Awful Truth of Norman Osborn having an affair with Gwen Stacy.
- Ethan and Ben react with abject horror and disgust when Sal reveals to them Trouble's original first issue cover, which is what he could only describe as "a pedophile's concept of a comic book".Ben: What the fuck is that?!
- Christmas Episode: An annual tradition for the group. While they don't always do a christmas specific comic, there's usually a festive or snow based comic that goes with it.
- Dark Age of Supernames: Mentioned usually and mocked, because they see it as a creatively bankrupt. It comes up specially during the Bloodlines episode, where at one point Sal just calls Gunfire "Gun-Edge"
- Didn't See That Coming: Ben says this trope when Sal drops the reveal that the protagonists Trouble are actually Aunt May, Uncle Ben and Peter Parker's parents.
- Extra-Long Episode: Most of their videos run anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes. Recent episodes concerning massive events like House and Powers of X or X of Swords go over 2 hours, with Doomsday Clock going for 3 hours.
- Facepalm:
- Ben does one in response to the insane antics of Batman in All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder.
- Tiffany does this twice during the review of Avengers #200.
- Halloween Episode: The first one was about the Batman mini-series The Long Halloween, and a later one was about Blackest Night.
- There was also their series on Batman Vampire.
- The Doom that Came to Gotham was another one that was halloween specific.
- in 2022, they did Arkham Asylum: Living Hell.
- Joke and Receive: This happens a lot with Ben, such as in the Marvel Knights Spider-Man episode about an issue where Electro visits a hooker who can change her form to match anyone. Ben jokes that Electro wants her to be Spider-Man so he can finally F*** Spider-Man... and Sal points out that's exactly what Electro wanted.
- Noodle Incident: In their review of Trouble (Marvel Comics), Sal off-handedly mentions he was once kidnapped in the Dominican Republic.
- Running Gag:
- For flashback sequences, the reader says, "Let's go back, let's go back."
- The idea of "some part of them imprinted onto X".
- Ben getting choked up when Tiffany talks about emotional comics.
- "X has many powers" when discussing characters with nebulous abilities.
- If a villain employs an unnecessarily complicated plan, Sal will always refer to it as a "ridiculously circuitous scheme" with accompanying circular hand motion.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Ben briefly has this reaction to One More Day, leaving the set for a good 5 minutes before returning.
- Worst. Whatever. Ever!:
- Sal deems One More Day as the worst Spider-Man story ever made.
- Sal calls Archie Meets the Punisher the worst crossover ever, which Ben retorts that he doesn't see how that's even possible.
